RT-AC88U

[kloxxe]

This is what concerns me about the EA6900, I read very mixed reviews, lot of complains.

In the other hand, all other AC1900 routers (Netgear, Asus, Dlink) are in the 200-250 CAD range, not much cheaper than the RT-AC3100, so I would go for the AC3100 instead of them anyway. The EA6900 is so much cheaper (149CAD vs. 349CAD) right now that it made me think, if it does the job, I might just keep it....

But I really want the AC3100...

 

[thiggins]

I would go with AC3100 for future proof reasons... especially that it's quite stable now. (mine have 15 days uptime now and no issue...)... plus, Asus support is light years before the competition, as far as I saw...

I would not try to "future proof". You're overpaying for things that, in the end, will be replaced by other technology coming in less than a year.

If you want to improve your wireless network, buy another AC1200 or AC1900 router, convert it to an AP and connect it via Ethernet, Powerline or MoCA to the first one and place it at the other end of the area you are trying to cover.

 

[thiggins]

This is what concerns me about the EA6900, I read very mixed reviews, lot of complains.

You will see that for any router or product. What matters is what works for you. There is no shame in buying a less expensive router that works!

 

[ablatt]

I would not try to "future proof". You're overpaying for things that, in the end, will be replaced by other technology coming in less than a year.

If you want to improve your wireless network, buy another AC1200 or AC1900 router, convert it to an AP and connect it via Ethernet, Powerline or MoCA to the first one and place it at the other end of the area you are trying to cover.

Adding AP's would be great if you didn't have to deal with moving around a large house and roaming issues.

 

[thiggins]

That's a better problem to deal with than no or poor connectivity.

 

[thiggins]

Review posted.

 

[doczenith1]

Rudy,

Have you looked into the price of the ASUS AC-68U? It might be the sweet spot for your current needs and get you into an ASUS router for less money than the cost of the 3100. If your needs grow in the future you could upgrade then and use the 68U as an access point.

 

[faur]

Review posted.

Most probably you're right on your final thoughts from the review.For me, after ac87u, ac88u is a complete router, packing all that i need for home usage. To be on safe side and because i own a bunch of routers, i wired them up and gave them different roles - routing, 5Ghz AP, 2.4Ghz AP...etc In this way i have a stable home network and i cannot complain about the speed or hiccups...




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Mikrotik(for routing) + AC88U(for 5Ghz) + AC68U(for 2.4Ghz) + Cisco switch(for NAS link aggregation)

 

[kloxxe]

Rudy,

Have you looked into the price of the ASUS AC-68U? It might be the sweet spot for your current needs and get you into an ASUS router for less money than the cost of the 3100. If your needs grow in the future you could upgrade then and use the 68U as an access point.

Hi,

The Asus RT-AC68U is currently 229 CAD in Canada, for that price I would add a little more and get the RT-AC3100 (339 CAD). I mean that is only 110 CAD (~80 USD) difference, pretty much what I spend for one weekly grocery shopping...

Rudy

 

[nightfly]

I am noticing my USB drive (WD Elements) is not going to sleep on the AC88; had no issues with this on the N66...

Bueller?

Performed several more tests, mostly on Win 7 wired clients but now also a Win 10 wired client: On NTFS read I am now consistently getting 100-110MB/s performance; Win 10 I am getting 110-120MB/s with a few dips to a low of 95MB/s.

 

[seanr22a]

My 88U (3.0.0.4.380.858) have been stable without a glitch since I set it up December 9. Yesterday evening it crashed and restarted itself 3 times in 2 hours It have an UPS so it's not a power issue.

I can't find any info in the systemlog about what happened. It's a lot of info in the systemlog and I can't really tell what is normal or not. This is the only thing I think might be something or maybe it's normal:
Aug 1 07:00:17 kernel: Bad eraseblock 66 at 0x000000840000
Aug 1 07:00:17 kernel: Bad eraseblock 143 at 0x0000011e0000

And the log have been filled with this since day 1:
Dec 24 03:06:30 kernel: br0: received packet on eth1 with own address as source address
Dec 24 07:45:04 kernel: br0: received packet on eth1 with own address as source address

I have the complete systemlog with all three crashes if someone would be interested.

 

[kloxxe]

So the RT-AC3100 has arrived and I have already set it up. So far so good, but I don't see much improvement over the EA6900. I will wait 2-3 days until Teksavvy finally activates my 100mbps connection, then I will test both the AC3100 and the EA6900 connected to the same environment. (right know it's hard to say as I have changed the router's location, new cable modem, etc...)

The web interface is cool and very detailed indeed, but frankly the EA6900 does what I need, I'm not sure how much I would use the fancy features of the AC3100 after the initial heyday period.

One question for the gurus: how to setup up the antennas? I live in an apartment, so all clients are in the same level as the router. Shall I set the antennas at 45 degree as per the manual, or just pointing straight up?

(the second one seems more logical assuming the antenna's radiation pattern is perpendicular to the dipole antenna itself)

Also, what is considered a "good" signal? With WIFI Analyser running on my Samsung Galaxy Note Edge I measure ~-45-55dBm @ 2.4Ghz and -55-60dBm @ 5Ghz on the worst situated bedroom.... Is that ok?

Thanks,

Rudy

 

[sm00thpapa]

My AC88U is working great but not much improvement over the 68P but a few Mbps faster.

Sent from my LG-D850 using Tapatalk

 

[thiggins]

Performed several more tests, mostly on Win 7 wired clients but now also a Win 10 wired client: On NTFS read I am now consistently getting 100-110MB/s performance; Win 10 I am getting 110-120MB/s with a few dips to a low of 95MB/s.

What are you using for a test file?

 

[kloxxe]

With WIFI Analyser running on my Samsung Galaxy Note Edge I measure ~-45-55dBm @ 2.4Ghz and -55-60dBm @ 5Ghz on the worst situated bedroom....

I made a quick test by swapping out the AC3100 with the EA6900 (same setup, SSID, location, etc). The signal strength fell back to -60dBm @ 2.4 Ghz and -70dBm @ 5Ghz...

 

[connorm]

why is the review down..........................................?

 

[Embattle]

I reckon you'll see improvements in performance etc over time.

 

[sfx2000]

why is the review down

Looks like the primary db server had a really bad night last night - too much eggnog perhaps...

 

[kloxxe]

So I made some comparison test about signal strength between the EA6900 and the AC3100, by swapping the routers at the same location, same environment and monitoring the signal strength with Wifi Analyser at the worst covered spot in my condo.

There is no difference in radio signal strenght at all. Both unit provided -50dBm @ 2.4 Ghz, and -70dBm @ 5Ghz (both with +/- 3 dBm margin).

This was surprising, considering that the AC3100 has 4 antennas, each twice the size of the three EA6900 antennas...

Proving the point that size doesn't really matter.... ;-)

My 100mbps connection upgrade will be activated tomorrow, then I will do some throughput test too (only interested in sharing the internet connection, so if the EA9600 provides 100mbps throughput at that worst spot, the game is over and AC3100 goes back to BestBuy)

 

[Embattle]

The limitation may not be the router but the environment.