RT-AC5300 - Crashing & Rebooting (Merlin 386.12)

[AGTDenton]

Good Morning, Hello, Good Afternoon & Good Evening

I'm well aware that my router is completely out of date and no official updates have been made for over a year.
The last official Firmware version: 3.0.0.4.386.48377

Some history to my router problems:

I have from very early on of ownership had crashing issues with my RT-AC5300, but that was when it was still actively supported, and you hoped one day a new Firmware would fix or improve things.

So what happens, the WiFi will suddenly stop working, and the LAN will follow 1-2 minutes later. With the official ASUS Firmware this would lead to hard crash.
I would have no ability to communicate with the router and had to do a hard reset (turn it off and on again).
Immediately after the first crash, it would proceed to crash immediately anywhere up to 10 times after about 5 minutes of use.
If it just won't boot I do a factory reset with the button on the router. This would always work and I'd have to input all my settings again.

After this point the router could be working for days, weeks, months or years before the problem materialised again. Yes I had it working for 2 years without issue, believing that the issue was solved.
I'd come to my end of the road recently with the router before discovering Merlin which I thought I'd give a try as I had nothing to lose.

So now while the problem has improved after installing the latest Merlin Firmware, it's not gone away entirely.
The same thing still happens, WiFi drops, then LAN and it might do it repeatedly. However, now the router reboots itself as opposed to a hard crash.
This is much better because I no longer have to physically reset the router.

I'm attaching the latest log, can anyone see why this might be happening? It's all gobbledygook to me.
Current Firmware: Merlin 386.12

NOTE: Whenever the router does crash, the time is briefly reset to 5th of May just so you don't think it's a rogue entry.
And yes I was up late watching some Netflix (which is why I noticed it) so the early morning times are correct when the NTP regains the time.

I've yet to replace the router as I'm holding out for the first wave of WiFi 7 routers so I'm trying desperately to not apply a hammer to this router and buy an interim one!

Many thanks!

 

[L&LD]

Welcome to the forums @AGTDenton.

I'm expecting (Gen 2) WiFi 7 routers to be worth buying (at a fair value) sometime in the next two years. I wouldn't be waiting to replace this EOL product as a main router, today. And I wouldn't be jumping on Gen 1 WiFi 7 routers either without the specs even being decided on yet.

You may want to try the following link to see if you can get your router as stable as possible in the meantime though.

Nuclear Reset https://www.snbforums.com/threads/major-issues-w-rt-ac86u.56342/page-4#post-495710


The following link expands on the Nuclear reset steps and makes them clearer for you.

AC68u fast blinking power light from time to time (nvram issue)

I have this flaky AC68u which from time to time totally forgets its NVRAM. Usually power light is blinking rapidly. I can usually restore the router after multiple attempts of pressing WPS button upon turning on. It'll come back up fully factory reset. But it'll forget again soon. I am using...

www.snbforums.com

 

[AGTDenton]

Thanks very much for your reply. Some interesting things I've not come across before.
When I've got more time next weekend I'll look to giving this a try.

With regards to the WiFi 7 angle. It's actually the LAN portions I care about more. Right now WiFi 6 & 6e routers only come with a weird combination of 1x 2.5Gbe port and 4x 1ghz or they give 1x 10Gbe + 1x 1ghz LAN and 1x 2.5ghz WAN. It's completely mad. With WiFi 7 I can find plenty of examples where it will be 2.5ghz all round. Or multiple 10Gbe and the rest 2.5Gbe. I don't really want loads of separate equipment especially when a 2.5ghz switch is a whopping £300 and doesn't do very much.

 

[L&LD]

The ports available on a router haven't ever been a good reason to consider it or not.

The RT-AX88U Pro or the GT-AX6000 both have 2x 2.5GbE ports and your choice of switches to add and extend to more than one device is an option. This is exactly what I've been using for the last 2+ years now. The actual switches are the QNAP QSW-1105-5T-US 5-Port Unmanaged 2.5GbE models and have proven very stable, reliable, and performant for less than $300 for both. And allow my entire wired network to be 2.5GbE enabled using 'just' Cat5e cable (longest run is 100').

You don't want the switches to do much more than just work.