ASUS RT-AC86U - 4th May - New Firmware version 3.0.0.4.384_81858 (04.05.2020)

[podkaracz]

Nowhere in your rantings have I've been able to find where you have stated what WIFI settings you are using or have changed. Same for QOS. Both can impinge on performance. Also, are you using any USB drives? Media Server? Samba? the last three will run up memory usage where adding a swap file to a thumb drive may help (yes, you can add a swap file or partition to stock Asus firmware).
You will get a lot of recommendations here. One thing I've discovered with this "new" firmware is a factory reset after upgrade is a good thing. Manually configure (don't use a backup file). Use Dual Band SmartConnect (same SSID for 2.4 and 5 GHZ), 2.4 GHZ set to 20 MHZ CH 1, 6, or 11, 5 GHZ set to 20, 40 80 MHZ on a non DFS channel (I use 36), disable WPS, Media Center and Samba. Leave all the other WIFI settings to default! (yes, there are many who say to disable this and that WIFI setting but just try it!). Don't use the router for file storage initially (in fact don't use it for file storage at all...use a NAS). Just try it with 384_81858. Antennas, have all three straight up.
Edit: Forgot to mention setting USB3 to USB2 mode and turn off UPNP.

Wifi settings both set to legacy both disabled everything ( i mean everything not a single option enbled in 5ghz and 1 option enabled in 2.4ghz which is enable radio antena so that 2.4g can work ) Qos disabled . Usb disabled and set to 2.0 with hibernation enabled. Media server, samba disabled. Dual band smart connect disabled. 2.4ghz is legacy 20mhz ch 1. Wps as well as upnp is a security risk by aiprotection so i always disable it so its disabled too. I dont connect anything to router other than 1 cable to wan 1 lan to computer and power supply.

So yea thats the settings i use many months now and they are exact same on every firmware i use so like i said everything possible turned off the only difference is how given firmware performs.

 

[OzarkEdge]

Wifi settings both set to legacy both disabled everything ( i mean everything not a single option enbled in 5ghz and 1 option enabled in 2.4ghz which is enable radio antena so that 2.4g can work )

Might as well just turn off the WiFi.

OE

 

[podkaracz]

Might as well just turn off the WiFi.

OE

No phones use wifi and other home members laptops its needed on 2.4ghz but i wanted to turn that fancy stuff off which causes more harm than helps in my case.
Also keeping wifi settings default is worst idea ever in my case because they affect performance its tested by me too you wont blame it on placebo that wifi settings affect overall performance once i made absolute minimum which is legacy 20mhz channel 1 with everything turned off in proffesional i saw noticable change on + in performance . Its not working as expected all the time because only for 1 hour but the latest firmware brings hope that if fix whats preventing it from running like it should all the time itll be great.

 

[OzarkEdge]

No phones use wifi and other home members laptops its needed on 2.4ghz but i wanted to turn that fancy stuff off which causes more harm than helps in my case.
Also keeping wifi settings default is worst idea ever in my case because they affect performance its tested by me too you wont blame it on placebo that wifi settings affect overall performance once i made absolute minimum which is legacy 20mhz channel 1 with everything turned off in proffesional i saw noticable change on + in performance . Its not working as expected all the time because only for 1 hour but the latest firmware brings hope that if fix whats preventing it from running like it should all the time itll be great.

Works great here with the defaults except for the few usual settings I've noted. I think you've got a mess there and as you noted, you put the same mess on all firmware. It's not so complicated that you have to disable all of the professional WiFi settings. Are you restoring a saved configuration, too? If your router can't do basic networking out of the box with a minimal configuration, then it's defective... buy a different router and be happy.

OE

 

[RMerlin]

Different software perhaps?

I don't know about the hardware, but the bootloader and the firmware are different.

 

[podkaracz]

Works great here with the defaults except for the few usual settings I've noted. I think you've got a mess there and as you noted, you put the same mess on all firmware. It's not so complicated that you have to disable all of the professional WiFi settings. Are you restoring a saved configuration, too? If your router can't do basic networking out of the box with a minimal configuration, then it's defective... buy a different router and be happy.

OE

I always reset and configure manually from scratch ive read ppl to never restore and i never did it. Also what do you want me to say when they ask me why i want a refund on my router? I will say everything works to a point on different firmwares except not like it should which is slowdown and jumping ping ? They will refuse because whats working is not broken. Its illusion that you can change much because once you sit down and learn there is not much you can change outside of wifi settings so id rather blame firmware and my isp to some extend rather than router.

Also why are you keep mentioning settings/hardware instead of firmware when everything works like it should for 1 hour and then goes downhill. So magic happens and everything is fine for 1 hour hardware/settings? Correct me if im wrong but hardware/settings errors will show up instantly once you start using them not after 1 hour .

 

[OzarkEdge]

I always reset and configure manually from scratch ive read ppl to never restore and i never did it. Also what do you want to me to say when they ask me why i want a refund on my router? I will say everything works to a point on different firmwares except not like it should which is slowdown and jumping ping ? They will refuse because whats working is not broken. Its illusion that you can change much because once you sit down and learn there is not much you can change outside of wifi settings so id rather blame firmware and my isp to some extend rather than router.

Also why are you keep mentioning settings/hardware instead of firmware when everything works like it should for 1 hour and then goes downhill. So magic happens and everything is fine for 1 hour hardware/settings? Correct me if im wrong but hardware/settings errors will show up instantly once you start using them not after 1 hour .

Yes, I appreciate your logic. I still don't understand why you have to hobble your router WiFi settings and still it doesn't work after 1 hour... 1 hour.

Try your router on a different ISP. If you don't try something different, you'll be stuck complaining about your router.

OE

 

[podkaracz]

Yes, I appreciate your logic. I still don't understand why you have to hobble your router WiFi settings and still it doesn't work after 1 hour... 1 hour.

Try your router on a different ISP. If you don't try something different, you'll be stuck complaining about your router.

OE

Last firmware had the best performance for my router ive seen in short period of time ill wait for next maybe they will improve it even more until that time i will switch to more durable ( at least for me ) one.

 

[bbunge]

Last firmware had the best performance for my router ive seen in short period of time ill wait for next maybe they will improve it even more until that time i will switch to more durable ( at least for me ) one.

Ho hum. Time to move on, ignore this person who is set in his or her ways and refuses our help. We will continue to enjoy the fruits of Asus labor with a router amd firmware that works very well.

 

[KevTech]

Ho hum. Time to move on, ignore this person who is set in his or her ways and refuses our help.

Looks like they have wifi internet to the home which could cause issues from time to time.

I have 15/3 connection ( radio internet ) but im close and to radio tower its delivered by fibre so its not much different just from isp to my home which is not far i get it by radio.

 

[L&LD]

@podkaracz sorry if I mentioned this before, but getting a connection by radio (no matter how close the two are) is not the same as having a Fibre connection to the home.

 

[podkaracz]

@podkaracz sorry if I mentioned this before, but getting a connection by radio (no matter how close the two are) is not the same as having a Fibre connection to the home.

@L&LD Yes thats obvious for elementary student who had physics classes also your tutorials and guides are really good @bbunge what help did i refuse? I think you dont understand what i write because i pointed at what people wrote and replied that i tested it and it did not work in my case you cant call it a refuse . I clean installed windows and ping seems to be more quiet right now maybe it was driver issue partially too ill monitor this for longer period of time and wait for another release . This last firmware seems best to date in terms of performance so im optimistic. There are always many factors that play role in how we feel our network behaves and router performance is only the criteria i judge it so i did not say its 100% firmware fault rather than performance of different firmwares differ to a point it suggest firmware is to blame.

 

[OzarkEdge]

blame.

I would focus less on blame and more on solving the problem.

OE

 

[podkaracz]

I would focus less on blame and more on solving the problem.

OE

I think its something wrong with the router i put the internet cable directly into my pc and setup static conneciton in windows settings and my ping is not changing and hovering around 1~ ping change. On this router ever since i got this my ping is so unstable that it hurts jumping like crazy and you literally feel delay compared to tp link which was rock solid. I dont know what to think i think i might open warranty it was bought 06/2019 and let them judge whats wrong with it.

 

[OzarkEdge]

I think its something wrong with the router i put the internet cable directly into my pc and setup static conneciton in windows settings and my ping is not changing and hovering around 1~ ping change. On this router ever since i got this my ping is so unstable that it hurts jumping like crazy and you literally feel delay compared to tp link which was rock solid. I dont know what to think i think i might open warranty it was bought 06/2019 and let them judge whats wrong with it.

Yes, try to get an RMA. And be prepared to layout your case to minimize the hoops they might want you to jump through... and be nice!

OE

 

[Neil62]

Well I have been running this firmware for a few days now since I have completed a total reset and rebuild and its kind of boring because I cant report on anything bad. Even the issues I was having in the different browsers with the router gui are gone.. I have the main router scheduled to reboot every day and I have noticed that with a scheduled reboot, the nodes are also rebooted/checked and confimed. Great news. I would still like to see more information and functionality at the gui level, e.g. manually reboot the nodes and, rsi level of devices at the nodes level, i.e a number. Yes I know you can reboot nodes from the ASUS mobile app, but why has it not yet been implemented into the router gui as well.
Too date as well, I have not had the well discussed 86U reboot hang issue on 1x main and 4x nodes rebooting on a daily basis.
I am though not using any VPN, AiProtection, QoS, Smart Connect, RA is on and just a raspberry Pi using PI-hole V5.
Anyways, nothing but good news with this firmware from me.
Have we found a winner with this 86U firmware version?

 

[quadra2030]

@podkaracz Honestly, I wouldn't spent so much time and work with router issues - either it works (reasonably) or move on to another brand (not that is always better move). I understand the price issue (btw, I'm your southern neighbour), but at least RT-AC86U worked as described (at least on main features) from the start (2017).

I have two routers now - Netgear R8000p, which I was using as primary router until Asus got fixed channels in Smart Connect (something that Netgear had for year or two already) and RT-AC86U - both same hardware (CPU, radio, RAM) except R8000p is triband 3x3.. both of them are good hardware (if it works and doesn't have channel zero defect radios), I have to say Asus has better firmware (at least from feature or GUI view), but both of them can be reasonably stable for days without WiFi dropouts or speed problems (I'm on gigabit cable).

But I'm not using anything beyond basic routing/NAT, no USB storage, no Asus AIProtection/Netgear Armor.. just some DHCP reservations, OpenVPN server for connect back to home.

 

[podkaracz]

Yea i think i solved my problem for now lets see what future brings but it was firmware like i said i knew it has to be firmware because it differed so much between different versions i think ima cancel my rma request at this point because ping seems more stable after applying this fix ima report for how long but so far it seems it fixed my problem.

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/a...s-dhcp-did-not-function-properly.61907/page-2

Check this post and instructions posted by : @Frankflash

"The Continuous Mode module should have been included in the latest firmware 3.0.0.4.384.81792:
https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/...294.89569257.1587338503-1559671859.1586821593
Once updated, please reset to firmware default, configure the router again, then follow the instructions below to switch to Continuous mode:
1. Ensure Telnet function is enabled under your Windows operating system. If you have alternative terminal software that will be OK too.
2. Open up ASUSWRT web GUI, under “Administration – System”, set “Enable Telnet” to “Yes”, the “Apply” to save change.
3. Open up Telnet or your preferred terminal software, telnet into your router, and then issue the following commands to change mode:
nvram set dhcpc_mode=2
nvram commit
reboot
4. Wait for router to reboot.
5. After router boots up, telnet into router again, and check the process status by the command:
ps -w | grep udhcpc
and make sure you can see "-t1 -T5 -A0" in the returned result. The full result should read something like this:
18950 admin 3184 S /sbin/udhcpc -i eth0 -p /var/run/udhcpc0.pid -s /tmp/udhcpc -t1 -T5 -A0 -O33 -O249
6. Once all of the above is set, your router should be under “Continuous Mode”.
Please kindly monitor for the next few days and let us know if problem returns.
regards,
Jack Cheng, ASUS Australia"

 

[OzarkEdge]

Yea i think i solved my problem for now lets see what future brings but it was firmware like i said i knew it has to be firmware because it differed so much between different versions i think ima cancel my rma request at this point because ping seems more stable after applying this fix ima report for how long but so far it seems it fixed my problem.

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/a...s-dhcp-did-not-function-properly.61907/page-2

Check this post and instructions posted by : @Frankflash

"The Continuous Mode module should have been included in the latest firmware 3.0.0.4.384.81792:
https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/...294.89569257.1587338503-1559671859.1586821593
Once updated, please reset to firmware default, configure the router again, then follow the instructions below to switch to Continuous mode:
1. Ensure Telnet function is enabled under your Windows operating system. If you have alternative terminal software that will be OK too.
2. Open up ASUSWRT web GUI, under “Administration – System”, set “Enable Telnet” to “Yes”, the “Apply” to save change.
3. Open up Telnet or your preferred terminal software, telnet into your router, and then issue the following commands to change mode:
nvram set dhcpc_mode=2
nvram commit
reboot
4. Wait for router to reboot.
5. After router boots up, telnet into router again, and check the process status by the command:
ps -w | grep udhcpc
and make sure you can see "-t1 -T5 -A0" in the returned result. The full result should read something like this:
18950 admin 3184 S /sbin/udhcpc -i eth0 -p /var/run/udhcpc0.pid -s /tmp/udhcpc -t1 -T5 -A0 -O33 -O249
6. Once all of the above is set, your router should be under “Continuous Mode”.
Please kindly monitor for the next few days and let us know if problem returns.
regards,
Jack Cheng, ASUS Australia"

Your linked discussion seems to be about:

"The primary symptom is the log message: "WAN_Connection: ISP's DHCP did not function properly", 'disconnected' or similar message in the WAN section of the GUI then some
some period of connection issues - depending on how long it takes your ISP. This happens anywhere between a couple of times a day to a few times an hour for some people."

Did Asus instruct you to apply the posted fix to fix your router ping/speed issue? Or is this your own experiment?

OE

 

[128bit]

View attachment 23480
OE

i've never used sc. would you help me understand:

1. why you limit the 2.4 g radio to 20 and the 5g to 80 instead of the defaults?
   
2. is 153 a non dfs channel?
   
3. in general, why one should use sc?

been running fine without it disabled but if it helps , i'll adjust. btw, i use different ssids for each radio. perhaps that's why it would not be useful for me.
thanks