Asus RT-AX86U Disconnection Issue

[KingBravery]

Router firmware is version 3.0.0.4.386.44130. The laptop has the latest drivers from the vendor. Installed from HP Support Assistant.

And well shoot…now I’m seeing the same WiFi disconnection problem on the Nintendo Switch! Kids just noticed it…

do you use what wifi channel either non dfs or dfs channel?

 

[L&LD]

how to know the limit for each radio chipset?

We don't. But around 32 clients is the max from everything I've read on these forums for consumer equipment.

 

[firedude144]

Traffic generated may not be the issue here with this number of clients. Unless you're ensuring that each radio is well below its ~32 client limit, you may be overloading this class of equipment.

Max clients per AP is 25, clients per radio is likely well below that. See signal strength capture using NetSpot. Would love to know if these patterns are typical of most wifi signals. That one spike in the middle, for example, translates to a signal loss of 100% over a period of a few seconds. If the problem was on my end, then the signal loss should be across all radios, right?

 

[SoCalReviews]

Even if I’m running the router in AC mode only, would there still be a comparability issue? I have the router configured with AX/WiFi 6 mode disabled and all other settings mirroring the way I had my AC86U configured. HP laptop works fine (no issues) with AC86U.

I have a total of 8 wireless devices connected simultaneously.

You can't make the assumption that running the AX86U in AC mode with mirrored settings should be the same as using an AC86U. For one thing swapping (or live swapping... changing without proper powering off of router, modem and clients) back and forth from the AX86U to the AC86U and back can itself cause problems. This has been discussed before in this forum. The clients and their software store information about the wireless router that can effect how they handle the Wifi signal. The AX86U defaults to different settings from the get go which can cause issues with that stored client information.

I can't say what the problem is right now but I myself would start out by keeping most of the AX86U default settings (including AX enabled) but turn off some like Smart Connect, WPA3 (use WPA2) and I would not configure QoS for custom settings (keep as default). I would test it with most of the default settings first. You can change the default IP range from ...50.1 to ...1.1 or whatever you want but make sure you disconnect and power off all clients before you do this. Setting manual static IPs is ok too as long as you check for conflicts.

It is good that you are posting here for help with these issues but if you want to solve it this is going to require a step by step debugging without constantly believing how the AC86U works fine so therefore the AX86U absolutely has to be faulty. If there does happen to be some real conflict specific to the AX86U then that would have a better chance of being determined.

 

[airgap]

change your 5-GHz channel to something between 30-48 and deactivate 160Mhz bandwith and test it if those drop-outs happen again.

 

[lollypop]

Try disabling 160mhz, I had the similar issue where my pc kept disconnecting randomly. Actually this was the only device with wifi 6 card in the house and it was the one which kept losing connection. I disabled 160mhz and the problem went away (without changing any settings).

 

[Spartan]

all ASUS recent routers seem to have these disconnection issues from what I'm reading online. I went through every firmware including Merlin's but it just happens randomly in the middle of my work. I am now using the AX88U that I have just to have the VPN built-in connected for my IP phone while I use a Nighthawk AX6 as my main router

 

[airgap]

all ASUS recent routers seem to have these disconnection issues from what I'm reading online...

Nice then I can demand a lot of money for mine. Because it doesn't do that

But jokes aside are all those disconnects really router related or client related? For me it seems like there is bad combination of client devices and the routers and I would predict it's due incompatibility of drivers or capabilities of the client devices but who knows...may be you're right and it's a general problem!?!

But would ASUS not receive a lot of bad feedback and bad reviews?

 

[Morris]

Nice then I can demand a lot of money for mine. Because it doesn't do that

But jokes aside are all those disconnects really router related or client related? For me it seems like there is bad combination of client devices and the routers and I would predict it's due incompatibility of drivers or capabilities of the client devices but who knows...may be you're right and it's a general problem!?!

But would ASUS not receive a lot of bad feedback and bad reviews?

I don't have disconnect issues wether. Every brand of WiFi device gets some bad reviews.

I recommend restoring default settings and only change what prevents ISP or client connections. Then if you want to tune, make one change at a time and log every change with a date stamp. Wait a few days between every change. This way you will know when you break something and have a log of what not to do

Good luck,

Morris

 

[CarlyElise]

I am also having serious slowness issues. Dirty upgrade from stock firmware on brand new AS86U... Am going to try to do a reset and set it up from scratch...

 

[CarlyElise]

I am also having serious slowness issues. Dirty upgrade from stock firmware on brand new AS86U... Am going to try to do a reset and set it up from scratch...

Yup, doing a reset seems to have cleared everything up. I'm going to let it run for a couple days without the drive and entware/addons and do that after a bit.

 

[firedude144]

Nice then I can demand a lot of money for mine. Because it doesn't do that

But jokes aside are all those disconnects really router related or client related? For me it seems like there is bad combination of client devices and the routers and I would predict it's due incompatibility of drivers or capabilities of the client devices but who knows...may be you're right and it's a general problem!?!

But would ASUS not receive a lot of bad feedback and bad reviews?

Or perhaps you never noticed? I'm seeing drops of several seconds on the 2.4Ghz radios, more frequently on the GT-AC2900, less so on the RT-AX58U and RT-AC66U. Since the drops are below 5 seconds (the sampling rate of NetSpot),it may be happening more frequently. When the signal drops for less than 5 seconds, the active web page/stream has just a bit of hesitation...it's not enough to trigger a network error. See the diagram below... The purple, violet and green lines are all 2.4GHz radios. You may not even notice it, or may attribute it to an internet hiccup. I notice it because all my IOT devices are on 2.4GHz and are more sensitive to network outages...I've got a Google Home display which constantly loses the network then magically reconnects. Try googling "asus router keeps dropping"...

 

[Morris]

Or perhaps you never noticed? I'm seeing drops of several seconds on the 2.4Ghz radios, more frequently on the GT-AC2900, less so on the RT-AX58U and RT-AC66U. Since the drops are below 5 seconds (the sampling rate of NetSpot),it may be happening more frequently. When the signal drops for less than 5 seconds, the active web page/stream has just a bit of hesitation...it's not enough to trigger a network error. See the diagram below... The purple, violet and green lines are all 2.4GHz radios. You may not even notice it, or may attribute it to an internet hiccup. I notice it because all my IOT devices are on 2.4GHz and are more sensitive to network outages...I've got a Google Home display which constantly loses the network then magically reconnects. Try googling "asus router keeps dropping"...

View attachment 35412

I have no drops on either band and run a monitor as you do.

Are you seeing dissociation and reassociation in the router log or just the lack of response? In either case the 2.4Ghz band is known for being congested as well as interference from devices such as Bluetooth, Microwave, Cordless Phones, Baby Monitors and the list goes on. There are a few things you can do to get to the bottom of this. First off, enable bluetooth coexistence if not already enabled. If that does not help I'd swap the GT-AC2900 and RT-AC66U and see if the problem follows the node or the clients. If it follows the node, replace with new. If it follows the client, then you probably have a setting that does not get along with your clients. Google clients are knows to have an incomplete WiFi implementation yet you can configure around this. Your statement Google "asus router keeps dropping" is meaningless. You can substitute any brand and get dozens or hits. You should also go near the problematic node with a WiFi monitor on your phone or computer and see if you can find a less busy channel.

I'm guess from experience is that your GT-AC2900 has gone bad or it's interference.

Good luck,

Morris

 

[Paliv]

Baby Monitors

This! I had no end of trouble with a printer that was 2.4 only and could not for the life of me figure out what it was until one day our printer problem started the second my wife turned on our (non-wifi) baby monitor.

 

[Morris]

This! I had no end of trouble with a printer that was 2.4 only and could not for the life of me figure out what it was until one day our printer problem started the second my wife turned on our (non-wifi) baby monitor.

There has been a rule in our home since about 2000, any wireless device in our home must not use the 2.4 Ghz band unless it's 802.11 B compliant (and later G and N and AX)

Morris

 

[radar2000]

Thought I would jump on this thread to see if I can get any advice on how to solve intermittent wifi dropouts that are specifically happening to my Rogers Ignite TV box.

I've been currently using an Asus AC87U which has been a rock-solid router for years. We just switched our Rogers services from their old Digital platform to their new Ignite platform. All was working well with the Rogers modem in bridge mode to our Asus AC87U.

This past week, the Asus AX86U was on sale for boxing day and I decided to purchase it. When I got home, I followed the process of updating this new router to Merlin's latest firmware (388.1_0). Once completed I was getting some pretty impressive speeds throughout my house. Unfortunately, I noticed that my Rogers Ignite TV box was intermittently dropping out and giving me a RDK-03117 error message. I was also experiencing streaming delays on other devices. At first, I thought this was Rogers issue and had exchanged for another Ignite TV box, but I was still experiencing the same issue.

At this point, I decided to switch back to my old Asus AC87U router and now everything is working fine... no wifi disconnects to my Rogers Ignite box and no streaming issues with my other devices.

I'm going to return the Asus AX86U and exchange it for another new unit to see if the first unit was defective.

If there are any SNB members here who are currently using an Asus AX86U with Rogers Ignite TV and are not experiencing any wifi drop issues, I would appreciate your feedback and advice on how you set up your Asus AX86U.

Cheers!

 

[Morris]

My first thought is to copy your old configuration to the new router. Keep the old router connected. Connect one computer to the new router with no internet connection. Then go page by page through the configuration matching the new to the old. Any settings that are not in the old should be left at default.

If problems continue, note the band that the devices that are having trouble on and move them. Avoid 160 wide and DFS on the 5-Ghz band.

Good luck

 

[ColinTaylor]

When I got home, I followed the process of updating this new router to Merlin's latest firmware (388.1_0).

This is not a good idea. 388.1_0 is the first Merlin release based on the 388 code. Like any .0 release you should expect problems. You should initially run the current stock firmware to establish a baseline. If it's still problematic try the final 386 release as that has had the most development. If neither work properly then it may well be a hardware issue.

 

[radar2000]

Thanks for the feedback Morris and ColinTaylor. I'll give that a try and will advise.

 

[L&LD]

@radar2000, after flashing to 388.1_0, did you do a full reset? Did you use any saved backup config files on the new router?

Did you power down the entire network (physically unplug all devices from the AC wall plugs) for at least a few minutes, before powering on the router, switches (if you have any), and then all the wired client devices (one, by one)? Or at least, do so on the problem device.

Have you tried changing to a fixed Control Channel?

Control Channel Setup 2021

Reset Mini Guide + Control Channel Setup Details

Control Channel Setup (more)

If you haven't done the above, you may want to do that now (in addition to re-flashing the 388.1_0 firmware again too, yes, even if it's already installed on the router).

Running stock firmware when your intention is to run RMerlin firmware isn't a good idea, IMO. That is like learning to water ski when you want to become a swimming athlete.

If the above suggestions don't work, and, a full reset, a minimal and manual configuration (without using a saved backup file at all), and one or more full network reboots still doesn't fix the issue you're seeing with that one client, it may be a hardware issue, or it might only be a setting or two that needs to be adjusted.

Keep good notes on what you've changed past defaults after that full reset. Keep good notes on what your network experience is afterward. Come back with that info if you still need help.

[Wireless] ASUS router Hard Factory Reset | Official Support | ASUS Global

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Hope this helps.