ASUS RT-N66U - my review

[darksamus]

I say go with Tomato. Those who miss the guest wifi, I am almost done having it on Tomato. I got one guest wifi working on the 2.4ghz, 5ghz coming sooooooooon.

 

[Spitfire69]

OK I said this:
"I attached my wd 1T and although I see it on other devices as RT-N66U, there are no folders to browse. Thus this feature is useless, unless I'm missing something here..."

Now I apologize for not saying the word DLNA, but what can I refer to really, when I don't see HDD folders on other devices in the same LAN??

I give up..

Wish you all the best!

Well the most obvious would be that you refered to the SAMBA server.

 

[Greg_Elite]

New firmware just hit!
http://www.asus.com/Networks/Wireless_Routers/RTN66U/#download
Please report if fixes DLNA problems.

 

[darksamus]

New firmware just hit!
http://www.asus.com/Networks/Wireless_Routers/RTN66U/#download
Please report if fixes DLNA problems.

Last person reported that it did not fix anything.

 

[G37x]

Do you know if the internal port forwarding still broken? How about the TX power rate, go higher than 40mW?

No on both..This update does not do crap.

 

[dejanh]

It does work. Also the internal microsd shows up as a external hdd.

That's interesting. I wonder if the internal MicroSD card can be changed as well. I can get some really cheap Class 10 cards with decent capacity.

Just got an email back from Asus saying that DLNA has issues and will be fixed soon with the next fw. Nothing on NAT loopback yet...

I take it that is not the firmware that they just released, because this one fixes nothing at all. There is still no functioning "DLNA media server" present.

here is the latest version. give it a whirl and report back...

http://www.4shared.com/get/YyBYfopr/tomato-K26USB-1280495MIPSR2-To.html

I say go with Tomato. Those who miss the guest wifi, I am almost done having it on Tomato. I got one guest wifi working on the 2.4ghz, 5ghz coming sooooooooon.

I need the guest WLAN feature + VPN. Does the version above include that, and if not when will a new version be released?

I am also interested in this router, also for its DLNA capability but wanted to ask a couple of questions:

Currently I have a Linksys RT-54G, connected with a Netgear ReadyNas Duo. The NAS is connected with an external USB drive where I keep all my music files. This is very robust and I can stream from the NAS anywhere.

The DLNA streaming service in the NAS gui ,includes of course the activation button, a selection where I chose which folder to track for files, and a button to scan this folder for media. I can point to any existing location on the USB I want. Scanning takes a few minutes and thats it. This works fine. My usb is formated in EXT3 as my NAS is faster with this. I am guessing the Asus router should theoretically be faster too with EXT3 formatted drives.

Does the GUI of the Asus router allow for a similar setup?
Asus has this demo GUI but I wasnt sure how one user, scans the folder of interest to construct the DLNA database.
http://service.asus.com/demoui/RT-N66U/RT-N66U/RT-N66U/192.168.1.1/upnp.html
I thought for UPnP the router with its better cpu would be an upgrade to my nas which has a slow CPU for reading off usb.

Thanks in advance

The long and the short answer is no. There is no way to manage the DLNA media server on the RT-N66U. As it is right now this router feature is actually non-existent. Router can only act as a limited SMB file server.

I did upgrade my router with the last fw 310390 that was supposed to offer USB improvements and the result is it did not really improve anything as far as I go. I now see my HDD on my other LAN devices (TV /BluRay DLNA clients) listed as USB instead of RT-N66U (big change?!?) but still DO NOT see any folders. Disappointed.

Last person reported that it did not fix anything.

No on both..This update does not do crap.

Why is this not surprising at all? It would be nice if Asus at least acknowledged the fact that DLNA is non-existent right now so that we know they are working on a fix.

 

[darksamus]

That's interesting. I wonder if the internal MicroSD card can be changed as well. I can get some really cheap Class 10 cards with decent capacity.



I take it that is not the firmware that they just released, because this one fixes nothing at all. There is still no functioning "DLNA media server" present.




I need the guest WLAN feature + VPN. Does the version above include that, and if not when will a new version be released?


The long and the short answer is no. There is no way to manage the DLNA media server on the RT-N66U. As it is right now this router feature is actually non-existent. Router can only act as a limited SMB file server.




Why is this not surprising at all? It would be nice if Asus at least acknowledged the fact that DLNA is non-existent right now so that we know they are working on a fix.

I would like to use the internal microsd as a swap space for NVRAM instead of an external hdd that way you can add more configs options. The NVRAM in this router is only 32KB.

 

[KeithKman]

If you read the description of the latest firmware update via Asus all it says it does is improve USB performance. Someone should test the USB speed before and after the latest update.

 

[Geraner]

New firmware from Asus V 3.1.0.3.90

ASUS published today a new firmware version 3.1.0.3.90 for the RT-N66U.
Release notes:

ASUS RT-N66U B1 Firmware version 3.1.0.3.90
Add USB performance enhancement into RT-N66U

http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=RT-N66U+(VER.B1)&p=11&s=2

 

[dejanh]

If you read the description of the latest firmware update via Asus all it says it does is improve USB performance. Someone should test the USB speed before and after the latest update.

I'll tell you later today how it performs. I was testing transferring 1.5GB video files last night and copying to the device with the drive formatted as ext3 (best file format for this router) and was getting approximately 13MB/s (100Mb/s). Not that great TBH, but like I said, I will test the "improvements" tonight.

ASUS published today a new firmware version 3.1.0.3.90 for the RT-N66U.
Release notes:

http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=RT-N66U+(VER.B1)&p=11&s=2

This is a 3rd or 4th repost of the same info now. We know, thanks

 

[G37x]

Guys I have a question please. I got an iphone4 and set up a VPN connection to my WAN IP (router) using my domain DDNS. The VPN server is set up on my router and all works fine, I did log into my router using 192.168.1.1, fabulous. Now, what I like to do if possible, is to access my AVR and Google TV applications also. When Ii try now it says I need the wifi on, meaning local devices are not included in the VPN access domain somehow. It should be possible right? How?

Thank you!

Can anyone provide some advice here, can this be accomplished?

Thank you!

 

[Bonez]

Can anyone provide some advice here, can this be accomplished?

Thank you!

Just to clarify your scenario, it's:

iphone4->3G Network/someone else's wi-fi->Your WAN Address->RT-N66U->your internal network and then you're launching vpn from your iphone4 to your RT-N66U and then accessing internal machines, right?

And at that point, you can access the router via 192.168.1.1 or whatever. But then when you try and access another computer on your internal network (that talks wirelessly to the router), you're getting an error?

Instead of a wirelessly-connected computer, can you access a wired computer on your network from outside your network over vpn?

what specific service on the computer are you trying to access remotely? (you could always just try a port forward vs. a full vpn session - I always thing it's better to punch a single hole than to allow a full vpn with potential for internal machines to be used as jump hosts if your security is ever breached)

Just in case, I'll make one note to remember that if your setup is really iphone4->your wi-fi->RT-N66U->your internal network (in other words, you're trying to do this while at home when your iphone is prioritizing your wi-fi network over 3G cellular for data traffic), no vpn is required as long as you've permitted your iphone on your wi-fi network --- just ensure that you have the Wireless->Professional 'Set AP Isolated' to 'No' so that wireless clients on your network can talk to each other.

 

[Bonez]

Thanks for posting this. I did use parental control also. I wanted to block my Google TV from accessing Internet after 11pm, so I dragged and dropped that segment to allow access between 7am and 11pm, clicked apply and all that but still at 12am I could watch netflix. I'm positive the MAC its the TV's...

Yeah, I was going to run some tests on this. I've seen some routers blackhole all traffic by modifying the network route at intervals and others adjust dhcp timeouts, etc. Not sure how the RT-N66U does it but I something that's similar to what you're saying that's now on my list of things to check out...

 

[Bonez]

I am guessing the Asus router should theoretically be faster too with EXT3 formatted drives.

I have a similar setup (ReadyNas NV+) hosting content that gets shared around my home network... both direct (through a GigE switch) to other GigE/100MB clients/computers and through the RT-N66U and on to both wired and wirelessly connected clients/computers behind it.

Remember that you only need to be concerned with the weakest link and whether performance is acceptable. In your case, I guess my question would be whether your music ever stutters? (this is the content you have on the external drive, right?) Music files are relatively small even at higher bit rates. A 6MB file over a 3 minute time period doesn't need anything fancy to be smooth. I'm betting you should focus more on the convenience of the file system than it's performance in this case. (like, easily plugging that same drive direct into another computer, etc.)

Now video, or more particularly HD Video and/or multiple streams simultaneously is another issue...

 

[though]

Quote:
Originally Posted by darksamus
I say go with Tomato. Those who miss the guest wifi, I am almost done having it on Tomato. I got one guest wifi working on the 2.4ghz, 5ghz coming sooooooooon.
I need the guest WLAN feature + VPN. Does the version above include that, and if not when will a new version be released?

the guest VLAN builds are new and experimental at this point, but here is the latest release w/ VPN:

http://www.4shared.com/get/8Z3voeyZ/tomato-K26USB-1280495MIPSR2-To.html

 

[dejanh]

Quote:
Originally Posted by darksamus
I say go with Tomato. Those who miss the guest wifi, I am almost done having it on Tomato. I got one guest wifi working on the 2.4ghz, 5ghz coming sooooooooon.
I need the guest WLAN feature + VPN. Does the version above include that, and if not when will a new version be released?

the guest VLAN builds are new and experimental at this point, but here is the latest release w/ VPN:

http://www.4shared.com/get/8Z3voeyZ/tomato-K26USB-1280495MIPSR2-To.html

Thank you. I will give it a whirl when I get a bit more time. With that said, I must say that I do not like the idea of needing to mod my $200 piece of equipment to make it work to the advertised specs. That is just not acceptable. I should only ever have to install Tomato if I want to do so myself, not as a workaround for missing features.

 

[though]

Thank you. I will give it a whirl when I get a bit more time. With that said, I must say that I do not like the idea of needing to mod my $200 piece of equipment to make it work to the advertised specs. That is just not acceptable. I should only ever have to install Tomato if I want to do so myself, not as a workaround for missing features.

don't feel too bad. tomato has a userbase of thousands of people and has been worked on for many, many years...

 

[Bonez]

That is why I currently do not use the stock firmware. Geraner said that it is 10mbps slower when using Tomato. I have it running for over a week with no slow down. I even setup a iperf test server and plug it into the wan port and had 4 pc connected to the lan ports to test the lan and wan ports. I average about 480MB/3840mb to my server which has 12 hard drives on a RAID5, which has really good read/write speeds.

Until Asus fixes all those issue, I am happy using Tomato.

Yeah, that mention of the 10Mbps slowdown w/Tomato in this post is why I wasn't giving it a try yet. Good to hear you haven't experienced the same. I just need to sit down and run some perf tests for my own eyes, I suppose.

I did find the virtual Tomato GUI and was walking through it. nice and clean but doesn't really add a lot of value that I would use from what I've seen so far (though it certainly does over many other routers). Maybe I'm just getting old. I used to be so focused on pushing everything beyond what it was supposed to be doing.. now I'm lazy (or maybe more wise?)

For example - do I really need to overclock my router's CPU? There's nothing that isn't screaming with this router already... so I choose longevity of components operating within tested specifications. Who knows - maybe that's how they were able to remove the fan and replace it with the heatsink by lowering the clock speed 33Mhz...?

..but I'll still get around to trying it... I know I won't be able to help myself. one question: I remember reading about issues w/Tomato operating on both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz simultaneously w/the RT-N66U due to NVRAM limitations - is that still the case? (is that why you were talking about using the MicroSD for extra swap space?)

 

[digilog5]

I have a similar setup (ReadyNas NV+) hosting content that gets shared around my home network... both direct (through a GigE switch) to other GigE/100MB clients/computers and through the RT-N66U and on to both wired and wirelessly connected clients/computers behind it.

Remember that you only need to be concerned with the weakest link and whether performance is acceptable. In your case, I guess my question would be whether your music ever stutters? (this is the content you have on the external drive, right?) Music files are relatively small even at higher bit rates. A 6MB file over a 3 minute time period doesn't need anything fancy to be smooth. I'm betting you should focus more on the convenience of the file system than it's performance in this case. (like, easily plugging that same drive direct into another computer, etc.)

Now video, or more particularly HD Video and/or multiple streams simultaneously is another issue...

Most of my files are 30-40 MB or more (uncompressed FLAC and raw WAV). No, even with my old WRT-54G there is absolutely no stutter even at high sample rate files. It just takes a bit longer to play them remotely from my networked devices. While playing high sampling rates (say 24 bit/172 khz or 192 khz files) the only issue I have is that searching the DLNA for another track becomes quite sluggish wirelessly. Otherwise it always plays with no hiccups.

I am really surprised how is it possible to make a DLNA streaming app embedded in the router, which doesnt scan any folder of choice for music, photos, or videos. That should be pretty standard and all needed for DLNA. I hope they fix it soon.

Thanks

 

[G37x]

For everyone interested in the new fw: I spoke with ASUS today and this was not the fw supposed to fix the DLNA. Not sure when that is going to be released or what the current one fixes.

Cheers!