Merlin RT-N66U, randomly rebooting/freezing?

[I3igAl]

Hi Folks I need some help troubleshooting my N66U. I have two issues to deal with, one long standing and one recent.

First thing is that my 5Ghz signal has always been terrible from day one. My apartment is thin walled with no cinderblock/concrete or metal framing, and I will lose 5Ghz signal if I go two rooms away from the router. I have never figured out if this is just inherent to 5Ghz, or if I somehow configured the router in a way that limited signal power. Aside from this the router has been working with no problem for about ten months, until a couple weeks ago.

My second problem is that the router has been randomly rebooting for no apparent reason, or even completely freezing and requiring the plug to be pulled. When it restarts on its own, its just as if the power had been cycled, but the modem and my monitor on the same power strip have no issue.

When the router freezes, it still shows everything as connected and working, but no data actually transmits. When I go to 192 to check on things, it immediately shows a prompt stating the following:

Settings have been updated. Web page will now refresh.
Changes have been made to the IP address or port number. You will now be disconnected from RT-N66U.
To access the settings of RT-N66U, reconnect to the wireless network and use the updated IP address and port number.

Obviously I have not changed anything, and the router refuses to refresh or restart, and I have to pull the plug to move on. This freezing and random reboots have been happening two or three weeks now, about three times a week. Even though it worked for months and months on Merlin 374, I figured it was a bug and updated to the most recent 378.50 but I am still having issues.

I am very inexperienced with the advanced features of Merlin don't really know how to figure this out, but I am a very technically inclined person and with direction I can do pretty much anything. please help me!

EDIT: I have removed the mention of 5Ghz signal issue from the thread title, I would like to focus on the rebooting and freezing issue. This router is critical to my business succeeding on a weekly basis and if I have much more issues I will have to buy a replacement just for peace of mind.

 

[hggomes]

Hi,

1. 5GHZ band doesn't have the same signal/coverage as 2.4GHZ band, so don't expect too much from it.

Configure the wireless channel to MANUAL and not AUTO.

2. Check SYSLOG tab and check if you see anything unusual/errors there.

Have you tried to FACTORY DEFAULT RESTORE? Configure it manually from scratch after, DO NOT IMPORT OLD CONFIG FILE or those kind of issues will probably happen.

 

[joegreat]

Hi,

My N66U router runs rock solid WLAN and no issues at all (with latest firmware from Merlin - see below).

My advise is to start fresh by doing a factory reset and configure the absolut minimum (e.g. only the WLAN SSID and password) and the to test!
If things are good then start adding/changing one by one the rest of the configuration.

Most likely your WLAN channel selection or other "environment" things are causing issues.

With kind regards
Joe

 

[I3igAl]

Hey Joe, thanks for the response. I already did a factory reset but restored settings from a backup. I have discovered several topics about NVRAM clearing and I will be doing that at some point super late tonight.

I am just very concerned that my Router has worked flawlessly for almost a year (except trash 5Ghz signal) and out of nowhere it starts taking dumps on me. I have not changed ANYTHING in at least six months, and the WLAN channels have always been set to auto, so I don't know where to begin looking for clues. Also I run a VPN that is critical to my business for remote work, and with the sporadic nature of the problem, I can't afford to run on minimum config for days at a time.

 

[hggomes]

Read my previous post and check what you are doing wrong.

 

[I3igAl]

Read my previous post and check what you are doing wrong.

hggomes, I'm sorry I skipped over you I didn't even see your post for some reason. I will be reconfiguring the router late tonight from scratch and use Wifi Analyzer to set my channels.

Regarding the log files, I honestly have never looked at them before and have no idea what would constitute "unusual" or a significant error message. If the log is not wiped out on a power cycle I can save a copy next time the problem occurs

EDIT: about the 5Ghz signal, I know its not as far reaching as the 2.4 signal but.... I can stay connected to 2.4 maybe 200 ft from the router, as I go down to my car in the parking lot. 5Ghz will drop out on my phone if i go downstairs to the kitchen. That seems not normal to me

 

[Nullity]

Hey Joe, thanks for the response. I already did a factory reset but restored settings from a backup. I have discovered several topics about NVRAM clearing and I will be doing that at some point super late tonight.

I am just very concerned that my Router has worked flawlessly for almost a year (except trash 5Ghz signal) and out of nowhere it starts taking dumps on me. I have not changed ANYTHING in at least six months, and the WLAN channels have always been set to auto, so I don't know where to begin looking for clues. Also I run a VPN that is critical to my business for remote work, and with the sporadic nature of the problem, I can't afford to run on minimum config for days at a time.

Do you run the VPN on the RT-N66U?

The processing power required to encrypt the VPN's connections may be overloading the 600Mhz MIPS CPU.


Definitely restore the "Factory Defaults" and reconfigure manually before trying anything else.

 

[I3igAl]

Do you run the VPN on the RT-N66U?

The processing power required to encrypt the VPN's connections may be overloading the 600Mhz MIPS CPU.

I do run VPN using the built in server and the ASUS DDNS service. It has been working without issue for three months or more.

EDIT: I should clarify, the VPN service has not had any issues. it is also only used by a single remote user to access the USB drive, which hosts an Access database. the remote user logs in to do data entry twice a week.