Lack of RT-N66R Official Firmware Updates

[Mick Mickle]

Paging CL-Jeremy -

Hey, is it time for you to jump in and see what's going on with the Asus firmware and web support folks? As you know, RT-N66U B1 Firmware Version 3.0.0.4.246 was posted for download today at http://support.asus.com/download.as....B1)&p=11&s=2&os=30&hashedid=PZkFHlMrGWzVROxT. We also know that RT-N66R uses U firmware. So contrast the U and the R support status by looking at http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=RT-N66R, where there is absolutely no firmware posted (and no notice to go to the R site).

The bottom line is that Asus has customers buying R's with early 64KB NVRAM firmware, 3.0.0.4.176, that's not as well refined as 3.0.0.4.220 that's been put out there for the U. And now another generation of U firmware has been posted but R routers still have no "official" firmware upgrades from out-of-box. Asus needs to love the stepchildren, too.

 

[RMerlin]

I'm sure the technical department at Asus must love the marketing department for making everyone completely confused over this R vs U products.

 

[CL-Jeremy]

I'm sure the technical department at Asus must love the marketing department for making everyone completely confused over this R vs U products.

^Oh yes. We love it.


@Mick: I can assure you that the plan is to put the normal firmware on the "R" pages. I can't do it myself, I can only push them to do it faster.

 

[Mick Mickle]

Thanks! We "R" owners (if I may speak for the others) appreciate your prodding to mainstream our models.

 

[njweb]

I thought the R (retail / BB-only) was just to help distinguish it from the U ('e-tailer' version aka online version).
So the R actually needs a different firmware than the U or am I missing something else here?
(Sorry if this has been covered, but since I am happy with my N66U [albeit consdering an AC66U to tide me over till the non-draft 802.11ac products come out], I have not been reading up on the U vs. R stuff).

 

[Mick Mickle]

It's the same. Asus Tech Spt says so by telephone, but nevertheless hasn't acknowledged that fact by explicitly providing firmware upgrades on their website.

 

[CL-Jeremy]

Update on the firmwares!

The R pages now have the latest version of firmware available (same as the U versions). Please find it on our ASUS support site (RT-N66R): http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&p=11&m=RT-N66R

I apologize for the amount of time it took.

 

[Mick Mickle]

Thanks, Jeremy - good going. (Just a heads up, though. Somebody's sure to get confused by the warning about changing NVRAM size, since none of the "R"s came with 32 KB.)

 

[IBM5081]

Faulty firmware

I just bought the RT-N66R at Best Buy. Brought it home and everything worked. I noticed that the firmware was at level 270, so I checked and found that level 370 had been recently made available, so I upgraded.
The upgrade was labeled N66U. After the upgrade, the 2.4 Ghz channel worked OK but I could not connect on 5Ghz. After downgrading back to 270, all is well again.

 

[RMerlin]

I just bought the RT-N66R at Best Buy. Brought it home and everything worked. I noticed that the firmware was at level 270, so I checked and found that level 370 had been recently made available, so I upgraded.
The upgrade was labeled N66U. After the upgrade, the 2.4 Ghz channel worked OK but I could not connect on 5Ghz. After downgrading back to 270, all is well again.

Known issue, posted in a couple of places on this forum.