Problems with RT-N56U & (Free)NAS machine.

[HHawk]

Okay guys, after starting a thread on the FreeNAS forum and even on the Asus forum (the last was of course really pointless) without having any serious or helpful answers, I decided to ask the really experts here.

I purchased last week the Asus RT-N56U after reading several reviews (including the one on SmallNetBuilder) which deemed the RT-N56U to be a very good router with great throughput.

Seeing I was still the owner of a problematic D-Link DIR-655, I thought it would be a great upgrade. However I am experiencing all kinds of problems with the Asus RT-N56U, especially with my FreeNAS machine.

With the D-Link the NAS would work without problems, after setting it up correctly (port forwarding and such stuff), however with the RT-N56U it's a completely different story.

For your information my (Free)NAS machine is located at home.

What did I manage to get working? Well I can access my NAS from work by SSH / FTP / HTTP (gui). So this means I get the port forwarding working properly.

The problem, which I am unable to solve, is the fact I cannot access the NAS within my home network! I really have no idea what I am doing wrong here. Especially considering the fact I can simply access it from outside the network (over the internet) from anywhere.

The main reason for purchasing the RT-N56U was cause of the excellent throughput I saw in several reviews (especially after comparing that with the DIR-655), so I need to be able to access it in the network (LAN).

I really don't know what I am doing wrong here. I think I have tried most things in my RT-N56U control panel, but maybe I am missing something (simple) here.

What's weird? Well I find it weird that I can see everything else within my network (LAN), meaning; other PC's, laptops, XBOX360. Heck I can even see my connected Pioneer receiver in my network. The only thing which I cannot see is my NAS.

And before you say; it's the NAS. Well... That's impossible in my humble opinion, because when I replace the RT-N56U with my old DIR-655 it's back in the network again!?!?

I downloaded the latest firmware for the RT-N56U, as soon as I received it. Which means I am running Firmware Version 1.0.1.4 on the RT-N56U which is dated 2011.05.04.

I don't know if this firmware is bugged, cause I noticed also some problems with reserving IP's for MAC, thus bypassing DHCP (right?). This can be found in LAN > DHCP Server > Manually Assigned IP around the DHCP List > Enable Manual Assignment > Yes.

If I select that, add the MAC, as shown in the connected devices, and assign an IP to it, it doesn't work at all. It just ignored the IP I have given to a machine.

So if someone feels helpful to help me out or has some information, comments, please feel free to do so, cause I am really starting to get jumpy over this RT-N56U and I am already starting to regret that I have purchased it.

I know D-Link isn't very favourable brand, but at least it did do the job, though at not the best speeds...

 

[thiggins]

Can you ping the NAS from another machine on the LAN?

Can you connect to it as a mapped drive using its IP address?

 

[HHawk]

Can you ping the NAS from another machine on the LAN?

Can you connect to it as a mapped drive using its IP address?

Thanks for taking the time to answer me! Highly appreciated.

I understand the first question and I will try this when I get home, currently at work, so kinda difficult to try at the moment.

Regarding the second question; you mean that I try access it through the given LAN IP address, right?
...if yes, I think I have tried that already, but didn't work. But to be sure I will test that also when I get back home.

 

[thiggins]

If you can't ping it, the second suggestion isn't going to work.

If you can ping it, on a Windows machine open the Run box and enter
\\ip_address_of_machine.

 

[HHawk]

Okay, thanks for explaining, will report back once I get back home. And see what it does.

 

[WhoYaWitt]

Freenas

Hey man I am pretty new to freenas and networking. I actually have the RT-N56U on the way, will be here tomorrow, amd I'm pretty pumped to upgrade from my WNR2000v2 (DD-WRT). Not sure if my suggestion will solve the problem but it might help in your diagnosis. If you add another interface in FreeNAS (I have freenas 8) and let it assign your IP address for this second/ new interface w/ DHCP and see if it shows up as a member of your LAN then? I did this to find the MAC address because I had done a hard reset on my router and my freenas server was no longer getting a static address from my router but it thought it was (since you can assign static IP by MAC address in DD-WRT). I hope that makes sense

 

[HHawk]

@thiggins

Okay, I just got home had diner and tried what you said.

I can indeed ping the NAS, without problems. No package loss and average 11ms.

Also, when I enter the IP address I can access the NAS, though it's kinda slow when browsing for some reason.

I really don't understand why it's not showing up in the LAN network, like it normally did with the D-Link DIR-655.

Maybe, just maybe it's FreeNAS, but I doubt that, cause the only thing I did, was remove the DIR-655 (when FreeNAS was working and showing up in the network), installed the Asus RT-N56U and set it up correctly. So it should work like it did before, right?

I also noticed I am having serious problems with getting teamed connection (lagg0) back working on my FreeNAS with this Asus router. Sigh.

I think I am going to bring back my DIR-655 router tomorrow just to see what results I am getting with that...

Also I am really starting to think that the "Manually Assigned IP around the DHCP List" is bugged. Cause it doesn't matter what I enter there, it doesn't do anything. Currently I have tried adding the MAC address (without the :'s) of another PC and give it a static IP address, but doesn't do anything. :S


@WhoYaWitt
Thank you also for helping me. I understand what you mean, I think. I am still using FreeNAS 7.2 though, cause of several reasons. Might upgrade to 8 in the future when it's a bit more mature and allows more.

I was using lagg0 (LACP) on my DIR-655 for better speeds, however that doesn't work anymore as well on the Asus RT-N56U. I am gonna experiment some more to see if I can get it back working though. But I think the problems are related to each other...

Oh and please keep me (us) updated on your results when you get the router! Thanks in advance.

 

[HHawk]

After fooling around. I seem to have fixed it. And to be honest, I did so many things, that I really don't know how I fixed it.

I remember one of the many things; I used a static IP address for my NAS and I assigned the same IP to the MAC address in the Asus RT-N56U.

I really don't know if this was the problem, anyways it works (finally) now. Didn't try the speeds yet, cause my current home PC is being rebuild (a few nice upgrades), so I could only test it with the wireless laptop connection.

I doubt this will be helpful to other users, which are going to experience the same problem, but I decided to report back anyways.

A big thanks for the people who tried to help me!

 

[thiggins]

Thanks for reporting back. Glad you got it fixed.

 

[WhoYaWitt]

New RT-N56U

Well, I live on the beach in Florida and I had a tourist little girl I have been hanging out with tonight so I haven't got to really set everything up. I did however just plug in, change all my passwords, and transferred a file from my laptop to my freeNAS computer and the same file that took 30minutes takes around 6MINUTES!!! I'm so pumped.