[RT-AC87U] Choosing Router Setting for Highly Populated Area

[Brian M]

Hello all,

So I am coming here seeking some guidance on what settings for my router are the best given my situation. I have a ASUS RT-AC87U Wireless-AC2400 Dual Band Gigabit Router. Its brand new and from what I understand should be a top of the line router. I bought it specifically because my internet wasn't great, but it hasn't helped much.

I live on a college campus so its very densely populated. I'm off campus so its not the computer internet, we have 75mb down and 15 up from comcast(if that matters).

So I have a lot of issues with the internet, especially when my roommates are using it too. Specifically, if my introverted roommate is watching netflix in his room(~40ft) away from the router, it will basically shut me out of decent internet when I am sitting just 10 feet away from it. I can't even watch a movie without lag. I'm pretty sure 75mb down should EASILY cover that.

From my research I chose to use the 5ghz setting as opposed to the 2.4, as I have heard that the 5 is better for short ranges. I chose 80MHz as my channel bandwith because i'm assuming that not everyone around me will have a router with that functionality(my old one only had 20 or 40). And then my control channel and extention channel are set to auto. I tried changing the control channel just now but it doesn't seem to be much better.

If you have any tips at all on what I could do to help this problem, I'd really appreciate it.

(Side note, I know its not the ISP. for about a month I would directly plug into my modem with an ethernet cable at random times, and I'd always get the speeds im paying for)

Also, is there a way to set my laptop to be like the 'primary' device so that it is focused before other devices connected?

 

[Brian M]

Sorry for the lengthy post, I just figured i'd give all the information I had so not as many questions were being asked.

 

[thiggins]

Unfortunately, the RT-AC87U and other AC2350/AC2400 routers have a 5 GHz radio that has its problems. So you may want to try 2.4 GHz and see if it's any better.

You should be able to prioritize your device over others using ASUS QoS features. ASUS experts may be able to guide you, so I moved your post to that forum.

Setting your 5 GHz channel bandwidth to 80 MHz just ensures that 802.11ac devices can connect. It doesn't prevent non-AC devices from connecting. Those devices just connect at a lower rate.

75 Mbps down should allow more than two Netflix streams. But if you're both on the same radio and one of you has a relatively weak signal, it can limit the bandwidth available to everyone else. 40 feet and a few walls is a long distance for 5 GHz. So you're roommate is probably getting a pretty low signal.

Make sure you have different SSIDs (network names) for each band. Then try having one of you use 2.4 GHz and the other 5 GHz.

 

[Pierino]

Maybe you can return it and try the rt-ac68u.

 

[Haggster]

maybe you can return it and get the ac32000

or you do the following:
-flash the latest firmware
-make sure only you use the 5GHz band
-use separate SSIDs for 2.4 and 5GHz (as proposed above)
-perform a site survey to check if others are using the 5GHz band as well
-if they are, set the 5GHz channel to one of the DFS frequencies (google it if you're not sure what those are - and make sure that the device(s) you use can connect to DFS channels)
- perform a speedtest via ethernet (i.e. non-wifi) to see how much maximum throughput your line really gives you so that you won't blame slow speeds on any bandwidth that's not available in the first place
- activate adaptive QoS, set your maximum bandwith in the QoS settings to 1mbit below the maximum upload and download that you got as the results of the speed test
- give the device(s) you are using the highest priority in QoS and lower the priority of the devices your flatmates are using
- set the beacon interval in the wireless professional settings to a value above 300 and maybe to a prime number above 300 (this makes it less likely that the beacons are sent out at the exact same ms as your neighbor's wifis)
- you might not want to do the last step for your flatmate who's using the 2.4GHz since he's further away and therefore might get problems with a too high beacon interval value

That's basically it; you can always perform some more minor tweaking but the most important points should be to first be sure that the speed you want it possible at all (by speed-testing via cable), making sure there is no interference with other APs and using QoS.

You might even want to check your client, especially if you're using a Windows PC there are a lot of ways to tune the network stack. I've come across some older Windows PCs (released close to when Win7 was released) that were performing badly when it comes to throughput, but they were getting really fast after tuning them accordingly. There are a lot of websites on the net that offer some advice. Just make sure you ignore the 80% of websites that offer placebo tuning tips or those that'll make your wifi perform even worse.

 

[Puppa]

The lower channels of 5GHz (near channel 36) offer far better wall penetration than the higher ones (near 157). An RT-AC3200 would do well for you, especially since you could give your introvert roommate the password for the lower 5GHz channel radio, and you could use the higher channel radio.

I've had best luck using a tool like Wifi Analyzer on Android to check which channel is the best to use, then selecting a fixed channel for each radio rather than using the Auto channel setting, something especially important for 2.4GHz. The problem with the Auto setting is that it can cause your signal to drop sporadically when the channel jumps. If you're holding onto a fixed channel, other neighboring routers, which usually have Auto set by default, will learn to shy away from your frequency...usually.

A slightly *lower* beacon interval--try 97 mS--will keep your SSID broadcast from getting stepped on too often by your neighbors, but don't tell them that or they'll lower their's too and the point will be moot. Most people don't mess with it. If you increase the interval, a single "hit" of interference would do more damage. For example, if beacon interval is 300mS and just one of the beacons get stepped on, you'd be beaconless for about 600mS, possibly causing your network card to think it lost the signal. With a lower beacon interval, you're only beaconless for--taking 97 mS for example--less than 200mS. Also, don't set the interval too low--the time consumed by the beacon broadcast will interfere with your data throughput.

For beacon interval setting, follow the following rules of thumb: For a weak signal or high interference environment, lower interval is better. For a strong signal environment with no interference, higher interval can lead to (marginally) better throughput. Default beacon interval is usually 100mS.

 

[Haggster]

The above advice is good;

Brian: if you want to go that route you might even want to set the DTIM interval from the default value that is 3 to 2 or 1. My advice given earlier was focused on the fact that you mentioned that you're very close to the router and on the fact that if you use a 5GHz DFS channel, the airwaves on those frequencies will most likely be completely clean, giving you the maximum speed. Since you seem to be competing for bandwidth not only with neighboring wi-fis, but also with users of your router, increasing the beacon interval on your 5GHz might enable you to squeeze out a few more kbit/s bandwidth (the more, the faster your connection is - for people using fiber lines it would even amount to a few mbit/s); only if you're close to the router and if the other guys using your router use the 2.4GHz, that is.

 

[NetworkError]

Crank up the beacons ! Always shook my head as to lowering.

 

[Haggster]

No, lower the RTS Threshold instead. This should be more effective.

 

[sfx2000]

75 Mbps down should allow more than two Netflix streams. But if you're both on the same radio and one of you has a relatively weak signal, it can limit the bandwidth available to everyone else. 40 feet and a few walls is a long distance for 5 GHz. So you're roommate is probably getting a pretty low signal.

Yep - a weak client can beat up an AP pretty hard - they'll connect at a very low MCS rate, but still enough to stream at 300Kbit or so (which is enough for Netflix) - but since the channel is a shared medium, it's taking up all the airtime on the channel while the stream is active.

If OP can push the roommates streamer down to 2.4GHz, everyone should be happy...

 

[Brian M]

Unfortunately, the RT-AC87U and other AC2350/AC2400 routers have a 5 GHz radio that has its problems. So you may want to try 2.4 GHz and see if it's any better.

You should be able to prioritize your device over others using ASUS QoS features. ASUS experts may be able to guide you, so I moved your post to that forum.

Setting your 5 GHz channel bandwidth to 80 MHz just ensures that 802.11ac devices can connect. It doesn't prevent non-AC devices from connecting. Those devices just connect at a lower rate.

75 Mbps down should allow more than two Netflix streams. But if you're both on the same radio and one of you has a relatively weak signal, it can limit the bandwidth available to everyone else. 40 feet and a few walls is a long distance for 5 GHz. So you're roommate is probably getting a pretty low signal.

Make sure you have different SSIDs (network names) for each band. Then try having one of you use 2.4 GHz and the other 5 GHz.

Hmm well now im running into the issue that even when I change the SSID of one of the frequencies, I can only see one, I can never see the other. Any suggestions?