Did I pick a rubbish model?

[Nogi]

After reading these forums I don't see many people discussing the RT-N65U

The N66U seems to be the fav, guessing its a newer model?

A lot of features of this model like the FTP server and AiDisk I have struggled to get to work properly and to be fair ASUS as a router im debating on whether it was a good choice no matter how impressed I was after getting away from the dreaded BTHomeHub.

Always had Netgear routers before, not convinced with the model I chose so far.

Anyones thoughts on this model and ASUS in general and where they stand in the market as a whole?

 

[L&LD]

I would agree that the RT-N66U is the better model - it is newer, more powerful, supported by RMerlin's firmware and has external antenna, better radios and a better processor that gives it an obvious edge in range and throughput.

That is not to say that the RT-N65U is bad - but for the best (raw) performance you may want to try Padavan's custom firmware on it.

http://code.google.com/p/rt-n56u/


Though I don't think it supports the Asus specific features you seem to want.



The RT-N56U and the RT-N65U don't get too much attention around here because they are not supported (different SoC's) by RMerlin.

Depending on the use required though, they may be perfect for one's needs.


If you have upgraded to the latest firmware available you may want to do a reset to defaults (from the web gui), power cycle the router manually, enter any required settings manually and finally 'forget' the ssid's you have setup from each client device and re-associate the clients again.

This will give you the best position to judge the router fairly from.

 

[Guz]

I went from the 56 to the 65. The 65 is an awesome router. But I would highly recommend that you change the firmware to Padavans (http://code.google.com/p/rt-n56u/)

 

[RogerSC]

RT-N65U is newer than RT-N66U, and has USB 3.0 ports instead of USB 2.0 ports that the RT-N66U has. However, the RT-N65U has the RT-N56U form factor, with internal antennas. It's an N-750 router (300Mbps on 2.4, 450Mbps on 5GHz.), whereas the RT-N56U is N-300, and the RT-N66U is N-900.

 

[L&LD]

RT-N65U is newer than RT-N66U, and has USB 3.0 ports instead of USB 2.0 ports that the RT-N66U has. However, the RT-N65U has the RT-N56U form factor, with internal antennas. It's an N-750 router (300Mbps on 2.4, 450Mbps on 5GHz.), whereas the RT-N56U is N-300, and the RT-N66U is N-900.

Thanks for correcting me! The RT-N65U is newer.

But, without support from RMerlin, the RT-N66U is better.

 

[RogerSC]

Thanks for correcting me! The RT-N65U is newer.

But, without support from RMerlin, the RT-N66U is better.

The RT-N65U does have support from Padavan, let's not forget that. He did a great job supporting the RT-N56U first, then added support for the RT-N65U. I remember when I first used the RT-N56U, the Asus firmware was pretty primitive and very buggy...Padavan's efforts fixed lots of bugs and cleaned up the GUI a lot, and made the RT-N56U a much more usable router. His firmware was first to support IPv6 and a guest network on the RT-N56U. Asus still doesn't have, and don't seem motivated to add a guest network. And so on.

On the other hand, RMerlin has done a lot for the RT-N66U, and the follow-ons to that series as well. I didn't enjoy using the Asus firmware before RMerlin, too much missing functionality (like IPv6 without the IPv6 firewall) and too many bugs.

I know that you were joking, but it reminded me of Padavan and the great job that he's done with other Asus routers, such as the RT-N65U.

 

[L&LD]

I stand corrected once more. I too used Padavan's firmware on an RT-N56U and I agree the improvement over stock Asus was great.

Comparing the two Ralink based routers in Router Charts, the RT-N56U is still the better one in my uses, overall.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwan/router-charts/bar/76-total-simul


Are there any benchmarks done with Padavan's firmware compared to the latest Asus stock firmware? I'd be interested to see if those parameters changed (and especially interested if the RT-N65U closed the gap to it's N600 model in the wired tests).