RT-AX88U Best Practices

[Rhyalus]

Hello All,

I am a new member of the forum - a Netgear R7000 refugee.

I have installed the AX88U and I am quite pleased...so far so good with the latest firmware downloaded from the Asus website. I may go towards Merlin, but that depends on how things go with the stock stuff and what I learn here.

The reason for my post is to ask two questions;

1. Do the network protection features significantly slow down data transfers? I am thinking of IPS in particular.
2. There are a lot of features in the wireless / professional section that are fairly esoteric. Is there a resource I can read up on the decide what I can do to optimize my setup? I have googled a couple of the features to some success, but the manual does not explain all of the features in the list.

I know many of the settings are situation specific - so here is a 10,000 foot view of my situation:

• I am in a very low wifi traffic environment
• I have 300 / 35 MB service via cable modem
• I have about 20 devices in my house (two floors) - most are not heavy use - only four have AX capability at this time, but they are important (mostly related to work)
• The only "interesting" addition is that I am using the Netgear R7000 as a bridge for some wired devices down in my living room (the Asus is on the 2nd floor, corner office)

I am looking to optimize signal quality, speed and stability. I do most of my gaming via wired ethernet to the router.

I read quite a few threads here - forgive me in advance if I missed something. Please feel free to refer me to links as necessary.

Thanks!
R

 

[dosborne]

Welcome!

Do the network protection features significantly slow down data transfers? I am thinking of IPS in particular.

"Significant" is a relative term. Try it on, try it off. Decide if the impact is worth the protection or if you have some other way (script, etc) that can perform the same function if you need it. (Personally I don't notice much impact but YMMV)

There are a lot of features in the wireless / professional section that are fairly esoteric.

If a google search and/or search on these forums doesn't provide enough of an answer, then post a specific question(s) about a specific option(s) and hopefully someone here can help you! That's what these forums are all about!

 

[L&LD]

RT-AX88U (or any RMerlin capable Asus router) 'best practices' still prove to be the M&M Config (and ideally also the Nuclear Reset) guides for myself and my customers. Particularly for the initial setup of the router, after flashing the latest RMerlin firmware available (currently the latest Alpha firmware is exceptionally stable and fast for me, as is usually the case with RMerlin firmware (Alpha or otherwise), ).

See the link in my signature below for further details and the links to those guides above.

 

[Rhyalus]

Hello Gents,

Thank you for the replies. I have read up and googled what I could.

I am having a problem that persists after a Nuclear Reset and M&M config. I am using Merlin 384.18. I have consistent speedtests of 330+ down on 5GHz and wired, but on 2.4GHz, I am seeing less than 100 down. I did not have these issues before with my Netgear R7000.

Maybe you guys will see something that I don't in my settings - please take a look. I am in a "no traffic" environment as I live in a suburban area.

The device I am testing with is the .144 address. FYI, .22 is the Netgear R7000 now serving as a bridge.

Many thanks!
R

 

[Maghook]

For 2,4G: disable both forms of beamforming and also TX bursting. If you need raw throughput and do not have any sort of time critical realtime/voip traffic in that band then try enabling optimize AMPDU(without this you will typically get little drops in throughput on large transfers. Also this helps with more than 3 concurrent clients connected to that band.

 

[Rhyalus]

For 2,4G: disable both forms of beamforming and also TX bursting. If you need raw throughput and do not have any sort of time critical realtime/voip traffic in that band then try enabling optimize AMPDU(without this you will typically get little drops in throughput on large transfers. Also this helps with more than 3 concurrent clients connected to that band.

Many thanks for the reply.... no love, unfortunately.

The speeds stay roughly the same - ramping up from ~60 to a max of about 110.

Other things I have tried:

• Testing from different devices (PC, iPad, Samsung Note 9 phone) at the same location
• Updating network adapter drivers on PC
• Forgetting the networks on the PC and reconnecting
• Changing bandwidth to 40MHz since there are no other signals around

The current PC I am testing on has an Intel AC9560 160MHz adapter, so it is fairly recent model.

At what point do I assume it is the router itself? Any other settings to try? This only happens on 2.4GHz.

Thanks!
R

 

[MarkyPancake]

I would set the Modulation Scheme to MCS 7, so the highest scheme before TurboQAM and NitroQAM.

Also, is AX/Wi-Fi 6 even a thing with the 2.4 GHz band? How about disabling that?

 

[brummygit]

It might be worth a test with Target Wake Time disabled. You can also try the settings listed here https://www.asus.com/me-en/support/FAQ/1042475