Big WiFi issue with latest firmware

[Le_Sage]

Hi everyone,
I’ve been running some new tests with the latest 102.6 firmware, and I think I’ve found the issue:

Wi-Fi now only works properly when the transmit power mode is set to “Performance”.

Let me explain: for the past two days I gave the latest Merlin firmware another try, and I set both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands of my RT-BE88U to Performance mode. Since then, I haven’t had a single disconnection.
But with firmware 102.4 and earlier, I could use any power mode and everything worked fine. I always used “Balanced”, “Fair”, or even sometimes “Power Saving”, and that was more than enough for me! Like I mentioned before, I even felt that using lower transmit power inside the house created “less interference and a cleaner signal”, and the Wi-Fi coverage was great throughout the house (150 m²).

But here’s the worst part with 102.5 and 102.6: whenever I choose anything other than “Performance”, not only does the Wi-Fi become unstable and disconnect all my devices within 2 hours max, but after that it becomes impossible to reconnect to the Wi-Fi unless I change a setting on the router to “reset” the connection!

So I just want to ask you all:
Have you noticed the same behavior?
Are you always using Performance mode and didn’t notice anything unusual?
Is this something that only happens on the RT-BE88U?
Or even worse, could it be happening only on my router, meaning it might be defective?

 

[Ripshod]

I've always used the 'Balanced' setting without any issues. I live in a flat (apartment) and don't need any more.

 

[Tech9]

or even sometimes “Power Saving”

Not sure about your specific model router, but on many ASUS routers Power Saving setting does more than reducing the Tx power to minimum. It also limits the radio to single stream. Otherwise your observations about lower Tx power resulting in less interference and more stable Wi-Fi are correct.