"best" consumer router, Asus AC68U sucks, or is it just me? (crappy signal distances

[thecavemankevin]

Hi,
I recently upgraded from the AC66U to the AC68U (i should have read SNB's comparison of the AC68u to the netgear r7000 first). I was never impressed with the 66's ability to send the signal far distances, but i hoped that the 68U would be better. Thus far i've not been impressed with it too. I live in a two story single family home, built in 1980 (has standard sheetrock and not super thick building materials) in a neighborhood. My ISP is verizon FIOS and i have their good old actiontek wireless g router. The vzw fios (192.168.2.1) router is the gateway, but the AC68U (192.168.1.1) is setup as the primary router for all devices.

I wanted to have a router that would be great at steaming media from my Synology NAS to my smart TV's and PS3. Unfortunately i'm finding that my smart TV and smart phones struggle to keep a stable connection with the AC68U. The laptops don't seem to be affected as much, but I don't do much media consumption on these. The TV is about 30 feet away (same floor/different room) from the AC68U and still can't maintain a good connection. Same thing goes for smartphone and tablets throughout most of the house. Right now i've connected the TV's to the vzw fios wifi signal. Even though it is just wireless g, i get a far more stable connection to the internet. But I of course can't connect to any of the devices (NAS) on the AC68U network.

I've updated to the latest firmware 374_583 and bumped both 5ghz and 2.4ghz signals to max 200mw power. I've run a site survey tool and get the following:

AC68U 2.4ghz= mostly -70 to -60dbm
set to channel 9, no interference from neighbors signal
speedtest.net: 40d/18u

AC68U 5ghz= mostly -80 to -75
auto channel
speedtest.net: 57d/38u

vzw actiontec 2.4ghz (g only)= -80ish
auto channel
speedtest.net: 4d/6u

all speed tests were done in the same browser from my 1 year old lenovo thinkpad and were done within 2 minutes of each other.

What am i doing wrong? Why can't i stream from my LAN or WAN (netflix) without stability problems just down the hall?


***update, i'm now considering flashing to DDWRT, but I don't know if there is any real major benefit??

Thanks for your help

 

[Find the Door]

Don't bump it up to 200!!! Change that immediately

 

[canuckle]

Perhaps instead of making your one and only post start with the title that something sucks, you could instead ask for help.

There were some issues with earlier versions of the wireless driver. If you look in RMerlin's firmware section here, you'll see that his custom firmware is pretty solid for the 68 (which is my box too, fyi).

My range, throughput, and stability is excellent.

So in short, yes, it's just you.

 

[jim769]

Also if I read your post right you have two routers going at the same time this is never a good idea and if that is indeed the case that's most likely most of your connection issues. I have the n66u and my house is 1700 sq feet and it covers the whole house 2.4 and 5 ghz.

 

[KGB7]

On your Fios box, disable wifi. If you cant disable it, then call your ISP and tell them to put that modem in to bridge mode.

On AC68 set channel to 1, 6 or 11.

Have you reset the router after firmware upgrade? Have you power cycled it as well after a reset?

This is not a plug and play router, you have to sit there for a good hour, go through every setting and manually make all the necessary changes.

 

[thecavemankevin]

I'll look into rmerlins firmware. Is it similar to ddwrt or tomato's?

I can and usually do have fios Wi-Fi disabled. I enabled it just so I can get a stable connection at a decent distance.

I can't put the FiOS into bridge mode. If I do, I can't have advanced TV functions, like DVR scheduling. I know, it sucks. I've already complained to them.
So, in short, I have to run both routers, or just the Verizon FiOS one.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

 

[Adamm]

I'll look into rmerlins firmware. Is it similar to ddwrt or tomato's?

I can and usually do have fios Wi-Fi disabled. I enabled it just so I can get a stable connection at a decent distance.

I can't put the FiOS into bridge mode. If I do, I can't have advanced TV functions, like DVR scheduling. I know, it sucks. I've already complained to them.
So, in short, I have to run both routers, or just the Verizon FiOS one.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

Sounds like this is the cause of your problems, most likely running a double NAT which can cause performance issues. Its highly recommended to run it in bridge mode for full performance.

Also RMerlins firmware is based off the AsusWRT with additional improvements/fixes and is also recommended for these routers.

 

[ikoul]

Your signal levels do look pretty terrible, on both your FIOS router and the AC68. You probably bumped up the wireless power to 200mW to try and fix that, but you could probably get better results by starting at 80 and working your way up in increments of 5 or 10 to see what works best (because going too high can often make it worse).

If you haven't done a factory reset since upgrading to 583, that should be the first thing you do.

Aside from that, different channel choices can make a big difference. For example, on any 5ghz channel besides the one I use, I get half as much throughput because of other networks that are a few channels away (even though they have pretty faint signal levels). The 80mhz channels you need for ac pretty much require you to be as far away channel wise as you can from other networks.

When you let these routers choose the channel themselves, they have a strong bias toward certain ones that might not even get you the best performance. Mine loves channel 6 on 2.4ghz and something like 148 on 5ghz, but I get better performance by a large margin on 11 and 48.

 

[thecavemankevin]

I'll dial back the power to see if i can find a sweet spot. I'll continue to play with the channels. the 2.4ghz is semi crowded, but 5ghz is wide open.

When I reset it back to factory defaults, can i restore my settings from a backup config file? Or will that defeat the point of resetting it?

 

[L&LD]

It will defeat the point of resetting it.

 

[HokieAl]

I'll look into rmerlins firmware. Is it similar to ddwrt or tomato's?

I can and usually do have fios Wi-Fi disabled. I enabled it just so I can get a stable connection at a decent distance.

I can't put the FiOS into bridge mode. If I do, I can't have advanced TV functions, like DVR scheduling. I know, it sucks. I've already complained to them.
So, in short, I have to run both routers, or just the Verizon FiOS one.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

You need to re-disable the wifi on the FIOS router. Also, set your ASUS router to Access Point mode and let the Actiontec to the routing. That's how I have mine (66U) set up. It it works very well.

 

[CaptainSTX]

I'll look into rmerlins firmware. Is it similar to ddwrt or tomato's?

I can and usually do have fios Wi-Fi disabled. I enabled it just so I can get a stable connection at a decent distance.

I can't put the FiOS into bridge mode. If I do, I can't have advanced TV functions, like DVR scheduling. I know, it sucks. I've already complained to them.
So, in short, I have to run both routers, or just the Verizon FiOS one.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

I use my FIOS modem with two ASUS N66s double NATed behind the Actiontec router. One is connected by MOCA and the other by Ethernet to the FIOS Actiontec router. This setup does not cause me any problems and I get my full 75/35 speed when connected to either ASUS using Ethernet.

I use different channels for each of my ASUS on both radios.

The Actiontec router works well with its limited feature set is stable. It has been 843 hours since its last restart. I need multiple routers for multiple reasons one being that I have 30+ 2.4Ghz SSIDs that I can pick up as well as multiple 5 Ghz signals.

 

[HokieAl]

I use my FIOS modem with two ASUS N66s double NATed behind the Actiontec router.

Are they near each other? My Actiontec is right next to the Asus, and if I turn on wifi on the Actiontec, I see drastic speed reductions on the Asus, even when they are on different channels, eg. 1 and 11. Must be due to interference even though they are not on the same frequency.

 

[thecavemankevin]

I use my FIOS modem with two ASUS N66s double NATed behind the Actiontec router. One is connected by MOCA and the other by Ethernet to the FIOS Actiontec router. This setup does not cause me any problems and I get my full 75/35 speed when connected to either ASUS using Ethernet.

Hi Captain, What is MOCA? Also, are your running asus firmware or a custom release?

 

[HokieAl]

Verizon FIOS uses MOCA in the house. It's running the ethernet between the cable boxes over your coax cable rather than an ethernet cable. So it uses the existing coax as a network cable. And the video also goes over that same coax.

 

[CaptainSTX]

Hi Captain, What is MOCA? Also, are your running asus firmware or a custom release?

I am running a Tomato variant on one ASUS and Merlin's modified firwmare on the other.

Each of the ASUS are in different rooms, but the one running Merlin's firmware is less than two feet from the Actiontec primary router.

I have no problems and can get download speeds of 25 - 35 Mbps on all 2.4 Ghz radios and 50 - 65 Mbps on the 5 Ghz radios. To get my full 75/35 I use Ethernet connections where possible.

 

[Poseidon]

The RT-AC68's are definitely "hit or miss." I purchased the "R" version (mfr date 2013) from BB and every 18-20 hours it required a reboot due to super-slow speeds and "latency failed" messages when running speed tests. I tried BOTH factory firmware and Merlin's firmware to no avail.

I took it back and purchased the "U" version (with mfr date of 2014) and it's been running steadily for the past 48 hours.

Maybe Asus tweaked something internally w/ the 2014 production date versions that we don't know about (hence why BB recently listed the AC68R for $100 under retail - to clear out buggy/defective products)?

Either way if anyone is going to purchase this router moving forward, I would look at the mfr date on the UPC label on the box and confirm that it was made this year.

 

[thecavemankevin]

After turning of the wifi on the actiontec and rebooting it (haven't reset it just yet as I have a lot of port forwards and such).

However, it has been running much better. I'm thinking I will still try either Merlin's or DDWRT on it sometime soon. Once you flash a custom firmware, can you go back to Asus firmware?

 

[KGB7]

Once you flash a custom firmware, can you go back to Asus firmware?

Yes you can.

 

[italyguy01]

I have tried all the firmwares. Go to DDWRT - You won't be sorry. I have switched months ago and have been pleased ever since!