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Before I throw out my Asus AC88u router$%#$&% Merlin?

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Ryanhdd

Occasional Visitor
So I have had this router for almost two years and have had nothing but issues with it. I should have 150 mbps up and down and I do once I reset my router. But after a couple hours it limits my upload to like 1mbps. I have everything off on the router. I am at my wits ends with this damn thing. I have not tried merlin. I might look into loading that up. I have replaced my cat 6 cables twice. I get my Verizon fios straight from the ONT to the router with a CAT6. I recently got express VPn and with that on the router I can forget about fast speeds. anyway anyone have any recommendations?
 
So I have had this router for almost two years and have had nothing but issues with it. I should have 150 mbps up and down and I do once I reset my router. But after a couple hours it limits my upload to like 1mbps. I have everything off on the router. I am at my wits ends with this damn thing. I have not tried merlin. I might look into loading that up. I have replaced my cat 6 cables twice. I get my Verizon fios straight from the ONT to the router with a CAT6. I recently got express VPn and with that on the router I can forget about fast speeds. anyway anyone have any recommendations?

Ditch it and move on?! It could have a hardware defect.

OE
 
not really have the issue with my ac3100 (basically ac88 with 4 port), and it's connected to the Fios ONT via ethernet port as well.

If you recently have thunderstorm, one thing I will try is to reset the ONT.
unplug the power and the battery, let it see for say 5 min~15min, then connect it back.

And if it still happens, you might wanna call Verizon to get them reset the ONT from there end.
(my friend on netgear has to call them to do it fix frequent disconnect/slow speed after thunderstorm)

You can also try power cycle and clear nvram the router itself.
Power off the router for 30 sec+, hold wps button while powering on.
wait for power led flashing/blinking, then release the wps button
now wait for the router to reboot properly and reconfigure from there.
 
I would suggest resetting it and manually reentering the settings.
 
wired throughput or wireless? I'm assuming wireless. Change the wireless channel to one with the least conflict and disable beamforming, MIMO, and airtime fairness.
 
How are your clients connected, LAN/2G/5G.

Had this massive problem on 2G thinking because of interfences with other Wifi located 1m beside on different channels (1+5 and other 9+13).
 
I have a switch that my tv and stuff plug into I hard wire everything that i can. But i do have 2.4 and 5 g for my cams and doorbell, and for phones. also heavily wooded so i use wifi calling for my phone.

I do a speed test using the computer thats hard wired into the router. my upload is always the thing that suffer. sometimes to a crawl. like 1mpbs this cause massive issues with my cams and pretty much anything on wired or wireless.
 
I have a switch that my tv and stuff plug into I hard wire everything that i can. But i do have 2.4 and 5 g for my cams and doorbell, and for phones. also heavily wooded so i use wifi calling for my phone.

I do a speed test using the computer thats hard wired into the router. my upload is always the thing that suffer. sometimes to a crawl. like 1mpbs this cause massive issues with my cams and pretty much anything on wired or wireless.

What is your upstream providor? If you are in a wooded area that is remote, you also need to check the cable modem or whatever device is providing the ethernet handoff. Motorola/Aris for example has a diagnostic page that is accessible using http://192.168.100.1

Also consider running a continuous ping from a computer to your providor or dns server and see what the latency is. Usually a good indication of packet loss which can cause slowness.
 
I will say this. Power cycling my ONT and then my crappy router I then get super fast upload and download like I am supposed too. Even through express VPN software. so its gotta be this crappy router. the issue is I need at least 7 ports, I guess I could buy another switch. but I just want something I get the speeds I am paying for and just f((*ing works.
 
What is your upstream providor? If you are in a wooded area that is remote, you also need to check the cable modem or whatever device is providing the ethernet handoff. Motorola/Aris for example has a diagnostic page that is accessible using http://192.168.100.1

You may need to get a signal amp for both upstream and downstream. Most people only install amps for downstream signal.
I do not have a modem. I plug the cat6 from the ONT into the router. I have verizon fios. I do live in a city. I just have a lot of trees around me.
 
Any way you could bypass the router for a day to make sure it is a router issue and not the ONT?

If router was not connected and issue still happens after a while of being connected then you have an issue somewhere else like maybe the ONT.

Have you tried power cycling just the router and not the ONT?

When you power cycle both you have no idea what device has the issue.
 
Any way you could bypass the router for a day to make sure it is a router issue and not the ONT?

If router was not connected and issue still happens after a while of being connected then you have an issue somewhere else like maybe the ONT.

Have you tried power cycling just the router and not the ONT?

When you power cycle both you have no idea what device has the issue.


Well that is a long story. I went down that road last year with Verizon until I gave up. I even went as far as buying their damn router and modem and used that. it worked fine. They will not have anything to do with me anymore bc I refuse to use their crappy equipment. (then again I guess I am the one with the crappy equipment) The guy came out and tested my line and even replaced my ONT. I continued to have the issue and still do. I swear its this shi&%^ router. Now I do not want to have anything to do with ASUS. I also need to get what I pay for. I mix and work from my house a lot and with the large video files and audio I pass around I need to get what I am paying for. I hate this router. Btw in the past I could reset just the router and get speeds back. but after sometime they go back into the shirtter.
 
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Sorry Bud,
I'm out of suggestions then. If you are experiencing the slowness on wired without vpn and have tried disabling qos, and aiprotection...

I had a similar issue, but it was only on wireless where i had multiple channel conflicts on my ac88 and my upstream had a lot of errors. For the most part, wired was pretty solid. If you have a lot of wireless cameras, did you try enabling multicast?

I agree with the other posts. Try connecting directly without the router for a day and see if you have any problems. Also initialize your router and set it back up with the minimal config. Try to get some network traffic captures using wireshark to see if anything stands out.

the AC88 is a top of the line router. You can probably flip it on ebay for a decent price.
 
I will also try to test the speed on various device (wired/wireless)to see if it only happens on that wired computer.

just not long ago someone else had issue with the killer network ethernet card and the QoS software is causing the issue. All other devices were able to get full speed. It can happen.

if you are experience slow speed on all other devices,
I will also check the status of the router whenever it occur.
network map let you check the CPU loads (should sit <5% if nothing use the network heavily)
Adaptive QoS let you check to see if anything overloading the networks

and just like I previously suggested, do try to power cycle and wps method to clear nvram instead of just simply press factory reset. too lazy to give out all the example that it has helped me to deal with all those weird issue that persist after multiple factory reset/initialize . it simply doesn't hurt to try and reconfigure everything if it's been giving you trouble for 2 year.

And if it still happens, get RMA will be the suggestion
 
I will also try to test the speed on various device (wired/wireless)to see if it only happens on that wired computer.

just not long ago someone else had issue with the killer network ethernet card and the QoS software is causing the issue. All other devices were able to get full speed. It can happen.

if you are experience slow speed on all other devices,
I will also check the status of the router whenever it occur.
network map let you check the CPU loads (should sit <5% if nothing use the network heavily)
Adaptive QoS let you check to see if anything overloading the networks

and just like I previously suggested, do try to power cycle and wps method to clear nvram instead of just simply press factory reset. too lazy to give out all the example that it has helped me to deal with all those weird issue that persist after multiple factory reset/initialize . it simply doesn't hurt to try and reconfigure everything if it's been giving you trouble for 2 year.

And if it still happens, get RMA will be the suggestion

when it happens it happens on both 2.4 and 5 wireless and wired. I have Qos off and traffic mon off at this point I cannot return as its been too long.
 
when it happens it happens on both 2.4 and 5 wireless and wired. I have Qos off and traffic mon off at this point I cannot return as its been too long.
never asked, but make sure you have latest firmware on the router.
if it happens on all device, check the router status to see what is going on with it.
here is what it looks like on my ac3100
router.png
only time I experience the slow connection speed similar to what you described was with high CPU usage.
It did happen during one of the firmware update.
couldn't resolve the issue after multiple factory reset/reinitialize.
I did solve that issue with a power cycle + nvram clear, so give that a try

RMA is for the warranty claim, you can make warranty claim with Asus if it's indeed failing that bad and they will give you instruction for that
Assuming it's still under warranty coverage though
 
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Update: So today it showed slow upload on 5g, like 3mbps upload and download plus 150 mbps I then checked hardwire Lan and it showed the same. So I rebooted the router and its back to normal. So I can assume the router is a piece of (*&#(*& like I thought?

there also showed no performance issue with the computer in system status on the router page.

also bought the Synology RT2600AC so we will see if that helps'
 
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