RT-AC68U 5Ghz Wifi setting recommendations

[paulgj]

Hello,

Occasionally I notice my phone and tablet drop off of the 5Ghz network and was wondering if there is something that should be changed in my router settings?

The router is located in a small 950sq ft detached rambler home with a total of about a dozen attached devices with about 6 on the 5ghz channel and 3 on the 2.4ghz channel

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

 

[bunneo]

Turn off 2.4Ghz
Bandwidth : 80MHz
Channel : select the least congested

 

[drinkingbird]

Turn off 2.4Ghz
Bandwidth : 80MHz
Channel : select the least congested

Turning off 2.4 won't help 5.
Hardcoding bandwidth if anything will make things worse, not better.
These days auto channel is usually the best bet unless you want to check it every day and change as needed.

 

[drinkingbird]

Hello,

Occasionally I notice my phone and tablet drop off of the 5Ghz network and was wondering if there is something that should be changed in my router settings?

The router is located in a small 950sq ft detached rambler home with a total of about a dozen attached devices with about 6 on the 5ghz channel and 3 on the 2.4ghz channel

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

View attachment 47364

View attachment 47365

There was a time when some clients didn't like having a space in the SSID. No idea if that is still an issue. I disable TX bursting on mine, I don't recall if I had an issue with it but it is generally a proprietary protocol only supported by certain chipsets.

When the device loses 5Ghz is it switching to 2.4 or a different SSID or just dropping completely?

That is an older router, it is possible the radios are starting to go bad.

 

[Tech9]

I disable TX bursting on mine, I don't recall if I had an issue with it but it is generally a proprietary protocol only supported by certain chipsets.

And 802.11g/a only. Asus has to realize at some point many settings have dependencies and displaying all the settings including irrelevant ones is wrong. The same applies to Explicit Beamforming and MU-MIMO on 2.4GHz with Wi-Fi 5 routers. I've never seen a capable 802.11n client. @paulgj has N/AC mixed in settings. What Tx Bursting and in a section called Professional?

 

[bunneo]

Turning off 2.4 won't help 5.
Hardcoding bandwidth if anything will make things worse, not better.
These days auto channel is usually the best bet unless you want to check it every day and change as needed.

i might be wrong or my router is bad.
if i set to auto it always selects 80MHz and only sometimes goes to 160MHz, so i set it to 160MHz
and having both 2.4 and 5 enabled i see that my file transfer speeds decreases, with only 5 i see around 120 to 140MBs, when both enabled it drops to 60 to 80MBs, and lot of times devices connect to 2.4 instead of 5, so disabling 2.4 is better option.

 

[drinkingbird]

i might be wrong or my router is bad.
if i set to auto it always selects 80MHz and only sometimes goes to 160MHz, so i set it to 160MHz
and having both 2.4 and 5 enabled i see that my file transfer speeds decreases, with only 5 i see around 120 to 140MBs, when both enabled it drops to 60 to 80MBs, and lot of times devices connect to 2.4 instead of 5, so disabling 2.4 is better option.

It is not selecting160 because there is too much interference, by forcing it to 160 you can actually end up with less performance (or higher performance sometimes and lower or unstable others) than if you let it go with 80. If in your case it works fine and no issues, then you can leave it hardcoded but I would not make that blanket recommendation to people looking to fix issues (especially in this case where 80 is the most their router can do anyway).

Even if you hardcode to 160, since it has to overlap DFS when you do that, it can still switch back to 80 if it detects radar.

Having 2.4 enabled will not impact 5 at all. If your devices are switching to 2.4 then yes you'll get lower throughput on those devices, but that's something you need to address on the client side. But in OPs case they are using 2.4 for several devices so suggesting to disable it makes no sense.

I have both 2.4 and 5 enabled on my AC router and 5Ghz performance is about 65MB/sec which is exactly where it should be, can't get much more than that out of an 80mhz channel. My guess is you're comparing your 160mhz numbers (when things are good and actually able to use the whole channel) to 80mhz, not simply when 2.4 is and isn't enabled.

 

[drinkingbird]

And 802.11g/a only. Asus has to realize at some point many settings have dependencies and displaying all the settings including irrelevant ones is wrong. The same applies to Explicit Beamforming and MU-MIMO on 2.4GHz with Wi-Fi 5 routers. I've never seen a capable 802.11n client. @paulgj has N/AC mixed in settings. What Tx Bursting and in a section called Professional?

I want to say there were N routers with some form of it (was it TurboQAM?) but it was not the same technology, it was yet a different proprietary one that required all their own stuff. But I may not be remembering that correctly. They've been doing these proprietary acceleration technologies since long ago and never saw them work well or at all.

Yeah AC beamforming on 2.4ghz is laughable, there is no such thing as 2.4ghz AC, it's just N. Though universal beamforming sometimes actually does work ok on 2.4.

What surprises me more is it looks like Asus is defaulting airtime fairness to enabled (I haven't factory reset in a while so can't confirm), unless you're running a large public hotspot that almost certainly will hurt rather than help. Even on higher end gear it is specifically recommended only for high density client deployments. Universal beamforming and MIMO too, both of which are questionable defaults to have also.

 

[Tech9]

I want to say there were N routers with some form of it (was it TurboQAM?)

Yes, I have 2 clients capable of 256-QAM on 2.4GHz and Asuswrt wrongly recognizes them as AC clients on 2.4GHz in Wireless Log.

 

[bennor]

View attachment 47364

One thing that sticks out on the 5GHz page is you have Wireless Mode set to N/AC mixed. Try setting it back to the default: Auto. If you have changed the 2.4GHz page's Wireless Mode to something other than Auto try switching it back to Auto. Remember to hit the Apply button at the page bottom to save the changes.

Edit to add: If you haven't done so already, check the router log(s) to see what, if anything, they may show around the time the Wireless client(s) disconnect.

 

[adastra]

Turning off 2.4 won't help 5.
Hardcoding bandwidth if anything will make things worse, not better.
These days auto channel is usually the best bet unless you want to check it every day and change as needed.

Hi why is hardcoding bandwidth bad idea? THX

 

[Tech9]

I always use fixed channels and bandwidth - 2.4GHz @20MHz and 5GHz @80MHz in non-DFS range. Auto channel in dense Wi-Fi environment will cause constant best channel hunting and related Wi-Fi interruptions. It's better to fix the channels and hold your ground. 2.4GHz 1-6-11 doesn't apply when you have no control on the APs around. Use any channel with higher available bandwidth - the one the router uses most often on Auto.

 

[drinkingbird]

One thing that sticks out on the 5GHz page is you have Wireless Mode set to N/AC mixed. Try setting it back to the default: Auto. If you have changed the 2.4GHz page's Wireless Mode to something other than Auto try switching it back to Auto. Remember to hit the Apply button at the page bottom to save the changes.

Edit to add: If you haven't done so already, check the router log(s) to see what, if anything, they may show around the time the Wireless client(s) disconnect.

2.4 I would definitely leave set to N only. Why give the router the option to enable legacy if you have no need for it? Some random old device in a neighbors house scanning for networks could potentially cause your router to enable legacy data rates and technology that can slow everything down.

On 5, if you only have AC devices, if the router does not give you the option for "AC Only", it is possible that "auto" might prevent N clients from connecting and theoretically provide better performance, but from my experience Auto is basically the same thing as the dropdown, it either chooses N/AC or A/N/AC. Unless you have an "A" client what are you expecting to accomplish by setting that to auto? Most environments have a mix of N and AC and that setting is exactly what you need.

Mine has been set to N/AC only for years, works perfectly well.

 

[drinkingbird]

Hi why is hardcoding bandwidth bad idea? THX

Because if there isn't enough clean spectrum in your area for an 80mhz channel you're forcing the router to use noisy bandwidth which could actually reduce your throughput and stability (especially if you're allowing it to use DFS channels, which will reduce to 40 or 20 even if you hardcode to 80).

In reality, unless you're in a really dense environment (apartment/condo complex etc) there is likely an 80Mhz channel available, and when set to auto your router will find and use one, making it no different from hardcoding to 80. But if you're troubleshooting disconnect issues, that is one setting you want to look at, as you could just be forcing your router to use an unstable wide channel vs a clean narrower one.

 

[Tech9]

making it no different from hardcoding to 80

It may break time-sensitive applications like voice/video calls. Some client devices need up to 10 seconds time to switch channels. Temporary less bandwidth available is better than communication interruption for potential higher bandwidth available, but not needed at the moment.

 

[drinkingbird]

I always use fixed channels and bandwidth - 2.4GHz @20MHz and 5GHz @80MHz in non-DFS range. Auto channel in dense Wi-Fi environment will cause constant best channel hunting and related Wi-Fi interruptions. It's better to fix the channels and hold your ground. 2.4GHz 1-6-11 doesn't apply when you have no control on the APs around. Use any channel with higher available bandwidth - the one the router uses most often on Auto.

We've had this discussion before, worth mentioning my view again, obviously OP has a choice of what they want to do. I used to be all for hardcoding channels, but the last few years I'd just constantly find that channel get saturated and have to change it. Obviously more of a problem on 2.4 but it is starting to get like that with 5 also. I've been doing auto for a while now and I have it rescan every morning at 3AM and since doing that things have been stable and much easier.

I've never had a channel change without bouncing the router or radios. Theoretically that should only happen with DFS bands or potentially if you've hardcoded bandwidth and it gets so noisy it has to search for another (a reason I also don't recommend hardcoding bandwidth).

I think it comes down to each person's environment. If I lived in the middle of the woods with nothing around I'd have 80mhz high channel hardcoded (low channel goes slightly further but I've found the high ones to be better for throughput and stability for whatever reason). But surrounded by other houses full of people who just pull the router out of the box, hook it up, and use whatever SSID and settings are pre-configured, it seems like you have no choice but to play the channel hunting battle game with them.

 

[drinkingbird]

It may break time-sensitive applications like voice/video calls. Some client devices need up to 10 seconds time to switch channels. Temporary less bandwidth available is better than communication interruption for potential higher bandwidth available, but not needed at the moment.

Not sure I'm following your comment but when set to 20/40/80 I've never seen the Asus router change the bandwidth other than on reboot or radio bounce. And that was only one time it came up at 40mhz that I've ever noticed, it was either a fluke or some odd interference (used to be sitting on top of a rack of network gear so wouldn't surprise me if there was a good amount of RF noise).

DFS is different obviously, that can change channel or bandwidth on the fly which certainly can cause interruption.

I've been running 20/40/80 and auto channel for about a year now, I'm on Teams and Zoom calls all day, never an issue.

But again, everyone is in a different environment and if troubleshooting disconnect issues, it is certainly a setting to try.

 

[drinkingbird]

I think every one of these threads should have a disclaimer - "here is a list of settings to try. Each one will work differently for different situations. Try each one, one at a time, and see which works best for you..."

Some of them there are good reasons why one setting is ideal, in my opinion disabling legacy data rates is always a good thing (but as you can see others feel otherwise). Others, such as static bandwidth and channel vs Auto, both are right, depending on the situation and environment.

 

[Tech9]

But again, everyone is in a different environment

Yes, I know 80MHz works in my environment. Best individual Wi-Fi settings are the result of trial and error process. No universal best advice.

 

[drinkingbird]

Yes, I know 80MHz works in my environment. Best individual Wi-Fi settings are the result of trial and error process. No universal best advice.

Agreed. Well actually the universal best advice is try it yourself and see what works . Threads like this can give an idea of what to focus on and try.

Actually there are a couple settings where, at least on the Asus, we can all agree are generally going to be best. Disabling universal beamforming seems to be the best setting on Asus (I've seen it work ok on other devices, but not the Asus). Same for airtime fairness, unless you have a pretty specific use case for it (lots of devices competing for bandwidth) most likely it is going to be much better disabled.