Inconsistant Ping / Slowdown after 'x' hours

[packetdog]

Hello folks,

I've had the RT-N56U for approximately 2 months now, and it's been a little troublesome. I'm using it as a 2.4GHz access point only. At first running the latest stock firmware (1.0.8.6i I think) the unit would choke wireless connections down to unusability in about 24-48 hours. By day 3-4 without a restart it was really bad.

Then I tried one of Padavan's recent builds (I believe 025) and found similar wireless slowdowns. I tested pings from wireless clients to wired internal machines- very high -and- very erratic. I then pinged my network enabled receiver which is wired connected to the RT-N56U and this was a solid and consistent <1ms. I pinged other machines that were wired and they all were less than 1ms. Overall this firmware had the latency issues, but the ~24-48hour slow down was not as dramatic. By day 3-4 if I did unplug/replug I found it was very fast again, so obviously something going on.

I jumped to the latest Asus Official Firmware 3.0.0.4.260 and found it to be worse. Higher and more inconsistent pings. Pretty much garbage all around. Consistently unusable at the ~12-24 hour mark.

So last night I flashed back to Padavan's v026. My pings are still inconsistent. I understand how wireless technology works, and sometimes there is latency. On previous routers I would still have 99% of pings stick at 1 specific timing to internal IPs.

So, I guess what I'm wondering, especially in relation to the 24-48 hour slow downs is: Do I have hardware? Should I be pursuing getting a replacement from ASUS?

 

[packetdog]

Just wanted to provide an example of what's going on. I hard-reset (unplugged/replugged) the RT-N56U this morning after having some decent latency, and thought I would ping a wired computer from my laptop. Can anyone tell me if this is software or a bad unit? Here's what it does:

 

[wanttotree]

did u mean hard reset unplug/replug by putting it into rescue mode and restore using the rescue utility? i used to have high pings before, and what i did was restore firmware to default settings, put it into rescue mode, restore using rescue utility(using new firmware), clear browser cache/cookie, restart browser, restore to default settings, reconfigure everything. superfast stable result with latest padavan build. hope it helps

 

[packetdog]

did u mean hard reset unplug/replug by putting it into rescue mode and restore using the rescue utility? i used to have high pings before, and what i did was restore firmware to default settings, put it into rescue mode, restore using rescue utility(using new firmware), clear browser cache/cookie, restart browser, restore to default settings, reconfigure everything. superfast stable result with latest padavan build. hope it helps

Thanks for the reply! Do we know the source of why that works? Is it something like the firmware flashing isn't totally clearing the NVRAM or something when flashing via the web interface? Also, can you walk me through, or link me to the process for Rescue mode? I'll give it a go. I think I have the remote flashing utility installed on my machine but I've just uploaded the firmware files via the web interface on a wired machine and it seems to take. I did try doing the hard reset and 30/30/30 reset with the unit's switch, but that didn't help. Also I'm manually re-configuring the unit from scratch each time, not importing a config file.

 

[wanttotree]

Yup, its a known bug. btw, u can simply install the rescue utility. then do the restore using ethernet cable(wireless dont work in rescue mode). u will put it in rescue mode by turning it off, then hold the reset button, then power on, until u see power led blinking. then u can run rescue utility and choose the padavan's firmware and upload. after the firmware is installed, make sure to power cycle, its it does make a difference on padavan's firmware. so turn the power off about 15secs, then you're good to go! hope it helps

links;

utility: http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/wireless/RT-N56U/UT_RT_N56U_4272.zip

padavan's latest : http://rt-n56u.googlecode.com/files/RT-N56U_3.0.3.1-027_full.zip

stable beta(better than latest asus') : https://www.dropbox.com/s/gb858i7r6kmd4nn/RT-N56U_3.0.0.4_206.trx

 

[packetdog]

So, I'm working on flashing that right now... in the process I downloaded the flashing utility on my wireless laptop, and then I was copying it to my wired machine to complete the flash. It's an extracted 29MB, here's what I got since the router has been on for a few days:

Here's to hoping..

 

[packetdog]

Yup, its a known bug. btw, u can simply install the rescue utility. then do the restore using ethernet cable(wireless dont work in rescue mode). u will put it in rescue mode by turning it off, then hold the reset button, then power on, until u see power led blinking. then u can run rescue utility and choose the padavan's firmware and upload. after the firmware is installed, make sure to power cycle, its it does make a difference on padavan's firmware. so turn the power off about 15secs, then you're good to go! hope it helps

So, I disconnected the other Ethernet cables so only the wired computer was connected. Held the reset button/powered on. Got the blinking Power LED. Flashed the 027 firmware using the Recovery utility. Completion bar did a slow tick up to 100%. At about the 50% mark the router turned back on and started broadcasting again. I allowed the completion bar to get to 100%, and power-cycled the unit. I was kind of surprised to find that my settings remained? I definitely went from 026 to 027, but my SSID, etc are all still in there? So I'll run this and see what I get and report back in a few days. Thanks again for the help.

 

[packetdog]

So it would seem that didn't resolve the issue. Even though I'm not experiencing any overall slowdown yet, I wasn't able to login to an SSH session initially, and when retrying it worked. I thought I'd retry my ping test.. Gah! Am I dealing with bad hardware here do you think?

 

[wanttotree]

After the restore, u should hard reset it. Hold reset for 6secs, the power led will blink. Let it run for a few mins then power cycle. You should see a fresh firmware. =)
P/s: unplug all hdd while doing all these(when replugging all hdd, its best to run it fresh too, i recommend formating it to yr prefered format. Dont forget to clear cache and cookie on yr browser before starting all proccess) =) good luck!

 

[packetdog]

After the restore, u should hard reset it. Hold reset for 6secs, the power led will blink. Let it run for a few mins then power cycle. You should see a fresh firmware. =)
P/s: unplug all hdd while doing all these(when replugging all hdd, its best to run it fresh too, i recommend formating it to yr prefered format. Dont forget to clear cache and cookie on yr browser before starting all proccess) =) good luck!

Sorry if I'm dense.. so can I just hard reset it now to correct this? If I understand you correctly:
1. Disconnect everything but the Ethernet cable to the wired computer.
2. Unplug unit- press and hold reset while powering on (approx. 5secs) for recovery mode.
3. Use ASUS Firmware Restore Utility to restore firmware.
4. Press reset button on router. Wait 60 seconds.
5. Power cycle.

Is that correct?

 

[wanttotree]

Yes correct. Good luck!

 

[wanttotree]

hey, i found out another solution on padavan's firmware.
flash the firmware using any official asus firmware, then re-flash it with your preferred padavan's firmware. restore to default before each flash, power cycle at the end. You can do all this through firmware update on the webgui. hope this helps.

 

[packetdog]

hey, i found out another solution on padavan's firmware.
flash the firmware using any official asus firmware, then re-flash it with your preferred padavan's firmware. restore to default before each flash, power cycle at the end. You can do all this through firmware update on the webgui. hope this helps.

Just to respond- I never got this fixed. I did the slow firmware update using the utility, resetting before and after. At one point earlier on in this I did flash official firmware to determine if the issue was related to that. I found the official firmware to be worse/slower.. I wonder if I might have a bad unit?

 

[wanttotree]

wow.. thats bad.. in that case, u might. i hate to hear that man. Maybe u can exchange that for a new one, i hope it still under warranty.