informed decision

[Angelus]

good day all

abit of a back story ... the people in my house has grown along with the amount of devices connecting to my network and using my adsl. i have been keeping a close eye on my adsl usage and it has become clear to me that i need to start managing the devices on my network. so in short iam looking for a router that will allow me to manage and set limits to certain devices.

while at the store i went ahead and bought an asus rt-1200g+ which i found that allows for traffic monitoring but not more then that. then i went and started googling and i kept seeing screenshots of firmware and it had exactly what i was looking for and then after another google it was actually merlin firmware that i saw. so i have taken that router back to the store for a refund and now iam reading up on the routers that are available in my country that i can flash with merlin firmware

while i had that 1200g+ the cpu was hardly reaching 10% usage but that ram quickly went to 50% usage and that scares me really. and hence the reason for my post here.

the routers that are currently available in my country are:

ASUS RT-AC5300 Tri-Band Gigabit Wi-Fi Gaming Router

ASUS RT-AC86U AC2900 Dual-Band Wi-Fi Gigabit Fibre-Ready Gaming Router

ASUS RT-AC88U AC3100 Dual-Band Wi-Fi Gigabit Fibre-Ready Gaming Router

ASUS RT-AC87U AC2400 Dual-Band Wi-Fi Gigabit Fibre-Ready Router

Asus RT-AC66U AC1750 Dual Band Wireless Fibre-ready Router

ASUS RT-AC68U AC1900 Dual-Band Wi-Fi Gigabit Fibre-Ready Router
​

currently my setup is 2 x netgear dgn2200v4 devices and also a netgear ex3700. the one dgn2200 serves as a modem and router , the other is a ap wired and wireless and the ex3700 is an ap for wireless in the main room of the house. at the moment the most devises i counted is about 18 connected at one time o_0

my adsl is a 10meg adsl line but i will use my netgear as the modem and one of the above asus devices as a router.

i have done some web research and reading but in terms of a decision i can only choose based on cpu/ram numbers and then pricing really, going more technical i get abit lost so i just looking for some input from the more knowledgeable regarding routers

 

[coxhaus]

Rather than dealing with traffic management it would be easier to buy a faster internet pipe. If you really want to dive into traffic management then pfsense has the best I have seen.

If you are only interested in ASUS then post in their forum you will get better answers.

10 meg is not fast enough for todays' use. Maybe email and web browsing. Streaming will kill it.
There is no magic to dealing with a overloaded circuit.

 

[RMerlin]

If you are only interested in ASUS then post in their forum you will get better answers.

I moved his post here because getting buying advice makes more sense in this forum IMHO.

 

[Angelus]

I moved his post here because getting buying advice makes more sense in this forum IMHO.

Great thank you very much ... I honestly didn’t see this section ...

 

[jass]

I would have chosen either the old star RT-AC88U or the RT-AC5300 mostly due to the specifications and the amount of onboard RAM, and personal experience.

Both of these routers have been on the market for quite some time now, but still works wonder managing traffic and security on lines between 1-100 mbit/s (I say this because if you plan to utilize all the great features which are offered like traffic managing and or monitoring and the Trend security features, it max out around a 100 mbit/s. I also believe it still will be supported for quite some time, but you never know when a corporate decision will retire this grand old ladys.

In my opinion the far best and most easy way manage a network is to use limiters on the whole network segment, which in your case would give 1 computer 10 mbits if thats the only one using bandwith, or 5 each if 2 computers are using bandwith at the same time and so on.

Also be aware that Asus has testet the fans patience for quite a while now, but the latest stock fw 384.45713 seems to finally sort out most of the problems which has persisted for quite some time now.

Best of luck


Edit:

I assume this is a private household network, and if there was an easy/affordable way to get more bandwidth you'd already have done that. I also believe it's more than possible to get this home network running fairly smooth by managing the network as I suggested. And yes if 18 clients are streaming/downloading exactly the same time your network will be slow, but in my experience that's seldom the case. So here we are talking about getting the most out of what we have of bandwidth, which is the case in almost every network.

With my suggestion you will get rid of bufferbloat and bandwidth hogs, and everyone will get either a fair share of it if the bandwidth already maxed out, or at least a necessary piece of it if thats all that's is required. It will allow one client 10 mbits even though there are 18 connected, but not downloading exactly this moment, and it will give everybody a fair share if everybody wants more than they can have at the exactly same time, due to the limitations of the line. This way you will be able to get the absolute most out of your lines capacity.

I am pretty sure it will be a pretty different network experience for you. Asus offer this in a very simple setup, message me if you need more help setting this up.

 

[thiggins]

Bandwidth throttling can have negative unintended consequences. Watch this explanation. As others have suggested, sometimes you just need a bigger pipe.

 

[Angelus]

I would have chosen either the old star RT-AC88U or the "newer" RT-AC5300 mostly due to the specifications and the amount of onboard RAM, and personal experience.

The AC88 is quite an old lady, but still works wonder managing traffic and security on lines between 1-100 mbit/s (I say this because if you plan to utilize all the great features which are offered like traffic managing and or monitoring and the Trend security features, it max out around a 100 mbit/s, while the RT-5300 can do about 180 mbit/s with the same features enabled). I also believe it still will be supported for quite some time, but you never know when a corporate decision will retire this grand old lady.

In my opinion the far best and most easy way manage a network is to use limiters on the whole network segment, which in your case would give 1 computer 10 mbits if thats the only one using bandwith, or 5 each if 2 computers are using bandwith at the same time and so on.

Also be aware that Asus has testet the fans patience for quite a while now, but the latest stock fw 384.45713 seems to finally sort out most of the problems which has persisted for quite some time now.

Best of luck

Hi there thank you for the reply

Yes I agree with u there, I think perhaps I will aim for a model that has 512mb ram, I think that should be sufficient. Quite like the looks of the 5300 tho as well hehe.

I don’t know or how to tell which router is newer then the next , I can’t seem to find info on release dates and things.

 

[Angelus]

Bandwidth throttling can have negative unintended consequences. Watch this explanation. As others have suggested, sometimes you just need a bigger pipe.

Cool thanks nice vid there
Yes I have seen a few mentions of getting unintended results , I not sure what to do about it really. Haven’t thought that far.

 

[RMerlin]

either the old star RT-AC88U or the "newer" RT-AC5300

They're both the exact same generation, with the same hardware, except the AC5300 has a second 5 GHz radio.

 

[L&LD]

Hi there thank you for the reply

Yes I agree with u there, I think perhaps I will aim for a model that has 512mb ram, I think that should be sufficient. Quite like the looks of the 5300 tho as well hehe.

I don’t know or how to tell which router is newer then the next , I can’t seem to find info on release dates and things.

Newer/older doesn't matter too much. The capabilities do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Asus_routers

The link above is a good start. To know what is 'newer', just search for a review of the models you're interested in. Usually, in the first paragraph or two, the 'introduction date' of that model will be stated.

 

[jass]

They're both the exact same generation, with the same hardware, except the AC5300 has a second 5 GHz radio.

Then I apologize. My mistake, I seemed to remember the rt-ac5300 was a little bit "newer", but I don't argue with you. Also saw that I had mistaken the maxed out speed/cpu (with everything enabled) with the GT-AC5300 and not the RT-AC5300, which I then assume is almost the same as RT-AC88U based on what you say.

I had one for a couple of months years ago, but sold it and replaced it with yet another RT-AC88U because of the 88u's wallmount capabilities and I also thought the rt-ac5300 looked a bit to agressive… I still love my rt-ac88u's, prefererly with your firmware!

Later on I have bought a couple of GT-AC5300 because of the hardware spec, but sadly realized a little bit to late that this was one of the few models you didn't support.

Thanks for making super firmware, kudos!

 

[RMerlin]

Then I apologize. My mistake, I seemed to remember the rt-ac5300 was a little bit "newer", but I don't argue with you. Also saw that I had mistaken the maxed out speed/cpu (with everything enabled) with the GT-AC5300 and not the RT-AC5300, which I then assume is almost the same as RT-AC88U based on what you say.

Just to clarify things. Using arbitrary generation numbers here, just to show how they are grouped tech-wise:

Gen1:
RT-AC56U
RT-AC68U

Gen 1.5 (it's a hybrid - same CPU as Gen1, but newer radio)
RT-AC3200

Gen 2
RT-AC88U
RT-AC3100
RT-AC5300

Gen 3:
RT-AC86U
GT-AC5300
GT-AC2900

Gen 4:
RT-AX88U
GT-AX11000

 

[Angelus]

They're both the exact same generation, with the same hardware, except the AC5300 has a second 5 GHz radio.

Ok if that is the difference between the two then maybe the 5300 isn’t for me coz I just disable the 5ghz anyway. Don’t know why but we did try it and yeah didn’t really notice much difference to things. Also thank you for Merlin I want it so much I want to new router hehehehe

Newer/older doesn't matter too much. The capabilities do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Asus_routers

The link above is a good start. To know what is 'newer', just search for a review of lthe models you're interested in. Usually, in the first paragraph or two, the 'introduction date' of that model will be stated.

Hi there
Yes I found that link and is quite helpful. Yes I will try your idea I didn’t actually think of doing that besides reading the reviews. It abit hard to go by date where Iam or just to walk in the shop thinking that what is in the shelf is new as Iam seeing that what is on shelf or what seems cheaper or perhaps even has this or that isn’t what it seems at all , lol if that makes sense

Just to clarify things. Using arbitrary generation numbers here, just to show how they are grouped tech-wise:

Gen1:
RT-AC56U
RT-AC68U

Gen 1.5 (it's a hybrid - same CPU as Gen1, but newer radio)
RT-AC3200

Gen 2
RT-AC88U
RT-AC3100
RT-AC5300

Gen 3:
RT-AC86U
GT-AC5300

Gen 4:
RT-AX88U
GT-AC2900
GT-AX11000

Lol u make it seem so easy to just type all that just like that lol

I even started making a chart to try and come up with some way to make comparisons in hope that it would help me make a decision

Edit:
Had a quick look and there is an unboxed sale at the moment at the online store that I use, for the gt-ac5300 and Iam tempted coz the new still boxed price is abit more then I want to spend. Iam just throwing the idea around still coz I mean it would mean Iam getting perhaps something better for less of a price coz maybe the box is damaged or something rather then paying the new price or a lesser model. Don’t know if that makes sense

Edit 2 :

There must be an easier way to make a decision on a router. How do other people do it. I mean do u look at what u currently have and go from there ? Or do u look at what is available and then go from there?

So far I went ok I was an ASUS and then I was like ok where all the device traffic counting/monitoring coming from and hey presto found Merlin so now I want a router that is comparable with Merlin , in the hope it will be supported for a long time allowing updates and things so I made a list that was available on the online store in hope to choose from there. How can I help you help me here? Shall I list all the ASUS routers that are on the online store and remove the ones that do not work with Merlin firmware and then go for those and possibilities and then we can scrutinize the hardware and features ect.

 

[RMerlin]

There must be an easier way to make a decision on a router. How do other people do it. I mean do u look at what u currently have and go from there ? Or do u look at what is available and then go from there?

Start by evaluating your needs. Then, setup a budget, look at the options that suits your needs within that budget.

For instance, no point in considering a tri-band router if you don't have a lot of high throughput clients., or a *LOT* of IoT clients.

Shall I list all the ASUS routers that are on the online store and remove the ones that do not work with Merlin firmware and then go for those and possibilities and then we can scrutinize the hardware and features ect.

One "good" thing with the Asus routers is that the features are quite similar among them. The only large differences are the models that are tri-band, and the GT- series that offer more gamer-oriented eye candy.

If Asuswrt-Merlin is one of your requirements, then here's the list of currently supported models:

https://asuswrt.lostrealm.ca/about