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New AiMesh Node (AC5300) Defective?

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Hello all, new to the forums (and AiMesh) here..

I recently upgraded my new home from a single AC86U to a multi-router AiMesh setup. The home is rather large with an open floor plan but the single 86 just wasn’t cutting it at all. The modem is in one far right corner of the house and by the time I reached the garage or the yard on the other side signal was non existent. I have never experimented with mesh networks so I thought I would give it a try.

Long story short I moved the 86U I was originally using into the garage, added another 86U in the basement, and three AC5300’s throughout the house. One 5300 as the main router at the modem, Second one right in the middle of the house in the kitchen, and the third on the second floor on the far side of the house nearest the garage. The 5300’s are spaced evenly, within asus distance spec, almost line of sight to each other, and overall the performance of the entire network is outstanding. I’m able to get over 500mb/s everywhere in the house and yard now, and over 250mb/s when connected to the 86U in the garage or basement. I was even able to see speeds over 200mb/s roughly 200ft away across the street at my mailbox and at the edges of my back yard.

The problem I have is with ONE node, one of the 5300’s that’s in the middle position in the house in the kitchen. For some reason, any device that’s connected to this node directly at any given time sees a very glitchy, almost non existent WiFi connection. “Signal” shows full strength to the backhaul (main router) and on the local devices themselves but almost nothing loads at all. When running a speed test on a device connected to that particular node the “ping” number on the Speedtest app will jump around all over the place for over 5 seconds showing random numbers large and small and then when the speed test finally starts it’s usually around 1-2mb/s, or less. I’ve never seen that behavior before from the speedtest app. Not sure what it means. The strange thing is that I have the other 5300 on the second floor set to use this troubled kitchen 5300 as it’s back haul connection and the garage 86U set to use the second floor 5300 as it’s connection and the speeds when connecting to either one of those other nodes downstream of the kitchen 5300 is outstanding, so I know the full bandwidth is there at the kitchen node and it’s passing it through to the other routers just fine. Its just not being passed to devices that are chosen to be directly connected to that specific 5300 for some reason.

So far to troubleshoot I’ve deleted that node completely from the system, factory reset the router, and re-added the node to my mesh network twice. It’s still doing the same exact thing. When that one node was disconnected from the rest of the system all the other nodes still worked just as well as they did before, and when it was added again to the system and placed in the back haul line where it was originally all the other routers performance is still great.

The only thing I can come up with is that the kitchen 5300 is somehow defective at this point. It was ordered brand new with the other two 5300’s, which are all 1 serial number digit apart from each other, so I don’t think it was a returned item or anything. Before I just return it and buy another one to try does anyone have any suggestions or has anyone had trouble with one specific node like this?

Thanks in advance!
 
I’d also like to note that the horrible connection when a device is on the AC5300 “kitchen” node isn’t just limited to internet access. Local network access is also effected. When my devices are connected to that node I’m unable to load my Asus router admin page as well or utilize the mobile app to monitor the network. This is another reason why I was leaning toward that particular 5300 being defective as I can access these pages no problem from any other node in the system even when access on the kitchen 5300 is impossible.
 
I’d also like to note that the horrible connection when a device is on the AC5300 “kitchen” node isn’t just limited to internet access. Local network access is also effected. When my devices are connected to that node I’m unable to load my Asus router admin page as well or utilize the mobile app to monitor the network. This is another reason why I was leaning toward that particular 5300 being defective as I can access these pages no problem from any other node in the system even when access on the kitchen 5300 is impossible.

Reset it and re-add it and if it continues to misbehave, replace it.

OE
 
I stated in my post that I’ve already reset it and re-added it twice to troubleshoot this. Didn’t make a difference.

So now you have a confirmation for what you've done. Balls in your court.

OE
 
Well, turns out it wasn’t a defective unit.

I got another brand new AC5300, added it to the network and also reset it several times, and it’s still doing the same thing the other one was doing in its place. I don’t get it. I even ran the “optimization” thing in the AiMesh setup instead of manually choosing the back haul path, no difference. Again, the issue is just when devices happen to connect right to that ONE node, not with its pass through of bandwidth to other nodes. Again, all other nodes working perfectly.

anyone have any other ideas?
 
Well, turns out it wasn’t a defective unit.

I got another brand new AC5300, added it to the network and also reset it several times, and it’s still doing the same thing the other one was doing in its place. I don’t get it. I even ran the “optimization” thing in the AiMesh setup instead of manually choosing the back haul path, no difference. Again, the issue is just when devices happen to connect right to that ONE node, not with its pass through of bandwidth to other nodes. Again, all other nodes working perfectly.

anyone have any other ideas?

You have a 3-level house. What is the sq ft area of the main level?

You are using 5 routers. Asus use to spec one for a 'very large home', but they have removed this from their product specs, probably because it was not specific enough and is subject to conditions... now customers will really be confused. Maybe you have too much radio at the (central) kitchen router(?). Have you used a WiFi analyzer app to see what WiFi signals/power are present there?

Are there any cordless devices or EMI generating equipment in the kitchen that might be interfering with the kitchen node? Maybe you could change your node layout and/or use less total nodes to see if the issue is alleviated?

Recall that you can get a signal across the street... imagine how much WiFi could be hitting your wireless clients in your kitchen.

OE
 
You have a 3-level house. What is the sq ft area of the main level?

You are using 5 routers. Asus use to spec one for a 'very large home', but they have removed this from their product specs, probably because it was not specific enough and is subject to conditions... now customers will really be confused. Maybe you have too much radio at the (central) kitchen router(?). Have you used a WiFi analyzer app to see what WiFi signals/power are present there?

Are there any cordless devices or EMI generating equipment in the kitchen that might be interfering with the kitchen node? Maybe you could change your node layout and/or use less total nodes to see if the issue is alleviated?

Recall that you can get a signal across the street... imagine how much WiFi could be hitting your wireless clients in your kitchen.

OE
I guess I will try moving that node around. There’s nothing else I can try.

the home is 3,500 square feet not including the basement. The main router is in the far corner on one side of the house and I have the nodes spread out so they’re at least 25-30’ apart from each other and all in separate rooms. I thought I had read that nodes shouldn’t be more than 3-5 meters away from each other somewhere. I could be wrong. There’s no electronic devices anywhere near the node so I don’t think it’s that.

When I remove or unplug the kitchen node from the system and the second floor node jumps to a direct connection to the main router instead the signal strength from the second floor node goes from -55dbm to -68dbm. With the node in place the signal strength between all the nodes and the router was between -53dbm to -56dbm.

I don’t have any android devices for that app. I tried finding one similar on the Apple Store but I couldn’t, most are just tools for scanning for devices within your WiFi network and speed tests. I know there are some PC and Mac programs that scan, I might have to look into those.
 
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I guess I will try moving that node around. There’s nothing else I can try. There’s no electrical devices in the area near it at all that are running except the fridge and it’s 15 feet away from it.

the home is 3,500 square feet not including the basement. The main router is in the far corner on one side of the house and I have the nodes spread out so they’re at least 25-30’ apart from each other and all in separate rooms. I thought I had read that nodes shouldn’t be more than 3-5 meters away from each other somewhere. I could be wrong. There’s no electronic devices anywhere near the node so I don’t think it’s that.

When I remove or unplug the kitchen node from the system and the second floor node jumps to a direct connection to the main router instead the signal strength from the second floor node goes from -55dbm to -68dbm.

I don’t have any android devices for that app. I tried finding one similar on the Apple Store but I couldn’t, most are just tools for scanning for devices within your WiFi network and speed tests. I know there are some PC and Mac programs that scan, I might have to look into those.

My 2xRT-AC86U AiMesh nodes are 77' apart... one in a 3x1650 sq ft brick house and one in a 1750 sq ft detached brick garage. I could probably fit in another house node, but I don't need it so I feel it's better to spare that overhead.

I made these wireless speedtest measurements some time ago on older firmware using a good laptop PC.

OE
 
My 2xRT-AC86U AiMesh nodes are 77' apart... one in a 3x1650 sq ft brick house and one in a 1750 sq ft detached brick garage. I could probably fit in another house node, but I don't need it so I feel it's better to spare that overhead.

I made these wireless speedtest measurements some time ago on older firmware using a good laptop PC.

OE
Hm. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll unplug that node for a while and see what speeds I’m still getting in other areas.

Im not sure if it has anything to do with it but all the nodes and the router are running firmware 9.0.0.4.386.41994, do you think that could be an issue? I updated to that when I got them even though it was a beta because it was the newest version available.
 
Im not sure if it has anything to do with it but all the nodes and the router are running firmware 9.0.0.4.386.41994, do you think that could be an issue? I updated to that when I got them even though it was a beta because it was the newest version available.

Possible. It's a beta for reasons Asus knows. I suspect minor issues with it and notice that 42095 arriving recently for some models mentions WiFi stability and connection improvements. I expect a non-beta to be released soon for the AC86U.

However, I would still survey your signal layout and consider adjustments that are reasonable. Less can be more with WiFi.

OE
 

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