Poor wireless performance / Settings not taking effect

[David Nelson]

I just bought a brand-new RT-AC68U router and I am having endless issues with it. I am using Cox HSI and paying for up-to-50 Mbps. When connecting my computer via an Ethernet cable, I am guaranteed >50 Mbps with each speed test. However, when just using Wireless, I often get no more than 16 Mbps. I have been working to troubleshoot this issue when I realized one additional problem. This router does not actually apply some of its settings! In order to test one aspect of the connection I decided to select "N only" on my 5 GHz band. Lo and behold, however, my 802.11ac-capable laptop is still receiving an AC connection despite multiple router restarts and even resetting the NVRAM. There is no excuse for a router to be transmitting an AC signal when I specifically set it to N.

What can I do to make this router actually perform as it should? I have owned an Apple AirPort Extreme for years and it has always been very fast and reliable in all conditions. I was looking for something more configurable so I bought this, but ideally I would find one that is also usable. This model is certainly not.

 

[System Error Message]

Update the firmware and than perform a firmware reset. It is not uncommon to get poor wireless performance. You can also try merlin firmware too but make sure to do a reset after installing another firmware. What merlin firmware lets you do is modify the configuration files to make sure that it has the configuration you want.

 

[Droid8Apple]

I just bought a brand-new RT-AC68U router and I am having endless issues with it. I am using Cox HSI and paying for up-to-50 Mbps. When connecting my computer via an Ethernet cable, I am guaranteed >50 Mbps with each speed test. However, when just using Wireless, I often get no more than 16 Mbps. I have been working to troubleshoot this issue when I realized one additional problem. This router does not actually apply some of its settings! In order to test one aspect of the connection I decided to select "N only" on my 5 GHz band. Lo and behold, however, my 802.11ac-capable laptop is still receiving an AC connection despite multiple router restarts and even resetting the NVRAM. There is no excuse for a router to be transmitting an AC signal when I specifically set it to N.

What can I do to make this router actually perform as it should? I have owned an Apple AirPort Extreme for years and it has always been very fast and reliable in all conditions. I was looking for something more configurable so I bought this, but ideally I would find one that is also usable. This model is certainly not.

Yeah mine had to do a few updates when I got it. There's a lot of other factors that could be causing your issues. If you're getting it wired at the speeds you were looking for, then it's most likely something you have chosen that's causing low wireless speeds. Such as your wireless card or perhaps which band you're connecting to? My surface pro 2 was only able to get about 30Mbps down on the 350n router I had before. But I had an external USB Wifi dongle (150n) that achieved in the upwards of 70+ Mbps when I plugged it in and connected it to that same router. I think certain built in cards will only allow certain speeds unless you meet certain requirements. I say that because I got the RT-AC68W (white model but otherwise the same) and connected my same Surface Pro 2 internal WiFi card to the 5ghz band and got 120Mbps. If I switch and connect to the 2.4Ghz band it'll only get the 30Mbps I used to on my old router.

Try different devices (smartphone?), switch channels after checking what your neighbors are using, make sure you aren't far away trying to hit high speeds, and try different speedtests. Make sure things like 'Adaptive QoS' aren't on as well. Another thing- I made both bands visible and labeled one "Smith" and the other "Smith 5ghz" just to make sure there wasn't other issues at hand. Encryption type also plays a role in speeds so look into that.

The point is that out of the box it should give you the speeds your ISP promised- mine did.