ASUS ZenWifi AX XT8 - 2.4GHz Band Issue

[rudders]

Good grief.... I moved house and decommissioned a bunch of Ubiquiti and went to ASUS - Ubiquiti is bulletproof but my new house if far easier to cover so I wanted something nice and simple..... I hope I can make this ASUS gear work - maybe I need to do a reset to Factory - what fun!!!

 

[Deleted member 22630]

I'm on 45934 with my new ZenWifi XT8 set, and as I posted here I have found a resolution to this issue.

 

[Zoku]

Try using Long under Preamble type, that fixed a lot of headache for me with 2.4GHz units. Especially older units. I could recognize the problems you described when the setting was short.

 

[djacobson]

I have some 2.4 devices that are flakey and sensitive to my ASUS XT8 wireless settings. I wish I knew what Wi-Fi chipset they were using. For those, the "802.11ax / Wi-Fi 6 mode" set to "Disabled" seemed to have an impact... when Enabled, it seems some (older maybe?) 2.4 devices start disconnecting, reconnecting (maybe, or trying to constantly), etc. BUT, by far the biggest impact was when I stopped upgrading in-place, and reset back to factory defaults when I updated the firmware.

And then I have a bunch of 2.4 G devices that are rock solid, stay connected to my ASUS XT8 no matter what I set the wireless setting to! My Raspberry Pi Zero W's (Broadcom chipset I believe) had an issue with a stupid Wi-Fi 'power saving mode' on the device OS that I finally discovered and disabled; now they're solid, never disconnect. My Nest devices, Wyze cams, etc. ...very solid. But, man, I have some 'smart' ceiling fans that are really flakey, a Wi-Fi weather display that is very sensitive to the router settings. I mean part of me wants to blame the ASUS router... but, when I've got these other rock solid 2.4 G devices working just fine, I'm kind of like "c'mon! put a better Wi-Fi chip and driver that device please!" But, that would probably increase it's price, yada, yada, yada... :/

 

[kildare]

Many IoT devices are based on the same esp8266 chip, so even if the hardware is the same I found (among my 70 wifi IoT devices) that some work perfectly (ex. Sonoff), others have problems with XT8s (specifically Shelly Gen1 devices).
And if my XT8s are running the most recent Asus "386" firmwares, including the latest Gnuton's 386.08_0-gnuton1, also my Lenovo tablet (designed for Alexa) can no longer connect both to the wifi 2.4 and the 5 GHz bands!!
After many new firmware upgrades and tests, I eventually resorted to use the 2021 original Asus firmware v. 3.0.0.4.386_42095, which showed the best stability (for backhaul and IoT).

 

[djacobson]

Many IoT devices are based on the same esp8266 chip, so even if the hardware is the same I found (among my 70 wifi IoT devices) that some work perfectly (ex. Sonoff), others have problems with XT8s (specifically Shelly Gen1 devices).
And if my XT8s are running the most recent Asus "386" firmwares, including the latest Gnuton's 386.08_0-gnuton1, also my Lenovo tablet (designed for Alexa) can no longer connect both to the wifi 2.4 and the 5 GHz bands!!
After many new firmware upgrades and tests, I eventually resorted to use the 2021 original Asus firmware v. 3.0.0.4.386_42095, which showed the best stability (for backhaul and IoT).

I'm currently on firmware 3.0.0.4.388_21617 ... and very stable (with about 35-40 various 2.4 G devices). Here's what's weird... my 2.4G wifi net was not stable using the same fw version, certain devices would work for a while then drop off, I'd change a setting and it would seem to stabilize for a while, and then some specific devices would start dropping again, reconnect after router reboot, etc. Very frustrating. Then, I got mad one day, reset all XT8s APs to factory setting and rebuilt the network (with the same firmware version). And now my 2.4G wifi net has never been more stable. I guess there's just config and arp cache and ? corruption that can work its way into the router system over time, and the only way to get rid of it id to start clean.

 

[Frank_The_Rock]

These are my settings, that solved my problems with 2'4-only devices, and with old ones:

View attachment 33024

In "general":

View attachment 33027

In "system" altough yo don't use a HD:

View attachment 33026

No problems at all now.

I Been able to stabilize my setup using the Smart Connect. Noting was fixing the 2.4 band . Its was working a little just after a factory reset but by the time I set my port foward, lan device reservation it was unstable agian. I dont really like to have smart connect anable, it as giving me trouble in the past, but It seems to work for now... Finger cross. I had another Asus router that started to do that and support told me after many test to send it back. I bought this Zenwifi Ax while the Rt-ax88u was at asus. (they send a new one 2-3 weeks after, who can live witthout a router) So now a few month 3 months in with the Xt8 pair and its starting to exibit the same problem of 2.4 band no internet. (device are even connected!!)
Hoppefully this will keep solid... I will have to write to asus about it they must do something to fic it ... it really seems to be a bug... if it come again I will change brand...

 

[jmpr]

I Been able to stabilize my setup using the Smart Connect. Noting was fixing the 2.4 band . Its was working a little just after a factory reset but by the time I set my port foward, lan device reservation it was unstable agian. I dont really like to have smart connect anable, it as giving me trouble in the past, but It seems to work for now... Finger cross. I had another Asus router that started to do that and support told me after many test to send it back. I bought this Zenwifi Ax while the Rt-ax88u was at asus. (they send a new one 2-3 weeks after, who can live witthout a router) So now a few month 3 months in with the Xt8 pair and its starting to exibit the same problem of 2.4 band no internet. (device are even connected!!)
Hoppefully this will keep solid... I will have to write to asus about it they must do something to fic it ... it really seems to be a bug... if it come again I will change brand...

It is strange. I have about 8 IOT in 2'4 and other devices (printers, cell phones...) and they have had no problems:

 

[Frank_The_Rock]

It is strange. I have about 8 IOT in 2'4 and other devices (printers, cell phones...) and they have had no problems:

Yeah It have been 3-4 month solid before that and all of a suddent device were dropping...
Now its about a little more then a month this way... Finger cross its fix...
If this happen again I will buy a Ethernet Router and use those as acces point I dont want to deal with this non sence again...
Its even dooing a better job at spreading the device some were connecting to my 2.4 before not knowing some of the google home are 5GHz ready...
THe 5GHz-2 is for WiFi6