Issue with my Asus RT-AC66U with Merlin 374.43

[pplante19]

Hi everyone. I have an issue with my router, the Asus RT-AC66U that runs under Merlin's firmware 374.43

It reboots 'randomly' without warning here and there. I can be ok for days and then it starts rebooting every 15 minutes or so, it seems periodic. I have nothing special configured on my router, no VPN, firewall is on, no guest WiFi, only 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz.

I have 4 kids at home and I have many devices myself. All in all, the router can count about 30 connections if not 35 at times. Is that too much? You can count many wireless devices like laptops, cellphones, XBOX, PS3, tablets, etc. Is that too much for that router? Hope not, I thought this was a 'premium' router that could handle many connections.

I was ok the last 8 days then yesteday I opened up my Chromecast and started listening to a documentary (45 minutes), it dropped 3 times in that 45 minutes. Then I finished my doc and unplugged my Chromecast and it crashed 2 more times and now it's 10:30 AM ET (-0500) and it haven't crashed in the last 9 hours.

Should I completely get rid on my current config, reload vanilla Merlin 374.43 and then configured it again (I only have a few port forwards for FTP purposes, open ports for some kid games and Plex for remote play and some static IP for some systems)?

Should I get the stock firmware instead of Merlin? Is there a place I can see what is happening before it shuts down?

What can I do to further investigate what's happening?

I've seen after searching on the web that modem could 'crash' my router, could it be? I've swapped modems with my dad and the problem remains.

I also read that RT-AC66U have reliability issues when using something else than 192.168.1.1 (I'm using 192.168.5.1), someone heard that before?

Thanks a lot for your help in advance and feel free to ask questions.

 

[RMerlin]

Try disabling HW acceleration under LAN -> Switch Control.

If it still reboots, do a factory default reset, then manually reconfigure the router. Don't restore a saved backup, it would only reapply the same potentially corrupted settings.

There's no need to reflash the firmware.

 

[pplante19]

Try disabling HW acceleration under LAN -> Switch Control.

If it still reboots, do a factory default reset, then manually reconfigure the router. Don't restore a saved backup, it would only reapply the same potentially corrupted settings.

There's no need to reflash the firmware.

Thanks for your input. When I try to go to LAN > Switch Control, the only thing I see is this;

Enable Jumbo Frames (Disable)
NAT Acceleration (Enable)
Spanning-Tree Protocol (Enable)

I don't see 'HW Acceleration', can it be somewhere else?

Ho, just found it under 'Tools > Sysinfo', it says this;

Network | HW acceleration : Disabled - Incompatible with: IPTraffic

Thanks

 

[pplante19]

Also, I have enabled remote management over the web, is that a good idea or I should shut this down?

 

[KGB7]

Thanks for your input. When I try to go to LAN > Switch Control, the only thing I see is this;

Enable Jumbo Frames (Disable)
NAT Acceleration (Enable)
Spanning-Tree Protocol (Enable)

I don't see 'HW Acceleration', can it be somewhere else?

Ho, just found it under 'Tools > Sysinfo', it says this;

Network | HW acceleration : Disabled - Incompatible with: IPTraffic

Thanks

NAT Acceleration is HW Acceleration.

 

[pplante19]

Didn't knew that, I thought it was a completely new setting. Will try that then (disabling NAT Acceleration).

Thanks

 

[KGB7]

Asus renamed it few firmwares back for reasons i cant even guess.

 

[RMerlin]

Asus renamed it few firmwares back for reasons i cant even guess.

NAT acceleration is actually a more accurate description. What it basically does is accelerate NAT by bypassing part of the Netfilter chain. I suspect there is very little done at the actual hardware level.

 

[RMerlin]

Also, I have enabled remote management over the web, is that a good idea or I should shut this down?

For security reasons I would disable that.

 

[pplante19]

For security reasons I would disable that.

Ok, thanks to you both. I disabled NAT acceleration (HW) and I will shutdown the remote access as this can be a possible cause, a security breach at least.

Thanks.

 

[pplante19]

So far so good, no drop down since shutting down NAT Acceleration (HW) like you said. Hope it stays that way!

 

[pplante19]

Ok, bad news here. I has restarted to shut down here and there.

I just then flashed with Merlin with 374.44, the latest one and I erased the configuration and started afresh, only 30 minutes after I've done this, it rebooted by itself.

The only thing I've changed is;

- Changed IP from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.5.1

- Changed password for admin account

- Inserted some static IP addresses for NAS, Workstations, etc.

- Inserted some port forwarding rules for some games, FTP, etc.

- Disabled NAT (HW) Acceleration like you told me to do

Beside that, it's the original 374.44 firmware.

I really don't know what is causing those random reboots. My ISP sent me a brand new modem, I changed it, same results.

Thanks for your help.

 

[RMerlin]

Make sure the router is really rebooting by checking the Uptime on the System Log page. If it is, do one last test using stock firmware. After that if it still crashes, have the router replaced.

 

[KGB7]

Make sure the router is really rebooting by checking the Uptime on the System Log page. If it is, do one last test using stock firmware. After that if it still crashes, have the router replaced.

What he said.

And test it with last 3 Asus and last 3 Merlin firmwares.

One more thing to try.
WAN, DHCP query frequency -Normal Mode.

 

[pplante19]

Ok, changed the aggressive mode to normal mode. I also deleted all the port forwarding on the router.

It is really rebooting, I can see all my devices go down, I can see my 2.4 and 5Ghz disappear, and when I go to the log, when I reconnect after about 30 seconds, I can see it's up since X seconds (about 30 seconds or so).

I will also check something. The router has been stable since 8 hours now..., and that coincides with my son playing League of Legends..., he stopped after 3-4 disconnects, and it stopped, and before he played, it didn't crashed.

I have 2 sons in the house who plays League of Legends and I can possibly see a tendency here where the router crashes when they play the game. I will try to gather more about that, maybe it's just a coincidence, but it really started crashing yesterday when he started playing, he complained to me, he stopped playing and it stopped crashing.

He will get up in a few hours and I'll tell him to play just to see if it's crashing. Meanwhile, he's now sleeping and the router is rock solid.

 

[KGB7]

Heres what i found;

http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2504083

http://forums.euw.leagueoflegends.com/board/board/showthread.php?t=737047

 

[ANJ9686]

All I'm gonna say is if you got Warranty replace the router and update to Merlin firmware Job Done

 

[pplante19]

Still solid 15 hours so far. My son haven't played yet. He will probably play tonight so it should stay stable until then.

 

[RMerlin]

Heres what i found;

http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2504083

http://forums.euw.leagueoflegends.com/board/board/showthread.php?t=737047

That's one really weird case seeing that there are multiple reports of the same issue.

 

[pplante19]

That's one really weird case seeing that there are multiple reports of the same issue.

Yes, really weird. But I'm really starting to be conviced that it's LoL related.

It's still solid (router), and no games played so far. What I find strange is not the WiFi dropping, but the whole router reboots, all connections gets dropped. My son's computer is wired, he has a workstation.

He will surely play in about 6-7 hours, so if it crashes, we will know.