RT-AC87U - Daily freezes, required power cycling to restore

[gerlos]

Hello, I'm new here,
And I’m trying to resolve some network freezing problems on an Asus RT-AC87U router running firmware version 3.0.0.4.380_7743.

Our current situation:
In our office we have an Asus RT-AC87U router, connected to our Internet service provider's router via the WAN port (on the 192.168.1.0/24 subnet), and to a 24-ports gigabit ethernet switch to provide connectivity to our desktop PCs (on the 192.168.0.0/24 subnet).

The router gets its WAN IP from the ISP router via DHCP, while internal IP is static, and DHCP and DNS queries are served by another server on the same subnet (so we disabled DHCP service on the Asus router).

We use the router to provide 2.4 GHz and 5GHz wifi connectivity to laptops and mobile devices, and we use the guest network to give Internet access to our customers and guests.

Our problem:
What happens: at least 3-4 times in a working day, we experience problems browsing the Internet, and 5GHz network wifi disappears (and the 5GHz LED on the router turns off).

If we try to access the router's web interface, it takes several minutes to load, and often it doesn't load at all, and power cycling the router is the only thing we can do to restore regular connectivity.

During these freeze periods, browsing the Internet is very slow, and often it's even impossible to ping servers outside our LAN, even using their plain IP address.

What I tried so far:
I tried replacing the 24 ports switch, the UPS, and even the cables, with no success.

I tried also a full reset of the router a couple of times, and disabling as many features as possible, one at a time, trying to exclude various features, but with no success.

I've no idea what to try next.
Any helpful suggestions?

Thanks in advance,
gerlos

 

[gerlos]

Back to my topic, just to add that I found an updated firmware for that router on Asus website (version 3.0.0.4.382_50010), and installed it hoping that will help solving my problem.

Now let's wait and see...

 

[VANT]

after upgrade make factory default and next initialize from GUI

 

[Revelstone77]

i had similar issues with my 87u. putting a cooler under it slowed the problems but didnt stop them. I contacted ASUS support and they said it was still under warranty and replaced it, even though it was over a year old. never had the problem again. Keep an eye on the temperatures of the cpu.

 

[Vexira]

TryTMerlin firmware he did a fix for the 87u recently

 

[gerlos]

Thanks all for your replies,
I did more tests, and I replaced the power strip that was used to connect the Asus router and the ISP router to the UPS and now everything seems to work fine.

Not sure what was wrong with that power strip, but after all replacing it seems to solve the problem, at least so far.

@Vexira: even if everything will stay stable, I think that I'll switch to Merlin firmware anyways, it adds interesting features to the router.

@Revelstone77: is there a way I can see the CPU temperature? I remember of a "performance tuning" tab somewhere in asuswrt interface (I've worked with other routers like this), but can't find it in this RT-AC87U.

Thanks everyone,
gerlos

 

[Vexira]

I have an 87u running Merlin and an 88u.

 

[Revelstone77]

Thanks all for your replies,
I did more tests, and I replaced the power strip that was used to connect the Asus router and the ISP router to the UPS and now everything seems to work fine.

Not sure what was wrong with that power strip, but after all replacing it seems to solve the problem, at least so far.

@Vexira: even if everything will stay stable, I think that I'll switch to Merlin firmware anyways, it adds interesting features to the router.



Thanks everyone,
gerlos

i dont use the stock ASUS firmware, i use Merlin's. In his firmware temps are shown in two places, in Tools and in Administration/Temperature. Surely, the stock firmware will have at least one of those.