Eusriso's RT-AC3200 review

[eusriso]

I intend this thread to be an ongoing review of the RT-AC3200 router and my experience with it.

 

[eusriso]

Background

A little about me and why I chose the RT-AC3200.

I am an IT Program Manager for a manufacturing company. While networking is not my specialty I do understand the concepts and basics of networking.

The RT-AC3200 will be used in my home which is a 3600 square foot ranch with an additional 1500 square foot basement.

I have 6 people total in my family with a lot of networked devices. My network and devices consists of:

An Arris Docsis 3 Cable Modem, 1 16 port managed switche, 2 5 port managed switches, 3 laptop computers, 4 tablets, 5 regular use computers, 3 used for testing, 2 Xboxes (one and 360), Nintendo DS XL, a Verizon Cell Network Extender, 2 Nokia 928 phones, 1 Motorola X, 1 Htc M8, and some other misc networked equipment. A Roku is in the works. My ISP is Shentel a regional cable company in Virginia/west Virginia.

Over the years I have used Netgear and DLink Router. I am coming from an Asus RT-N56U which was a workhorse.

The reason I went with the Asus RT-Ac3200 -

1. Asus has updated the firmware consistently for almost 4 years on my RT-N56U. Netgear and D-Link do not do that.

2. I was sold on the D-Link 890L until I found out it did not have detachable antennas. That was the one flaw in the RT-N56. Also the bright red was turn off and the firmware was not as feature rich as the Asus firmware.

3. The Netgear R8000 was a no go because I wanted the Smart Connect to work with all 3 radio bands not 2.

4. Linksys had internal 5ghz antennas and I don't buy Linksys due to low quality reputation.

With all that being said I was excited to buy the RT-AC3200 as it is a new toy - I will not buy another router for another 3 to 4 years. - Next day 1.

 

[eusriso]

Day 1 Summary

So I unboxed my Rt-Ac3200. It was well packed with all the things you would expect - router, power supply, network cable, etc.

The router is not as large as I expected but it is still large. I have not learned the layout/use of all the buttons so no opinion yet on that. I have my router laying flat on a shelf (the way it is intended). The lights on the router are impossible to use this way and make them worthless. I am not sure if it would work better mounted on a wall, something that I will investigate later.

The antennas screw on. They are not super loose like I have seen on some routers but they do not stay in position as well as I would like. You are supposed to have them angled in a certain way per the manual. I do not like that and have ordered a 3ft cable/base extender for each antenna and will use that to put the antennas further apart on a shelf above the router. I also ordered 5db/7db antennas.

I moved all the cables to the Rt-Ac3200 from the Rt-N56U and powered her up. The firmware was similar to the Rt-N56U with the addition of the smart connect functions and some new functionality like dual wan support and AI protection.

I configured the DHCP the way I wanted it, enabled the AI Protection and left everything else alone. I checked a few of my network devices - everything worked fine so I went back to work (when I am not traveling I work from home).

After about 1 1/2 hours my laptop disconnected from wireless and would not reconnect. same problem with my Motorola X phone. So I thought he we go I am going to have the same issues that many reviewers have experienced with disconnects and being unable to reconnect.

So I went to the Asus web site and download the latest firmware - 3.0.0.4.378_4129 released on February 6th. After installing the latest firmware I have had zero disconnects. No complaints from the wife, the kids - my son who is a teenager and avid gamer lets me know immediately if the network is laggy or having issues. Not a peep. They don't know I changed the router . From my perspective day 1 the disconnect issues experienced by many reviewers is fixed. It is worth noting that the official review on this site used firmware 3.0.0.4.378_4120 not the latest, 3.0.0.4.378_4129 which may be the reason for the fixed connection issue.

The other things to note from day 1 is that we had the two Xboxes playing and the router could handle the NAT of both consoles at the same time. I had to turn off the AI Protection, I tried to download ImgBurn from 4 different sites and all 4 sites were blocked as potential sites to distribute malware by AI. These are well known sites ........ I will revisit AI Protection at a later time.

Tomorrow I will check the signal strength and the device connection speeds at different points in my house. More to come ....

 

[eusriso]

3rd Day with router

I am in my 3rd day with the RT-AC3200. Work and family have kept me busy but so far zero disconnects after the firmware upgrade.

I did an unscientific study taking my Motorola X phone 1st gen around my house and testing speed and watching the signal bars. I got 5 bars throughout my house. I have the Motorola X WiFi is set to auto meaning it should automatically connect to 2.4 or 5 ghz band wireless. On auto it always connects at 2.4 ghz and at a 12 meg connection - no matter where I am in the house. This is not good. Setting it to 5ghz only the worst I got was a 87 meg connection and the best was a 522 meg connection. I am unsure if the router or the phone is at fault for the low 2.4 ghz speed and for not auto switching.

I tried the same test with an Insignia Tablet that is 2.4 ghz only and got a constant 72 meg connection throughout the house.

My next test will be with my Dell Laptop, it is one month old and has an Intel 7260 wireless nic in it.

 

[Enzo]

Would be interested to here you thoughts/experience on media sharing via Samba.

 

[eusriso]

So I am delayed updating but here is the latest. Some things have changed since my last update - a new firmware release and I received 5DBI/7DBI dual band antennas that I ordered.

I tried the router with the new firmware with 2 android tablets, 2 windows laptops and an android phone. With the new firmware I seemed to get slightly higher connection rates. I saw no other changes. The android phones/tablets all connect at a much slower rate than they should - sitting next to the router I will get rates as slow as 20 meg with frequency set to auto. If set to 5ghz only then I will get max speed.

The Dell Laptop with the AC7260 wireless nic got 250 meg connection through 3 thick walls, 35 feet away from the router. The connection does fluctuate, between 130 and 250 meg connection. The signal strength fluctuates but is usually 3 to 4 bars. This is the worst location in my house on the ground floor.

The second older Dell Laptop with a 6250N Intel Wireless nic got 5 bars throughout the house and usually stayed between 80 and 130 meg connection.

With the new antennas I saw the speed increase on the AC7260 to 350 meg where I was getting 250 meg. No change on the android tablets/phones when set to auto.

I turned on the AI Protection again. Supposedly it will alert you if you issues by e-mail. I wish there was a way to test this. I have had no problems with the AI Protection now since the initial issue of some download sites being blocked.

I am a PC gamer and did a very basic test. I pinged a game server I have hosted through a dedicated hosting company, then tried the same test with my PC in the DMZ zone. The ping dropped by about 5ms to the server from the DMZ zone. I don't remember any change in ping response on my RT-N56u with DMMZ on or off. This is not a big deal but interesting to me.

I love the adaptive QOS and traffic monitoring features. QOS easy to setup. My ISP is implementing data caps in May so the QOS/parental controls/traffic monitoring will all come in handy.

I have not tried any of the USB features yet. That is next. Also I will test in my basement.

My initial impression of the router is this - It does what I want but is lacking in one area. The range is outstanding, better than my RT-N56u and throughput/connect speed is higher. I wanted one SSID - I do not want to have to map devices to different SSID's based off of frequency and this router does that. What is lacking is that it does not always give me the best throughput/connection speed I think is available. If I manually play with the device/router I can get significantly better connection speed then what the auto settings is giving me. I wanted the plug play and forget experience with clients automatically taking advantage of the speed/power of the router. The auto part is there it is just not maximizing the speed/power of the router.

Also to reiterate I have had zero issues with wireless disconnects. I have had to reset my router once after my cable modem went offline.

One additional item about buying better antennas. I assumed buying higher dbi antennas increases range. It does increase range but narrows coverage. I could see no decrease in coverage and with 6 antennas this seems some what hard to believe your coverage will decrease. The manual shows 3 of the antennas being 5 ghz and 3 being dual band at 2.4/5 ghz. This is confusing to me as I assumed it would have dedicated 2.4 ghz antennas and then antennas assigned to each of the two 5ghz radios. I cannot tell from the manual how the antennas are assigned to each radio... At the end of the day the higher dbi dual band antennas seemed to give me a performace boost.

 

[L&LD]

eusriso,

I don't think that is how the antennae are arranged. I would guess they are 3 antennae are for dual band use (2.4GHz and 5GHz) and the high performance 5GHz radio is using 3 dedicated antennae for itself.

The narrower coverage is always to be expected with higher dBi antennae; no matter how many antennae are used.

Using anything in Auto is for technophobes. Using one ssid and expecting the highest performance is also beyond the capabilities of todays consumer routers.

The setup and day to day use of a network is something we do / learn once. Afterwards, it doesn't enter into most peoples conscious thoughts (eg. one ssid vs. two or more). It is just something that needs to be done, 'here'.

When that setup is geared for best network performance, the other issues become minor, if they register at all.

Thank you for sharing your experience. These 3 band routers are looking like a viable solution to some of my customers.

 

[eusriso]

eusriso,

I don't think that is how the antennae are arranged. I would guess they are 3 antennae are for dual band use (2.4GHz and 5GHz) and the high performance 5GHz radio is using 3 dedicated antennae for itself.

The narrower coverage is always to be expected with higher dBi antennae; no matter how many antennae are used.

Using anything in Auto is for technophobes. Using one ssid and expecting the highest performance is also beyond the capabilities of todays consumer routers.

The setup and day to day use of a network is something we do / learn once. Afterwards, it doesn't enter into most peoples conscious thoughts (eg. one ssid vs. two or more). It is just something that needs to be done, 'here'.

When that setup is geared for best network performance, the other issues become minor, if they register at all.

Thank you for sharing your experience. These 3 band routers are looking like a viable solution to some of my customers.

----------------
I don't mind configuring the router but what I wanted was all the clients to automatically go to the best band/radio at the highest speed without having to manually touch each client ..... . I can not expect my wife or kids to manually switch between 2.4 ghz and 5 ghz settings on there devices, let alone friends who come over.

 

[eusriso]

I did a signal strength test using my Android phone and Netgear WiFi Analytics around my house and property. My house sits on a hilly 5 acre lot, centered to the back left corner. Walking around the property edges I never got less then a 24% signal and in most places 40% or better on the 2.4 ghz band. The 5Ghz coverage was spotty outside of the house depending on location but walking around the outside perimeter of my house I never got less than 50% signal.

I did run into one problem with the AI Protection - I play an older online GFWL game that started experiencing disconnects (game only - not the network connection). Turning off AI protection seems to have fixed the issue. The game uses UDP for data transmission.