RT-AC66U Media Bridge Stability

[virtueme]

The repeater mode seems stable to me, even if it looks like I got some strange behavior some days. The 5 GHz goes up and down on speed when I test it against speedtest.net. But the 2.4 GHz seems very stable. To nite it seems very stable, but now my wife and kids are not connected with their iPad's.

No reboots for 3 days and 5 hours on the repeater. Over 5 days on the router in AP mode.

It's much better then ever, even my laptop comes online with the same when I log in after it has been sleeping. That never happened before.

 

[babgvant]

I ended up reflashing to .726 and resetting both RT-AC66U and now it's been working quite well for a couple days.

I did two things differently this time around:

- Used default IP subnet (192.168.1.1) instead of changing it to 192.168.0.1

- Did not try Media Bridge mode on the 2nd unit, went straight to Repeater

It baffles me that either of these things would have an impact, but the process (flash/reset) was no different from any of the other times I did it so there must have been some impact.

 

[Junky321]

I was reading somewhere that this router does not play nice with 192.168.0.1subnet. I flashed mines with RMerlin .33 Beta3 and configured them Router/Repeater and it seems to be stable so far.

Am I thinking correct that in Repeater mode, it only uses 5Ghz N protocol instead of AC?

:

- Used default IP subnet (192.168.1.1) instead of changing it to 192.168.0.1

- Did not try Media Bridge mode on the 2nd unit, went straight to Repeater

 

[babgvant]

I was reading somewhere that this router does not play nice with 192.168.0.1subnet.

Interesting. Anyone else seen this or have experience with it?

Am I thinking correct that in Repeater mode, it only uses 5Ghz N protocol instead of AC?

I haven't seen a significant diff in performance when operating in repeater v.
media bridge mode.

 

[Junky321]

I believe I read it here but I have never used 192.168.0.xx so I can't say for certain.

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=11166

Interesting. Anyone else seen this or have experience with it?



I haven't seen a significant diff in performance when operating in repeater v.
media bridge mode.

 

[babgvant]

Since switching to 192.168.1.1 I haven't had any stability issues running in Repeater mode. Media Bridge mode still exhibits some odd behaviors though, but given that there doesn't appear to be a bandwidth penalty for choosing Repeater over Media Bridge it's not much of an issue.

I do wish that the WAN port was useful in Repeater mode like it is in Media Bridge. I have five Ethernet devices on that side of the network so the empty WAN port just taunts me .

 

[virtueme]

Today I had my first restart after upgrading to the latest firmware. But no client could access the internet. A restart fixed the issue. It came after my wife update to the 7.02 patch for the ipad mini.

 

[babgvant]

but given that there doesn't appear to be a bandwidth penalty for choosing Repeater over Media Bridge it's not much of an issue.

This turned out not to be the case. There is a pretty significant hit for using Repeater instead of Media Bridge.

 

[Junky321]

This turned out not to be the case. There is a pretty significant hit for using Repeater instead of Media Bridge.

How so? Transfer rate?

 

[DaveMishSr]

This turned out not to be the case. There is a pretty significant hit for using Repeater instead of Media Bridge.

That is due to repeater using WDS. It cuts the connection speed in half. Use media Bridge for best performance but you will have to be hard-wired to the bridge. However, the 2.4GHz SSID the media bridge transmits can theoretically connect at 450Mbps.

 

[babgvant]

That is due to repeater using WDS. It cuts the connection speed in half. Use media Bridge for best performance but you will have to be hard-wired to the bridge. However, the 2.4GHz SSID the media bridge transmits can theoretically connect at 450Mbps.

Yes, but unfortunately Media Bridge mode isn't stable. It doesn't matter how fast the connection is when traffic gets ignored...

 

[CowMan]

A quick update with what was my eventual solution: I've replaced both 66U's with 68U's and it has been working flawlessly since. :S

 

[Junky321]

A $400 solution for a $400 flaw purchase

A quick update with what was my eventual solution: I've replaced both 66U's with 68U's and it has been working flawlessly since. :S

 

[Igb]

I did not test it in newer versions of the FW, i hoped it was fixed by now.

However, i did not noticed massive drops in speed between media bridge and repeater mode, despite the lack of HW acceleration. About 360mbps (repeater) vs 410mbps (media bridge) measured with iperf, on a fairly high distance (about 15m with few obstacles). That makes it roughly 15% faster, so people with the same problem and not superb signal shouldn't worry a lot and stay on repeater mode.

At least there is a "quick fix": Buying a pair of 68U's lol

Had no time to check for sability, only some quick tests with iperf as i said. If it's rock solid i will stay on media bridge. Otherwise... well, not terrible.

 

[Ritzie]

Question. I have the ac68u running as the router and ac66u in media bridge mode. When I set the media bridge mode it disables the 2.4G it shows 5G which is what I used to connect to the ac68u. Is that how its supposed to work? I never used media bridge before. Originally I had the ac66u set as AP to be used for guests.

 

[chris431]

Question. I have the ac68u running as the router and ac66u in media bridge mode. When I set the media bridge mode it disables the 2.4G it shows 5G which is what I used to connect to the ac68u. Is that how its supposed to work? I never used media bridge before. Originally I had the ac66u set as AP to be used for guests.

Yes, under a strict "media bridge" utilization. However, two firmwares ago, the media bridge mode in the ac66u allowed you to broadcast over the 2.4g (you could also disable it) and set that SSID to anything you want. That ability has now been removed with the current firmware.

 

[jjulez]

So there's still no fix for media bridge ac66u ?

 

[Boogieman]

So this problem is definitely related somehow to the MAC address of the client. I noticed it on a PC w/ a static IP assignment, went in and changed the MAC (TBC, the IP remained the same) and everything started working again. I could ping it from the router side (this did not work) and it could access the internet again.

A client cant change the MAC - the MAC is the only thing that is static.
The router might misinterpret IPs though

 

[Boogieman]

So there's still no fix for media bridge ac66u ?

No, not even in 2019 on the final Merlin FW 380.70 Media bridge works.
With 5 clients on the media bridge ports, I have disconnets and need to reboot about every 2nd hour = it even GOT WORSE, from when this thread was active.
To me, thats enough proof never yo buy an Asus router again. Even though internet is flodded with issues about media bridge not only on ac66u but other asus routers, Asus dont care and I havent seen a single reply from Merlin either on the issue the last couple of years, I guess he cant do anything about it since its Asus source code and the bridge mode is just F-KED and Asus made it more F-ked when they started to go the new router with mesh.....its all bout the money. Bite Your own tail Asus

 

[Val D.]

No, not even in 2019 on the final Merlin FW 380.70 Media bridge works.

Media Bridge is not stable with Merlin 380.70. Use Merlin 380.66 instead. My Media Bridge is up for weeks with no restart.