Just bought a new Asus Router N66U

[akirru]

Hi everyone,

I manged to pick up an ASUS n66u for a good price. It was mostly to replace my isp provided router. I wanted something with more control. I will have around 15-20 clients accessing the router at peak times. And my isp router didn't provide any advanced controls for QOS and traffic monitoring. (Superhub 2 AC)

I have used openwrt for a few years on different AP's. I know there isn't really any support for this router on openwrt (because of Broadcom chipset?). So here are my options;

1/Stick with stock
2/Merlin - Upgraded stock and more stability
3/Tomato - Possibly better for QOS?
4/ Are there any other options I don't know about?

Basically I want stability and as much control as I can get. What is the most mature firmware to use in this routers case? I don't want to loose too much performance over stock.

Thanks for taking the time to read my post. Any help would be greatly appreciated !!

Andy

 

[L&LD]

With RMerlin firmware, you get stability and bug fixes, primarily, and no loss of performance over stock (because same SDK and drivers are used.

Cannot be said to be true of other firmware which might highlight features over stability or raw performance.

With that said, the RMerlin forks are also worth considering too (john9527's and hggomes) as RMerlin is on extended leave from his coding because of health reasons currently.

 

[Nullity]

tomato does have improved QoS (it supports fq_codel, iirc).

If you are good with iptables/tc, AsusWRT can be configured to have very capable QoS (no codel though), but the GUI is lacking. tomato has a better GUI for QoS.

 

[Pierino]

There is also dd-wrt.

 

[akirru]

Thanks for all of the replies. Sorry for my delayed response. I'm still waiting for the router to arrive. It should be here today. I can't wait to get my hands on it. I may try stock to see what sort of performance I get with it initially.

How is DD-WRT support for this router? And how does DD-WRT compare to tomato these days?

 

[Nullity]

Thanks for all of the replies. Sorry for my delayed response. I'm still waiting for the router to arrive. It should be here today. I can't wait to get my hands on it. I may try stock to see what sort of performance I get with it initially.

How is DD-WRT support for this router? And how does DD-WRT compare to tomato these days?

Extra features brings extra bugs and dd-wrt has the most features.

 

[Pierino]

The good thing, it is easy to try all of the custom firmware and use the one that works best for you.

 

[Klueless]

I hope you are as happy with your N66U as I was and am.

Factory stock seemed very good, very usable and had the features we needed; QoS, Traffic Monitor, dual band, plenty of SSIDs.

Performance wise our needs were modest. About ten users, twenty-ish devices with two internal servers, several printers and a (low-end) link to the Internet. Everyone seems happy. I think QoS is what keeps then happy. Work is mostly web-based and QoS gives it priority such that web is always perky even when we're viewing security footage or uploading car pics.

We did switch to RMerlin to better understand strange or excessive traffic patterns as he gives us a view of traffic by device. Well worth the extra five or ten minutes it took to load and setup.

 

[akirru]

Thanks again for the replies

I think I'm going to try a few different firmware's.

Klueless your situation sounds familiar to ours! And so it's nice to hear about a good experience. I hear really good things about Merlin's work on asus routers. So I look forward to looking at his derivative of the stock rom. I think I'll give Tomato a whirl too as I have never had the opportunity to in the past (didn't have a supported router).

Andrew

 

[Klueless]

I think I'll give Tomato a whirl

I'd be most interested in hearing what you think about Tomato (when you do try it). That was my original (fallback) plan but the stock Asus was so good I didn't need bother. RMerlin was such a gentle transition (to get traffic by device) that's where I went and that is where I stayed.

Everything is working so well I have no need to risk messing anything up but the idle curiosity still lingers ...

 

[MarkyPancake]

I used Merlin on my N66U, until Asus changed the wireless drivers and it affected wireless performance. I then switched to john9527 fork and remained on that until I fancied a new router. I've got an AC68U now, but can't bring myself to part ways with the N66U yet.

 

[wh7qq]

I used Merlin on my N66U, until Asus changed the wireless drivers and it affected wireless performance. I then switched to john9527 fork and remained on that until I fancied a new router. I've got an AC68U now, but can't bring myself to part ways with the N66U yet.

I have had an rt-n66u going for over 3 years now. Mainly for monitoring but also other features, I went to TomatuUSB by Shibby early on, having used it happily with my old wrt54's. I am up to version 132 now and still happy with it. It is nice to have the fine-grained monitoring he provides and also the built-in SSH. Mine is a small home network with 3 desktops, 3 RPi's, an HP all-in-one and an rt-n56 dedicated to NightShift and Netflix feeding a Sony BluRay player. The printer and the RPis are all wireless. I intentionally rebooted the 66 yesterday after 84 days of continuous up-time without a glitch.

 

[Klueless]

... but can't bring myself to part ways with the N66U yet

Totally agree with that! Rest well knowing you've a great backup router. Nice having a test/play box. Or a ready to rock AP for backyard fun. Or even a great gift for a friend. (Cheers friend : -)

 

[joegreat]

Totally agree with that! Rest well knowing you've a great backup router. Nice having a test/play box. Or a ready to rock AP for backyard fun. Or even a great gift for a friend. (Cheers friend : -)

Same thinking here (see footer)!

Unfortunately I lost my other good friend recently: RT-AC68U bricked during firmware update

But I got immediately a new friend: The AC87U!

 

[elytron]

I have been using AdvancedTomato on my RT-N66U for a time. Has all the features of Shibby's TomatoUSB, but with an improved web GUI. At least in my opinion it's improved. Might be worth checking out.

 

[wh7qq]

I have been using AdvancedTomato on my RT-N66U for a time. Has all the features of Shibby's TomatoUSB, but with an improved web GUI. At least in my opinion it's improved. Might be worth checking out.

I don't see a downside to using this other than installation but I don't see it as a big improvement over the "USB Blue - OpenLinksys" that is available as an option from the Administration>Administrative Access page with no re-installation issues. Just a matter of what eye-candy you like better.