Per Device bandwidth monitor

[meshsynchronicity]

I just got off a chat with Asus support, and they showed a per device traffic monitor, but in a beta 9.x firmware on an XT8. I asked about it, but the agent didn't know it was beta much less if/how I could get it.

The history here is that we are on a metered connection with Xfinity, and for the first time, we got a note that we are about to go over our cap. Turns out, something was running on the network consuming a LOT of bandwidth, but it wasn't one of our normal streamers. So I went down to the router and just started unplugging nodes to try to isolate which node had the offender. This was a pretty clunky way to do it, and it resulted in something changing and the device in question just stopped consuming for some reason. I never found the offender. As I can have 72 devices spread over 4 nodes on the network (less right now, more than half on ethernet), and plan to add more once our basement remodel is complete, I would really like to know who my top offenders are at any given time.

So, my question is, what firmware release has this capability? Mine does not. The agent implied I should upgrade devices to get it, but since it was a beta in the screenshot, I'm not convinced. The screenshot the agent showed had an AIMesh2 tab, and a few other tabs my XD4 stock (3.0.0.4.386_49599-g8352df7) does not have (Sorry, I didn't capture the screen shot in time, and the chat window removed it when the agent left). There was also a traffic monitor tab in the QoS section I think. My QoS tab only lets me limit bandwidth per device, which would also show how much it's using I think (I haven't tried it yet). This is pretty hacky though. I am willing to upgrade my the XD4 which is my router to something newer now that we have a few 6E devices, but only if I get the newer firmware that has that per device traffic monitor.

Anyone know?

 

[RogerSC]

You do have a "top offenders" client data list, the 5 top offender's data traffic is easily available using the "Traffic Analyzer" main tab, and the "Traffic Analyzer - Statistics" tab within that. You have to turn it on (read the caveat that goes with it), but once you have on, it will show you the top 5 offenders in the pie chart below, and in the graph above you can look at any client and the time vs. data use graph for it. Very useful, when I had a data cap I used that a LOT. Found that my Roku streaming box was continuing to stream all night that way, even though I had apparently turned it off via the "Power" button on the remote. Turns out that the Power button on the remote only turns off the TV, and the Roku continues to stream (unless you hit the remote "Home" button before walking away) for some mysterious reason. I think that they've limited it some since I had the problem, but it's still 2 or 4 hours of extra streaming data being used.

Anyways, the per-client data is there, you do have to dig a little to get it once you get below the top 5 clients on the data use hit parade. The layout on your web admin interface may be a little different, but the data is there. I'm currently using the very stylish and attactive *smile* "gaming" version of the adming user interface on the GT-AX6000, which is a little different than the non-gaming layout.

 

[meshsynchronicity]

Ok, so my problem is that I have no Traffic Analyzer tab, nor any way I can find to enable it. See attached, it's everything I have access to after enabling QoS and restarting. What you are talking about is what I saw from the Asus Tech. I've been googling and rummaging around this site quite a bit, but still no luck. The Tech could not tell me how to activate it either, and the attempts resulted in no benefit. My assumption now is the XD4 cannot do what I want, and that more capable devices are needed. Note that I have not clicked withdraw from the data collection which is says will disable those things.

 

[RMerlin]

Ok, so my problem is that I have no Traffic Analyzer tab, nor any way I can find to enable it. See attached, it's everything I have access to after enabling QoS and restarting. What you are talking about is what I saw from the Asus Tech. I've been googling and rummaging around this site quite a bit, but still no luck. The Tech could not tell me how to activate it either, and the attempts resulted in no benefit. My assumption now is the XD4 cannot do what I want, and that more capable devices are needed. Note that I have not clicked withdraw from the data collection which is says will disable those things.

View attachment 48242

This isn`t an XT8, this is an XD4. Lower-end device, doesn't seem to support the full suite of TrendMicro functionalities such as Traffic Analyzer.

 

[meshsynchronicity]

OK, I'll take that as a confirmation. I asked that of the Tech, and the Tech basically ignored the question and wouldn't confirm that the XD4 did not support it, nor would they tell me to upgrade to get it.

**Edit**
Is there guidance somewhere on what *does* support this? I figure if I get a router like the XT9, it will, but any of the other types of units?

**Edit 2**
I purchased two ET8 units to replace the remaining two XD4's I have from Amazon. I settled on the ET8 over the XT9 for cost reasons and the fact that half my house network is wired gigabit, including all the mesh nodes, PC's, and the TV's. I'm not worried about backhaul, and we don't have many 5GHz streamers, so two 5Ghz bands are less important to me.

 

[RogerSC]

OK, I'll take that as a confirmation. I asked that of the Tech, and the Tech basically ignored the question and wouldn't confirm that the XD4 did not support it, nor would they tell me to upgrade to get it.

**Edit**
Is there guidance somewhere on what *does* support this? I figure if I get a router like the XT9, it will, but any of the other types of units?

Sorry for my mistaken reply, I've never had a lower end Asus router, I guess. I assumed that the Asus monitoring toolkit was pretty uniform over the models. The Asus routers that I currently have all have per-client data traffic statistics. I don't have a router that has wifi-6E, and am not very interested in it, so I can't make any recommendations there, just models that I've heard work well on wifi-6E.

Would your house work with a single router, or do you need a mesh like the XD4? The GT-AX6000 is a great router, but no wifi-6E. Wireless on it is really good, and it has been on sale for the last little while on Amazon, among others. If you're looking for wifi-6E, the GT-AXE11000 might be a better choice. Or for a mesh, the ET8 or ET12.

Anyways, sorry for the adamantly false statement *smile*.

 

[meshsynchronicity]

We have a weird setup, and the internet comes into the basement in the farthest corner from the rest of the house. Basically, to get network stability for the sheer volume of devices I have, it needs to be a mesh. I think I can reduce the number of nodes by 1 though once we get our basement fixed, as I'll be able to run cable for a node to a more central location on our very spread out and twisty first floor (very small original ranch, twice added onto by the previous owner to add about 3k sq ft, so it's a bit of a interesting design). Even with the current solution, there are still a few places which get poor coverage because the basement is in two sections, and the 2nd floor isn't actually *over* most of the first floor. It's a wonderful house, old but huge, because the previous owner got creative. Moving nodes around when I can properly run cat 6 to all the different parts of the house will help me out a lot I expect.

I'm going to move my XT8 to be the router, and replace it and another XD4 with the new ET8's. Looking forward to that.

 

[RMerlin]

Is there guidance somewhere on what *does* support this? I figure if I get a router like the XT9, it will, but any of the other types of units?

You can check Asus' product pages, but they don`t always clearly identify which specific features are available.