AX88U Pro Stability Question

[GeekGuy61]

Hi

Forgive me if I don’t get this right. I am new here but i am a developer for over 30 years. networking is not my strong point so I tend to stay with defaults on router settings if I don’t know the impact of a change…

Ok … here we go.

I bought a AX88U PRO roughly a month ago. I migrated from a AC88U. To set up the AX88U P/RO, I saved screenshots of all my existing settings from my AC88U. I did NOT try to utilize a saved settings file. So first thing after a minimal manual set up, was to install the lastest stable merlin ( 388.3 ) on the router. Then go thru all the saved setting screens, and apply these values in the virgin setup of the AX88U PRO. I aslo set up the identical SSID’s and password for the 2Ghtz and 5Ghtz i typically use so I did not have to go into congiurations of various devices and set up any new SSID’s. This also allows me to keep my AC88U as a swappable backup router if the AX88U PRO should fail at any point.

So with all that said…. the AX88U PRO operated flawlessly for approx 2 weeks. Then for no apparent reason, the entire network fails. i looked at the router and only the power light was light ( solid ). All other lights are out. The router will not respond. Cycling the power.. stil only the power light and nothing else comes to life.

I hard reset the unit by holding the rest button for about 30 seconds… and old fashion way of hard reset. The router was stubborn and would not come back to life. I repeated the process about 15 mins later and the unit did appear to return to normal function. Of course all the settings were gone… so back thru the manual configuration again. I did try to find any kind of crash log… with no luck. I ssh’d into the router and looked in jffs diectory ( if I spelled that right )… still no hint of. acrash log and no real indications in the system log. of course these things could have been destroyed in my efforts to recover the router.

After all the effort, the network was running fine but it lasted for less than an hour. I had to go thru the hard reset again and hunting the web for clues, there was a hint that maybe there is a bug in ASUS supplied components of the firmware or as many AX88U Pro’s are working fine, maybe I had just recieved a unit that had gone defective.

Since I was still inside my return window, i decided to install the latest firmware from ASUS’ website for the unit and return it. I am looking for feedback. At this point I would like to try the AX88U PRO again ( buy another unit )… i don’t know if it is… a defective unit, a flaw in the hardware where i should wait for a newer revision, a flaw in some firmware components.

Some of hardwired devices are in a rack where I would have call in my A/V tech to disconnect for me… such as a netgear 5 port unmanaged switch with a RTI X6 processor, yamaha amp, and a distribution amp for volume control in two bedrooms and back patio. The network is STABLE on the AC88U.

Is there something I missed in my debugging… so should I move forward with a second purchase and cross my fingers the second AX88U PRO will function well ?

Thank you for reading and any assistance

 

[ColinTaylor]

Since you have already installed the stock Asus firmware I suggest you test that to see if the same problem occurs. If it doesn't then it suggests it's a bug or incompatibility with Merlin's firmware. If the problem still occurs then it suggests a hardware fault.

Rather than set it up again as your main router you could just configure it minimally and connect it to your LAN as a separate secondary router, just for testing purposes. Just to see if it still crashes.

 

[drinkingbird]

Hi

Forgive me if I don’t get this right. I am new here but i am a developer for over 30 years. networking is not my strong point so I tend to stay with defaults on router settings if I don’t know the impact of a change…

Ok … here we go.

I bought a AX88U PRO roughly a month ago. I migrated from a AC88U. To set up the AX88U P/RO, I saved screenshots of all my existing settings from my AC88U. I did NOT try to utilize a saved settings file. So first thing after a minimal manual set up, was to install the lastest stable merlin ( 388.3 ) on the router. Then go thru all the saved setting screens, and apply these values in the virgin setup of the AX88U PRO. I aslo set up the identical SSID’s and password for the 2Ghtz and 5Ghtz i typically use so I did not have to go into congiurations of various devices and set up any new SSID’s. This also allows me to keep my AC88U as a swappable backup router if the AX88U PRO should fail at any point.

So with all that said…. the AX88U PRO operated flawlessly for approx 2 weeks. Then for no apparent reason, the entire network fails. i looked at the router and only the power light was light ( solid ). All other lights are out. The router will not respond. Cycling the power.. stil only the power light and nothing else comes to life.

I hard reset the unit by holding the rest button for about 30 seconds… and old fashion way of hard reset. The router was stubborn and would not come back to life. I repeated the process about 15 mins later and the unit did appear to return to normal function. Of course all the settings were gone… so back thru the manual configuration again. I did try to find any kind of crash log… with no luck. I ssh’d into the router and looked in jffs diectory ( if I spelled that right )… still no hint of. acrash log and no real indications in the system log. of course these things could have been destroyed in my efforts to recover the router.

After all the effort, the network was running fine but it lasted for less than an hour. I had to go thru the hard reset again and hunting the web for clues, there was a hint that maybe there is a bug in ASUS supplied components of the firmware or as many AX88U Pro’s are working fine, maybe I had just recieved a unit that had gone defective.

Since I was still inside my return window, i decided to install the latest firmware from ASUS’ website for the unit and return it. I am looking for feedback. At this point I would like to try the AX88U PRO again ( buy another unit )… i don’t know if it is… a defective unit, a flaw in the hardware where i should wait for a newer revision, a flaw in some firmware components.

Some of hardwired devices are in a rack where I would have call in my A/V tech to disconnect for me… such as a netgear 5 port unmanaged switch with a RTI X6 processor, yamaha amp, and a distribution amp for volume control in two bedrooms and back patio. The network is STABLE on the AC88U.

Is there something I missed in my debugging… so should I move forward with a second purchase and cross my fingers the second AX88U PRO will function well ?

Thank you for reading and any assistance

Certainly does seem like a hardware failure. One bad solder joint out of 1000 and the first hot day or a couple weeks of warming up and cooling off caused it to fail. Then when it cools down, it touches again, warms up, fails, etc. I'm guessing the cpu/SOC uses solder balls and they can be particularly sensitive to being done perfectly, but any solder joint is a possible failure point.

Haven't seen any similar complaints here on that model so no reason to think it isn't worth giving a new one a shot.

 

[brummygit]

I run 3 x RT-AX88U Pros. They are generally stable unless I run the very latest firmware 3.0.0.6.102_21514 which I find very buggy. Have you tried the previous stock version which is based on 3.0.0.4 code? I also find the latest Merlin firmware stable on this router so there are definitely options to make them run well.

Also the hard reset method you mention is not the correct one for this router. You should follow the ASUS Method 2 process instead for this model - maybe that contributed to the issue once it had happened https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1039078/

 

[serialtoon]

Hi

Forgive me if I don’t get this right. I am new here but i am a developer for over 30 years. networking is not my strong point so I tend to stay with defaults on router settings if I don’t know the impact of a change…

Ok … here we go.

I bought a AX88U PRO roughly a month ago. I migrated from a AC88U. To set up the AX88U P/RO, I saved screenshots of all my existing settings from my AC88U. I did NOT try to utilize a saved settings file. So first thing after a minimal manual set up, was to install the lastest stable merlin ( 388.3 ) on the router. Then go thru all the saved setting screens, and apply these values in the virgin setup of the AX88U PRO. I aslo set up the identical SSID’s and password for the 2Ghtz and 5Ghtz i typically use so I did not have to go into congiurations of various devices and set up any new SSID’s. This also allows me to keep my AC88U as a swappable backup router if the AX88U PRO should fail at any point.

So with all that said…. the AX88U PRO operated flawlessly for approx 2 weeks. Then for no apparent reason, the entire network fails. i looked at the router and only the power light was light ( solid ). All other lights are out. The router will not respond. Cycling the power.. stil only the power light and nothing else comes to life.

I hard reset the unit by holding the rest button for about 30 seconds… and old fashion way of hard reset. The router was stubborn and would not come back to life. I repeated the process about 15 mins later and the unit did appear to return to normal function. Of course all the settings were gone… so back thru the manual configuration again. I did try to find any kind of crash log… with no luck. I ssh’d into the router and looked in jffs diectory ( if I spelled that right )… still no hint of. acrash log and no real indications in the system log. of course these things could have been destroyed in my efforts to recover the router.

After all the effort, the network was running fine but it lasted for less than an hour. I had to go thru the hard reset again and hunting the web for clues, there was a hint that maybe there is a bug in ASUS supplied components of the firmware or as many AX88U Pro’s are working fine, maybe I had just recieved a unit that had gone defective.

Since I was still inside my return window, i decided to install the latest firmware from ASUS’ website for the unit and return it. I am looking for feedback. At this point I would like to try the AX88U PRO again ( buy another unit )… i don’t know if it is… a defective unit, a flaw in the hardware where i should wait for a newer revision, a flaw in some firmware components.

Some of hardwired devices are in a rack where I would have call in my A/V tech to disconnect for me… such as a netgear 5 port unmanaged switch with a RTI X6 processor, yamaha amp, and a distribution amp for volume control in two bedrooms and back patio. The network is STABLE on the AC88U.

Is there something I missed in my debugging… so should I move forward with a second purchase and cross my fingers the second AX88U PRO will function well ?

Thank you for reading and any assistance

Ive been having a similar issue but only wifi seemingly being broken at random. I posted this elsewhere (reddit) and got no response.

Hello everyone. I've been running this router for a few months now without any issues at all. I've upgraded the firmware to Merlin-Asus as that is what I ran on my previous routers and I love it. It's been rock solid for months on end now but yesterday out of the blue wifi started to crap out. I understand the variable nature of wifi however it went from solid and not a single issue to multiple issues every couple of hours.

Seemingly at random my wifi will either drop or suddenly crawl, but doing a speed test on a LAN connected device it's peaking over 1Gbps (fiber 1Gbps/1Gbps) so I know its not the entire router but only wifi having an issue. If I make a small change to the wifi settings like change the channel or move the power slider left or right and apply, all speed and consistency comes back. Then a few hours later its back to a couple Mbps until I do it again.

As of late I've restored all settings to factory and restored a backup of my config (this was a troubleshooting step provided by Asus) but I'm at a loss. The whole reason I bought this device is because I had the same exact issue only worse on an AX56U a while back. I don't do DFS channels either so Im very confused and why all of a sudden? No changes or firmware upgrades, literally nothing has been altered to warrant such a fluctuation.

Running 388.3 Merlin

 

[L&LD]

You'll have to wait for other 9,999+ more posts on reddit before you see a worthy reply. And most likely, the answer will be from these forums too.

Speed tests results with AP

Except passing traffic/routing/NAT is accelerated by a hardware ASIC assuming you don't have features enabled that disables that. Generating traffic (and most other software functions like aiprotection, parental controls, QOS, VPN, etc) are either partially accelerated or not at all. Routing...

www.snbforums.com

 

[serialtoon]

You'll have to wait for other 9,999+ more posts on reddit before you see a worthy reply. And most likely, the answer will be from these forums too.

Speed tests results with AP

Except passing traffic/routing/NAT is accelerated by a hardware ASIC assuming you don't have features enabled that disables that. Generating traffic (and most other software functions like aiprotection, parental controls, QOS, VPN, etc) are either partially accelerated or not at all. Routing...

www.snbforums.com

 

[GeekGuy61]

I run 3 x RT-AX88U Pros. They are generally stable unless I run the very latest firmware 3.0.0.6.102_21514 which I find very buggy. Have you tried the previous stock version which is based on 3.0.0.4 code? I also find the latest Merlin firmware stable on this router so there are definitely options to make them run well.

Also the hard reset method you mention is not the correct one for this router. You should follow the ASUS Method 2 process instead for this model - maybe that contributed to the issue once it had happened https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1039078/

Thanks. I was running out of time on my return window. I did not run the unit on the stock firmware. I did not want to get stuck with a non-functioning boat anchor by missing my Return Policy deadline.

I have saved the URL for the future. Thank you for your feedback. I will be back to this thread when I make my next attempt with the RT-AX88U Pro. I see the RT-AC88U is approaching or reached end-of-life

 

[GeekGuy61]

Certainly does seem like a hardware failure. One bad solder joint out of 1000 and the first hot day or a couple weeks of warming up and cooling off caused it to fail. Then when it cools down, it touches again, warms up, fails, etc. I'm guessing the cpu/SOC uses solder balls and they can be particularly sensitive to being done perfectly, but any solder joint is a possible failure point.

Haven't seen any similar complaints here on that model so no reason to think it isn't worth giving a new one a shot.

Thank you. I think I will give it another try with another unit. I really appreciate your input on this. I have been gun-shy because of my latest experience but I think it really is time to move up and keep the RT-AC88U as my fallback unit. I sure wish the RT-AX88U Pro had 8 ports instead of 4

 

[L&LD]

I sure wish the RT-AX88U Pro had 8 ports instead of 4

No, actually, you don't.

Just get a $10 switch instead and enjoy the network reliability it will offer.

 

[LeKeiser]

Thank you. I think I will give it another try with another unit. I really appreciate your input on this. I have been gun-shy because of my latest experience but I think it really is time to move up and keep the RT-AC88U as my fallback unit. I sure wish the RT-AX88U Pro had 8 ports instead of 4

Hello
Digging an old post
So what did you do? Did you buy another RT-AX88U Pro or did you get another model ?
Cheers!

 

[GeekGuy61]

Sorry to have this take so long to close out... I had to let some time pass before I could report an update.

I waited some time to be sure I was able to buy from a different production lot. I installed a new RT-AX88U Pro on Nov 28, 2023. Installed Merlin 3004.388.5, configured it manually based on settings of my RT-AC88U. Today is January 14, 2024 and I am happy to report it has been smooth sailing. Network is solid and delightfully fast ... I get 367mbps down on wifi ( my service only promises 300mbps )...and 11 mbps up ( which is all I have ever gotten )

Thank you everyone for your feedback. It mean a lot and I'll be watching the feed to see if I can help someone else.