Painful of rt-ac66u wireless issue

[nsdz]

I bought ASUS RT-AC66U this April in order to upgrade my wireless performance. However, no matter what firmware I uses and no matter how I adjust my laptop wireless network card parameters my laptop and my wife laptop continue disconnect even within a very short distance. sometime the wireless speed only 6M in 5G band.
Now, I have to buy a very cheap 2.4G band router again that was d-link N300 and it only costs me $29.
I turned off the 2.4G band in RT-AC66U and use D-Link as 2.4G wireless provider. My wife laptop is happy. I continue try to connect RT-AC66U 5G band. But it still does not work very well. Sometime the speed is poor sometime it cannot access internet.
I would say how serious the SmallNetBuilder tested the ASUS RT-AC66U. Did they test the stability of the ASUS RT-AC66U?
I am so frustrated with ASUS wireless router performance and stability.
I would never spend so much money to buy a crappy stuff again. Although the D-Link N300 is a cheaper router all of my wireless equipment including laptop, ipad, and iphone are happy with it.
Looks like the review of this site is not fair and cannot be trusted.

 

[RMerlin]

I bought ASUS RT-AC66U this April in order to upgrade my wireless performance. However, no matter what firmware I uses and no matter how I adjust my laptop wireless network card parameters my laptop and my wife laptop continue disconnect even within a very short distance. sometime the wireless speed only 6M in 5G band.
Now, I have to buy a very cheap 2.4G band router again that was d-link N300 and it only costs me $29.
I turned off the 2.4G band in RT-AC66U and use D-Link as 2.4G wireless provider. My wife laptop is happy. I continue try to connect RT-AC66U 5G band. But it still does not work very well. Sometime the speed is poor sometime it cannot access internet.
I would say how serious the SmallNetBuilder tested the ASUS RT-AC66U. Did they test the stability of the ASUS RT-AC66U?
I am so frustrated with ASUS wireless router performance and stability.
I would never spend so much money to buy a crappy stuff again. Although the D-Link N300 is a cheaper router all of my wireless equipment including laptop, ipad, and iphone are happy with it.
Looks like the review of this site is not fair and cannot be trusted.

Your specific experience doesn't mean that everyone else is also having issues. I never had any issue personally with my RT-AC66U, and I was connecting to it on a daily basis. There's a possibility that your router is defective, especially if you have many different devices having issues on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands - have you tried to RMA it?

 

[LA9]

Have used RT-AC66U with 3.0.0.4.354.29 2.4 GHz band and it has been stable. After I upgraded to the latest asus firmware the signal strength was much weaker. Having previously had good coverage on the floor below and above but now it's weak signal only 5-6 meter away from the router and on the floor below there is no signals. So I'm back on the D-link dir-635 at the moment.

 

[mikeg]

I have had my AC66U since august 2012 and have had problems with the 5 GHz band all the time. Both Asus and Merlins f/w tried and different versions without any solutions. The signal sterngth suddenly drops on the 5 GHz band about -20 dBm and a restart of the wireless is needed to get the signal strength up again. I have used Asus USB-N53:s on both a laptop 1 meters distance away from the AC66U and 2 stationary pc:s also with Asus USB-N53:s a further distnce away. All have the same the same problem with dropping signal strength on the 5 GHz band. I have an Asus N66U with Tomato USB shibby running besides the the AC66u without this problem and further on a TP-LINK WDR4300 also as a backup without any problems .
I am in the process of RMA:ing the AC66U because have I have waited so long now for a solution to my problem and yes there are others with the same problem ........

I bought ASUS RT-AC66U this April in order to upgrade my wireless performance. However, no matter what firmware I uses and no matter how I adjust my laptop wireless network card parameters my laptop and my wife laptop continue disconnect even within a very short distance. sometime the wireless speed only 6M in 5G band.
Now, I have to buy a very cheap 2.4G band router again that was d-link N300 and it only costs me $29.
I turned off the 2.4G band in RT-AC66U and use D-Link as 2.4G wireless provider. My wife laptop is happy. I continue try to connect RT-AC66U 5G band. But it still does not work very well. Sometime the speed is poor sometime it cannot access internet.
I would say how serious the SmallNetBuilder tested the ASUS RT-AC66U. Did they test the stability of the ASUS RT-AC66U?
I am so frustrated with ASUS wireless router performance and stability.
I would never spend so much money to buy a crappy stuff again. Although the D-Link N300 is a cheaper router all of my wireless equipment including laptop, ipad, and iphone are happy with it.
Looks like the review of this site is not fair and cannot be trusted.

 

[nsdz]

Your specific experience doesn't mean that everyone else is also having issues. I never had any issue personally with my RT-AC66U, and I was connecting to it on a daily basis. There's a possibility that your router is defective, especially if you have many different devices having issues on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands - have you tried to RMA it?

No, I do not try RMA so far. However, I found this problem before and exchange the router for a couple of times in the store.

Yes, this is my personal experience and it could be only individual problem as I hoped. I tried LinkSys AC router and it disconnected my wireless frequently.

By the way, the 5G band signal looks ok from 'inSSIDer 3' app when I encounter the problem but the speed is so low displayed in 'wi-fi status' and I am unable to open the router admin page.

For any individual customer if they bought the most expensive router on the market they hope they are able to get return from the cost and does not expect to have such a pain.

Sigh ...

 

[RMerlin]

For any individual customer if they bought the most expensive router on the market they hope they are able to get return from the cost and does not expect to have such a pain.

Sigh ...

Welcome to the world of wireless technology. With so many manufacturers who need to interoperate together, it's sadly next to impossible to guarantee that a specific setup will work 100% on first try. There are just too many variables in the equation, including the user's environment.

That's why I always push people to use wired whenever possible, and consider wireless as an alternative, not as the ideal solution.

There are quite a few reports indeed of people having issues with the RT-AC66U. I just find it odd that in your particular case, you are having issues with a fairly wide range of devices, which is why I suspected it might have been defective.

You didn't specify which troubleshooting steps you have taken, so here are the broad lines of what you can try:

- Try the 5 GHz band on both high-numbered channels and low-numbered channels. Some devices work better in one range or the other.

- Set the 2.4 GHz band to 20 MHz, and use a tool like InSSIDers to see which channels are the least crowded. Keep in mind that when you use a channel, it will overlap on the previous and next channel, which is why you usually want to use channel 1, 6 or 11.

 

[glenw]

Flaky 5GHz

Hi,

I'm having similar issues with poor WiFi on 5GHz. 2.4 GHz is tolerable although ping times are very variable. Picture shows what's happening to me.

I forgot to add: This happens with both Asus or Merlin firmware installed. If my Macbook air is connected to the AC network it drops all the time. If connected to the 2.4GHz network it doesn't drop completely but pings are erratic.

Cheers.

 

[vdemarco]

Hi,

I'm having similar issues with poor WiFi on 5GHz. 2.4 GHz is tolerable although ping times are very variable. Picture shows what's happening to me.

I forgot to add: This happens with both Asus or Merlin firmware installed. If my Macbook air is connected to the AC network it drops all the time. If connected to the 2.4GHz network it doesn't drop completely but pings are erratic.

Cheers.

I hate to post this but on my MacBook retina and all of the apple devices i have at home (imac, mini, ipads, iphones and apple tv) all work great with the .32 version (merlins) of the firmware.

The very first thing you should do is reset the router back to factory defaults then manually reset all of the settings.

i got the rt-ac66u in April and until the last month or so, i had to reboot it once a week or so to bring the speeds back up.

if the ping times on 2.4GHz are erratic, i would guess that there is alot of interference where you are.

is the 2.5GHz running at 40Mhz or 20Mhz?

 

[RMerlin]

See this thread for your Mac issues:

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=8835

 

[nsdz]

Welcome to the world of wireless technology. With so many manufacturers who need to interoperate together, it's sadly next to impossible to guarantee that a specific setup will work 100% on first try. There are just too many variables in the equation, including the user's environment.

That's why I always push people to use wired whenever possible, and consider wireless as an alternative, not as the ideal solution.

There are quite a few reports indeed of people having issues with the RT-AC66U. I just find it odd that in your particular case, you are having issues with a fairly wide range of devices, which is why I suspected it might have been defective.

You didn't specify which troubleshooting steps you have taken, so here are the broad lines of what you can try:

- Try the 5 GHz band on both high-numbered channels and low-numbered channels. Some devices work better in one range or the other.

- Set the 2.4 GHz band to 20 MHz, and use a tool like InSSIDers to see which channels are the least crowded. Keep in mind that when you use a channel, it will overlap on the previous and next channel, which is why you usually want to use channel 1, 6 or 11.

I. My wireless device environment is simple as I think
a. two lenovo laptops; one is thinkpad w530 while another is ideapad y580.
The thinkpad w530 has Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 AGN
The ideapad y580 has Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 2200BGN
b. three apple devices
iphone 4s, iphone 5, ipad 2

II. 2.4 G band devices
iphone 4s, ideapad y580

III. 5G band devicdes
Thinkpad w530, iphone 5, ipad 2

IV. Trouble shooting.
a. I tried 5 GHz band on both high-numbered channels and low-numbered channels based on your post before.
b. For 2.4G band I tried 1, 6, and 11.
c. Both 2.4G and 5G band use 40 MHZ since it is the way to achieve the 450M link speed. I think if the router cannot work on 40 MHZ why I bother to pay for it. (Or ASUS should claim that it only works on 40 MHZ to achieve the maximum link speed when you use all ASUS devices.)
d. I tried to increase the transit power to 120mw, 200mw as well.

V. There is no congestion of 5G band wireless channel around my house.

VI. The D-Link N300 is pretty stable so far after one month usage without rebooting.

By the way, the wireless driver was upgraded to the most recent driver from Intel (or Lenovo) on both laptops.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
The up time of mine is almost a year w/o any issues. Otherwise family members will try to kill me specially my wife who is real time streaming live show from the 'net every evening. I only work on it if needed like updating f/w (not very often) when every one goes to bed late in the night. It even monitors my PV solar panel array electric generation making sure all is well. I can read power output at the moment or defective solar cell,etc. Trouble-shooting involves logical way of thinking and knowing
what you are up .

 

[jerry6]

I bought ASUS RT-AC66U this April in order to upgrade my wireless performance. However, no matter what firmware I uses and no matter how I adjust my laptop wireless network card parameters my laptop and my wife laptop continue disconnect even within a very short distance. sometime the wireless speed only 6M in 5G band.
Now, I have to buy a very cheap 2.4G band router again that was d-link N300 and it only costs me $29.
I turned off the 2.4G band in RT-AC66U and use D-Link as 2.4G wireless provider. My wife laptop is happy. I continue try to connect RT-AC66U 5G band. But it still does not work very well. Sometime the speed is poor sometime it cannot access internet.
I would say how serious the SmallNetBuilder tested the ASUS RT-AC66U. Did they test the stability of the ASUS RT-AC66U?
I am so frustrated with ASUS wireless router performance and stability.
I would never spend so much money to buy a crappy stuff again. Although the D-Link N300 is a cheaper router all of my wireless equipment including laptop, ipad, and iphone are happy with it.
Looks like the review of this site is not fair and cannot be trusted.

You got some strange results , the 2.4 band on my AC 66 is very strong , much stronger signal than either my netgear 3700 v1 , and AC 6250 AS WELL AS THE RT N66 U it replaced , 5gz band is not as good as the RT N66 though . Using Intel cards 5300 , 6200 , dlink dap 1522 and a Linksys WUSB 600 V2 .
These routers seem to be hit or miss , either you get a good one or you get a bad one . Maybe you should return yours for another one .
All I know is so far the 2 Asus routers are the only ones that reach all parts of my house , the Netgears could not get a signal to parts of my basement , and they would not stream video without break up in many spots .

And the reviews and tests here are pretty good , the trouble is wireless depends on many environmental factors , they cannot account for your specific situation , cards , interference , nearby wireless traffic , you will not find any tests or reviews that are much better .

 

[nsdz]

Hi,
The up time of mine is almost a year w/o any issues. Otherwise family members will try to kill me specially my wife who is real time streaming live show from the 'net every evening. I only work on it if needed like updating f/w (not very often) when every one goes to bed late in the night. It even monitors my PV solar panel array electric generation making sure all is well. I can read power output at the moment or defective solar cell,etc. Trouble-shooting involves logical way of thinking and knowing
what you are up .

Oh, Really?

Do you know your wireless mode, channel bandwidth, and channel configuration of your router for both 2.4G and 5G band?

One of my friend told me that the router looks stable when the channel bandwidth is set to 20M only.

 

[nsdz]

What I found from this link
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-basics/30664-5-ways-to-fix-slow-80211n-speed,

"
Check out location D in the Wireless Chart plot below, which shows that using the 40 MHz bandwidth mode reduced throughput by around 75%! (Channel bonding in Location B didn't work so well either.) I have also found that with some routers, switching back to 20 MHz bandwidth yields a connection when I couldn't even get one using 40 MHz mode.

So if you have been using 40 MHz bandwidth mode and wondering why your speeds have dropped, try switching back to 20 MHz mode to see if your throughput moves back up.
"

I would try the 20M channel bandwidth. If the 20M channel bandwidth is stable the 40M channel bandwidth could be ONLY a junk feature in this router.

(
My wireless card was configured properly when I use 40M channel bandwidth.
)