Asuswrt-Merlin 376.44 Beta 1 is out

[Sushiglobster]

Now that you mention this L, noticing the same thing

I'm actually finding similar results as well.

As if something is degrading...and/or needs to be cleared out.

I've flash BETA 1, 2, 3, and all had similar performance with 3 being the worse. I went back to the stable 43 and notice almost nothing improved at all. Though I'm dealing with some bizarre IPv6 stuff...I couldn't get to Facebook (for example) with IPv6 enabled on my RT-N66U. I did a traceroute via command prompt and it showed no issues, yet the firmware tool timed out when testing the same site. Weird.

 

[RMerlin]

Factory default reset, RT-N66U people. I ran (yet another) test here on my RT-N66U, had no issue connecting to wifi through two walls (the hardest scenario I can reproduce here) and running an iperf performance test through the wifi connection.

The RT-N66U is becoming too much of a time sink at this point. That's why I'm leaving it at the same wifi drivers used by Asus. People who aren't satisfied by it (its performance is still better than the vast majority of similarly-priced routers out there), feel free to switch firmware or switch router. This has reached the point where I'm am getting seriously annoyed. This is what you get out of the hardware and closed-source drivers from Asus. Accept it - it's not in my control, for the hundredth time.

Comparing this with whatever result you get out of Tomato or DD-WRT is meaningless. Neither of these are of any use to people having a high speed connection - you need HW acceleration for that. And the SDK5.100 driver is of no use to PPPoE users with a fast connection, since HW acceleration was only implemented with SDK 5.110 (which is broken with many wireless adapters - read the forums if you need to see the feedback from RT-N66U owners at the time). So if we sum things up:

- driver 5.100 is useless to PPPoE users
- driver 5.110 is useless to certain wireless client manufacturers
- driver 6.30 is useless to people wanting out-of-the-park range and coverage

That means there's not a single driver that suits everyone. And no, I'm not going to spend hours every release making one different build for every single scenario out there. The source code is on my Github repo - if you want it that badly, compile your own flavour yourself.

The December driver (from 374.43) versus June driver (from 376_1071) shows NO CONCLUSIVE evidence that one is better. I compiled 6 different test firmwares on one night, had a bunch of people try them out. The end result: some people got better performance out of the old. Some got better performance out of the new. And in my case? I saw no noteworthy difference at all (2-3 dBm is not something I consider noteworthy, it's something I consider random noise).

I even had one tester who reported horrible performance on one night, and great performance a night or two later with a different FW build, with the exact same driver (he didn't know at the time I had used the same driver in the two builds he tried).

So for one final time, RT-N66U owners: reset to factory default setting, delete and recreate the wireless profile on your client, set an optimum (free of interference) channel, keep the 2.4 GHz on 20 Mhz and the 5 GHz on 40 MHz, and look at the results: this is as good as you will get out of this router right now.

I will simply ignore any further complains concerning RT-N66U wifi performance. I'm sorry it had to reach a point where I have to go in ranting mode, but this is how annoyed I am with this whole situation, and I'd rather make sure that everyone is clear on this situation before I just decide to throw it all away because this reaches a point where this hobby is no longer any fun at all for me.

 

[jim769]

Dont be sorry its not your fault. The N66U was at end of life support when Asus switched to the SDK6 driver. Thats why i bought the 68U. Its to bad though at one time it was one of the best. Sadly it has been crippled by drivers,firmware and the FCC. Maybe its time you took a break from this and just relax for awhile. The new 376 firmwares are borked let Asus fix the mess you cant always be there to bail them out.

 

[bill1228]

Merlin, I feel your pain with the complaining about the n66u wireless. Personally my n66u has performed without issues with your firmware with the exception of a weird issue with 374.43 where when I did Hulu for any length of time the speed would drop down to about 1Mb/s. Reboot would fix. A drop back to 374.42 fixed.
While range has been a little better with some of the versions I cannot say any of them were bad. I have been quite happy with all of your efforts. I do like the new additions of seeing an indication of wireless signal strength per client and now being able to see cpu and memory utilization in the latest.

Lots of complaining but no suggestions of a fix is never very helpful in my experience. Of course with closed source code that does not allow for any changes makes it very frustrating.

I say, as you did, ignore the complaining. I suspect it is a small group that are "having problems" and the majority of us are quite happy with your efforts.

--bill

 

[cofetym]

I personally don't have any demanding requests as some do. My favorite feature has always been stealth mode.
I would usually upgrade as RMerlin improved the firmware and always looked forward to it.
If the RT-N66U has finally reached it's conclusion that's Okay with me and as others have suggested. Leave the job to Asus and maybe they'll pay you as a consultant to help further streamline the product line.

What's your personal opinion on the best build you've created for the RT-N66U ?

Running 43 at the moment.

I certainly hope that you keep on doing what you do so well.

 

[RMerlin]

What's your personal opinion on the best build you've created for the RT-N66U ?

It's quite subjective, as it depends on everyone's particular needs. I mostly focused on bug fixing in 374.42 and 374.43 as I knew there were major changes coming this summer from Asus, so I wanted a good enough base for people to revert back to in case Asus's new changes would turn out to become troublesome. however a few fixes were needed in 376.44 to address mt-daapd, and the minidlna update also resolved a few random issues.

Some of the earlier builds might have better wireless performance, however the security issues present in those builds in addition to all the bugfixes that were applied over the past 4-6 months make them less than ideal.

 

[RMerlin]

I'm going to upload 376.44 final tonight. For those who ran the betas, there were a few changes between Beta 3 and the final release:

• The filesystem drivers of MIPS devices (N16/N66/AC66) were all reverted back to the Paragon drivers. The Tuxera FAT32 driver was generating log spam, and the NTFS driver was found to have erratic performance (it would constantly vary between 8 MB/s and 15 MB/s on my RT-N66, while the Paragon driver was very stable at 15-16 MB/s). The MIPS version is older than the ARM version, so I assume they will be updated once Asus turns their eyes toward MIPS devices.
• Smart Sync was fixed on ARM devices. First issue was Asuswebstorage was compiled specifically for use on Quantenna routers, second issue was the change to reduce the size of the ARM firmwares would make Smartsync only start if manually launched by the user.
• Because of the previous fix, ARM firmwares are back at their previous 28-30 MB filesize. I'll deal with the size issue once Asus pushes the DPI engine on these (assuming they do).

Thanks for tracking down some of the issues that were present in these betas.

If upgrading an RT-N66 or RT-AC66 from a Beta to the final 376.44 release, you will need to do a factory default reset, OR restore a backup made with 374.42/374.43. This is to ensure you don't have any leftover from the nvram issue that affected Beta 1.

RT-N16, RT-AC56, AC68 and AC87 can directly flash the final build, unless coming from a much older version (as usual).

 

[cofetym]

Rmerlin I'll take the bug fixing and security, over the increase in wireless performance.
In my environment 43 is working well and I have purchased some cheaper
routers to help with overall performance.
Our house is just over 3,000 sq ft and trying to rely on one router was just
never going to do it for me.
So, if your like me and always tinkering with stuff. You'll find other solutions
to meet your needs.

RMerlin hang in there and do what you feel like doing with the firmware. If others don't
like it, that's too bad. It's all about choices and we've been given that.

 

[DavidEBSmith]

So for one final time, RT-N66U owners: reset to factory default setting, delete and recreate the wireless profile on your client, set an optimum (free of interference) channel, keep the 2.4 GHz on 20 Mhz and the 5 GHz on 40 MHz, and look at the results: this is as good as you will get out of this router right now.

Just to clarify - 5 GHz set to 40 rather than 20/40? Not that I have any issues with the 5 GHZ band - there is only one 5 GHz router somewhere in the neighborhood that is occasionally visible.

FWIW, I was sitting on the couch tonight with two Android devices side-by-side both running Wi-Fi Analyzer and the same SSIDs at the same moment were showing signal strengths different by anywhere from 2 to 20 dB. Between that and the issues with the drivers not being changed when everyone thought they were, you have to wonder how much of the fretting over signal strength numbers is needless.

 

[RMerlin]

Just to clarify - 5 GHz set to 40 rather than 20/40? Not that I have any issues with the 5 GHZ band - there is only one 5 GHz router somewhere in the neighborhood that is occasionally visible.

Correct. Unless you are very close to another 5GHz-capable router, the spectrum should be clear enough for you to force it to 40 Mhz on that band. 20/40 would also be fine, the main point was the 2.4 GHz band which should be set to 20 Mhz unless you actually know for a fact that you are clear to use 40 MHz in your area (i.e. there's no neighbour, no 2.4 GHz-enabled Bluetooth or phones, etc...).

 

[Txdk]

noticed this in my log today

Aug  4 10:20:56 kernel: jffs2_flush_wbuf(): Write failed with -5
Aug  4 10:20:56 kernel: Recovery of wbuf succeeded to 00f00000
Aug  4 10:20:56 kernel: Write of 1278 bytes at 0x009937e4 failed. returned -5, retlen 0
Aug  4 10:20:56 kernel: Not marking the space at 0x009937e4 as dirty because the flash driver returned retlen zero

 

[Wimo]

Correct. Unless you are very close to another 5GHz-capable router, the spectrum should be clear enough for you to force it to 40 Mhz on that band. 20/40 would also be fine, the main point was the 2.4 GHz band which should be set to 20 Mhz unless you actually know for a fact that you are clear to use 40 MHz in your area (i.e. there's no neighbour, no 2.4 GHz-enabled Bluetooth or phones, etc...).

Hi !

Is it only for RT-N66U ?

I did not look into it carefully, but it seems my 5 GHz wi-fi on RT-AC66U does not work properly or at good performance, so I was wondering if there is some parameter to change ?

Thank you.

 

[roldogg]

Latest firmware version?

I've been running a Netgear R7000 for the last 6-8 months, previously I was running an RT-AC66R using Merlin's firmware, but today and went out and purchased the RT-AC87R router, but I'm also still using the RT-AC66R as an AP. Is the 364.44 the most recent firmware release, and did I read it correctly where this is the firmware I'm to use for both the RT-AC66R and the RT-AC87R? Please let me know. I won't want to be loading the wrong firmware onto my new $280 router. Thanks!

 

[Deleted member 22229]

I've been running a Netgear R7000 for the last 6-8 months, previously I was running an RT-AC66R using Merlin's firmware, but today and went out and purchased the RT-AC87R router, but I'm also still using the RT-AC66R as an AP. Is the 364.44 the most recent firmware release, and did I read it correctly where this is the firmware I'm to use for both the RT-AC66R and the RT-AC87R? Please let me know. I won't want to be loading the wrong firmware onto my new $280 router. Thanks!

Yes that is the latest Merlin build for both routers BUT make sure you download the correct model number firmware for each router. The build number is the same but each model is different.

 

[roldogg]

Spectrum

Correct. Unless you are very close to another 5GHz-capable router, the spectrum should be clear enough for you to force it to 40 Mhz on that band. 20/40 would also be fine, the main point was the 2.4 GHz band which should be set to 20 Mhz unless you actually know for a fact that you are clear to use 40 MHz in your area (i.e. there's no neighbour, no 2.4 GHz-enabled Bluetooth or phones, etc...).

What if I'm using 2 Asus routers, one setup as an AP but is setup on the other side of the house using the same SSID, same channel, etc. so I can walk from one area of the house to another without having to connect to a different network? Can I run 80MHZ or 40MHZ on both of these routers since they're part of the same network and have the same SSIDs or will the two of them conflict with each other? Can't I only connect to the router using wireless AC if the router is setup to use the 80MHZ channel?

 

[Deleted member 22229]

What if I'm using 2 Asus routers, one setup as an AP but is setup on the other side of the house using the same SSID, same channel, etc. so I can walk from one area of the house to another without having to connect to a different network? Can I run 80MHZ or 40MHZ on both of these routers since they're part of the same network and have the same SSIDs or will the two of them conflict with each other? Can't I only connect to the router using wireless AC if the router is setup to use the 80MHZ channel?

It is possible if both are on the same channel they could interfere with each other. And no 80 MHZ wont stop other N devices from hooking up they just wont be able to achieve AC speeds.

 

[roldogg]

Thanks!!

Yes that is the latest Merlin build for both routers BUT make sure you download the correct model number firmware for each router. The build number is the same but each model is different.

I just noticed they were different sizes. Thanks!

 

[L&LD]

hi

376.45 is out, on merlin tower, just noticed this morning.Ill wait for some feedbacks before flashing.I just reverted back to 374.43_2 coming from .44

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/bkfq2a6aebq68//Asuswrt-Merlin#qc4e5xc252czd


RT-AC68u , 374.43_2

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showpost.php?p=135461&postcount=16

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showpost.php?p=135479&postcount=20

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showpost.php?p=135472&postcount=18

Happy upgrading!

 

[GoNz0]

What if I'm using 2 Asus routers, one setup as an AP but is setup on the other side of the house using the same SSID, same channel, etc. so I can walk from one area of the house to another without having to connect to a different network? Can I run 80MHZ or 40MHZ on both of these routers since they're part of the same network and have the same SSIDs or will the two of them conflict with each other? Can't I only connect to the router using wireless AC if the router is setup to use the 80MHZ channel?

make sure the channels don't overlap otherwise it will work fine, I do the same. Just check the wireless professional tab and enable Roaming assistant to help it switch to the stronger signal.

 

[abfackeln]

Port Forwarding

Anyone here has a problem with port forwarding on the AC87U/R? I've tried both ASUS 3885 and Merlin's 376.49_5 firmwares and neither can sustain a forwarded port for more than 2 days. Putting my web server on DMZ now as a last resort but I'm not hopeful it will maintain the DMZ settings. My WiFi is flawless though If anyone has a solution/work around please share.