Asuswrt-Merlin - custom build of the Asus RT-N66U firmware

[RogerSC]

Hey I just noticed a small problem with my client list on the network map page. As soon as the 10th client connects the client list hangs and won't display anything other than "Searching, Please wait.". The client count also shows 0 instead of 10. I did read a few early pages in this thread about hangs with the client list.

Just figured I'd ask instead of trying to sift through all of that.

Interesting, I'm using the same firmware and haven't noticed that...right now I have 15 clients connected, and it shows them all, and refreshes quickly.

Odd. Must be a combination of things, not just the number of clients?

 

[RMerlin]

@RMerlin: Thanks for the openvpn branch! One of many things the asus firmware was missing!

Be warned that this branch is still in development. The VPN code itself is done, however the webui is still being worked on.

Once the feature is completed, it will be merged back into the master branch.

 

[RMerlin]

Hey I just noticed a small problem with my client list on the network map page. As soon as the 10th client connects the client list hangs and won't display anything other than "Searching, Please wait.". The client count also shows 0 instead of 10. I did read a few early pages in this thread about hangs with the client list.

Just figured I'd ask instead of trying to sift through all of that.

I'll have to test it - my record so far is only 9 devices on that list. There's a good chance however that it was a specific device causing the problem rather than the number of devices itself.

 

[NeutralGold]

Thanks for the replies.

It'll probably take a couple days to try and reproduce the results. But I'll try and take note of exactly what I'm doing when it happens. Thanks.

 

[uncle.f]

If I clear them then I get the error message. Check them back, and hit apply, and it takes. I hit apply three times, as Merlin suggested. It appears to have changed, but no change in temp or signal around the house.

Maybe RMerlin can confirm this but didn't he fix this thing with "press apply 3 times"? On my router the value I enter is taken immediately even without need to press apply 3 times but real TX power does not change.

 

[2000wolf]

@ wooglins and uncle.f

I will test that later with inSSIDer.

Back again...

I've tested it: If I increase TX power from 40 mW to 100 mW then according inSSIDer I get a gain of about 4 dB. That's what I've expected and it shows that TX adjustment is working in .178.15.

 

[wooglins]

@ wooglins and uncle.f




Back again...

I've tested it: If I increase TX power from 40 mW to 100 mW then according inSSIDer I get a gain of about 4 dB. That's what I've expected and it shows that TX adjustment is working in .178.15.

Got to figure out what's wrong then on my end.

 

[morden]

Got to figure out what's wrong then on my end.

I've read elsewhere that you can improve your signal and SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio) by replacing your standard 3dB antenna with an increased gain (12 dB) antenna. So that would give you an additional 9 dB of signal.

Not sure if this would work. But if it does, then it might be better than just cranking the Tx up much higher to get a better signal alone. This could be more feasible as you're not allowing yourself to be exposed to more radiation from the increased power output if you have the router pretty close to where you do your computing (ie..it sits on your computer desk).

I'm not sure if there are any good quality dual band 12dB high gain antennas that you can use to replace the standard N66U antennas. Someone else might be able to chime in on this subject to correct anything I've said. I may be totally wrong on what I wrote...just going by what I've read elsewhere about improving signal strength.

Edit: After looking around, I don't think there are any high gain dual band antennas that can give the extra 9 dB for either band (2.4 or 5). I think the 12dB high gain antennas are only available for the 2.4 band. I could be wrong tho!

 

[ArCan]

I had same question and found only
http://salestores.com/trendn12.html
it's cheap and seems to me a little bit more dbi for both bands.
I never try other antenna and don't know the practice results.

 

[morden]

I found a thread in the RT-N66U subfolder that someone had already started in regards to external antennas. Heres a link to a post in that thread by the user Psychosb. This user found an ebay seller who is selling dual band antennas for a pretty cheap price. I may give it a try. The link to the post is here:
http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showpost.php?p=45992&postcount=52

Check out that thread! You'll find a few other posts to some antenna links too

 

[ArCan]

Oh, thank you!
I didn't see that thread and with your help found this
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Dual-Band-2-4-5-8Ghz-9dBi-RP-SMA-High-Gain-Antenna-/130729553117
Very good price for it... if it works.

 

[RogerSC]

Don't know if this was just an anomaly or a real problem (it was a real problem for me *smile*). I turned off the rt-n66u to set up another router, and turned the rt-n66u back on a couple of hours later. Almost everything was fine, except I couldn't go to the 2.4GHz. wireless configuration pages, my browser said it couldn't load those pages. I could go to the 5GHz. configuration pages, but I'm not using 5GHz. right now. So I rebooted the router, no luck, same issue. So I tried re-flashing 178.15, and that didn't work, either, it just said "Proceeding", and never did the flash. After trying re-flashing the same firmware a couple of times and just seeing "Proceeding", I was starting to get a little worried *smile*. The router was still doing wired routing with no problem, but I couldn't get to the 2.4GHz. wireless page.

So I put the router in recovery mode and tried re-flashing 178.15 it that way. That didn't help, so I tried that a second time, and that didn't help, either. Still had the problem with getting to the 2.4GHz. wireless configuration pages, and it wouldn't re-flash from there.

The last thing that I tried was to download the Asus 178 firmware, and flashing that in recovery mode. That finally worked, and I'm using that for the time being.

It was interesting, but disturbing. Don't know if it's one of those odd things that won't happen again, or if there's something about the 178.15 firmware that doesn't let the recovery mode flashing work. I'm staying with Asus 178 for the time being, but I thought I'd mention this. I could probably flash 178.15 now, but have spent enough time on chasing this *smile*.

 

[tonytoronto]

I'll have to test it - my record so far is only 9 devices on that list. There's a good chance however that it was a specific device causing the problem rather than the number of devices itself.

I'm at 19 clients i just realized the first page only shows 14, there's a small arrow to click and shows the next 5. This is one function finally working, for the longest time would never fill the client list.

 

[wooglins]

I'm at 19 clients i just realized the first page only shows 14, there's a small arrow to click and shows the next 5. This is one function finally working, for the longest time would never fill the client list.

My router hit 24 active this weekend and did not flinch at all. Why I got it as other routers choked on weekends when a lot of people hit the home network.

 

[RMerlin]

It was interesting, but disturbing. Don't know if it's one of those odd things that won't happen again, or if there's something about the 178.15 firmware that doesn't let the recovery mode flashing work. I'm staying with Asus 178 for the time being, but I thought I'd mention this. I could probably flash 178.15 now, but have spent enough time on chasing this *smile*.

Note that reflashing a firmware will rarely ever fix any issue. The firmware is either written to NAND, or not. What will help tho (and probably what fixed your problem in the end) is clearing your nvram. By going back to an original Asus firmware, you ended up going from 64 KB nvram back to 32 KB nvram. That caused your nvram settings to be reset to factory defaults, probably resolving your issue at the same time.

 

[RogerSC]

Note that reflashing a firmware will rarely ever fix any issue. The firmware is either written to NAND, or not. What will help tho (and probably what fixed your problem in the end) is clearing your nvram. By going back to an original Asus firmware, you ended up going from 64 KB nvram back to 32 KB nvram. That caused your nvram settings to be reset to factory defaults, probably resolving your issue at the same time.

I actually didn't clear the nvram until I made sure that my 2.4GHz. wireless configuration page access was fixed by the Asus 178 firmware. After I knew that the problem was taken care of, I did clear the nvram before configuring the 178 firmware because I was going between a 64KB and 32KB nvram firmwares.

It didn't occur to me that I should clear the nvram for 178.15, since I had only turned the power off and back on. On the other hand, I have fixed problems in the past by reflashing firmware. Next time something like this happens, I'll try clearing the nvram before reflashing (after power cycling, most likely *smile*). Nothing to lose by doing that at that point, and would have gained a bunch of time if it had fixed the GUI breakage.

 

[Gingernut]

@gingernut and anyone else getting the error above:

I had the same problem. For anyone who has this issue, ensure you have the gperf package installed (apt-get install gperf). If you do and the problem persists then go into
release/src/router/libid3tag and delete compat.c frametype.c (rm compat.c frametype.c) then rebuild.
gperf should regenerate the files. This is what worked for me, I hope it helps others!

@RMerlin: Thanks for the openvpn branch! One of many things the asus firmware was missing!

Thanks,

Found out that building as root was fine so I did it that way with no errors.

So must be some files permission thing.

 

[uncle.f]

@ wooglins and uncle.f
I've tested it: If I increase TX power from 40 mW to 100 mW then according inSSIDer I get a gain of about 4 dB. That's what I've expected and it shows that TX adjustment is working in .178.15.

What if you decrease power to 1 or 2 mW?
I am very interested in DEcreasing my TX power to an absolute minimum and somehow it does not seem to decrease anything in reality, although the values change in the web interface.

 

[2000wolf]

Before my 40 to 100mW experiment I had decreased it from 80 to 40 mW (after upgrading to .178.15)

 

[RogerSC]

2 quick things, one is that I'm back on 178.15, flashed just fine from 178. Cleared the nvram, and restored my old 178.15 settings. All good.

The other is that while I was on Asus 178, I raised the power to 160mw from 80mw, and no effect according to inSSIDer. I did do the apply 3 times, just for luck *smile*. The only other thing that I could think of was reboot after changing the power, but I flashed to 178.15 instead.

When I get time, I'll try raising the power on 178.15 just to check it out since things seem to be stable again, and that's kind of boring *smile*.