RT-N56U dropouts

[Dundalis]

I'm getting connection dropouts when doing high speed downloading (occasionally with torrents, but often when using the downthemall download accelerator addon for firefox). Downloading a file of say 800mb, I will get at least one or two dropouts using the dl accelerator.

Connection dropouts of this type do not come back on after a period of time, they pretty much require a hard reset of modem and router each time.

Connection is fine for normal browsing, or normal downloading without an accelerator.

I'm currently on 3.0.3.4-048 version of Padavan's custom firmware.

Anything I should be looking at to help mitigate this issue?

 

[L&LD]

I'm not too sure what version you're running, but you may want to try moonman's latest.

RT-N56U_3.4.3.8-084-moonman-8


http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=16295

 

[Dundalis]

That looks interesting, especially the comment from the last post on the first page talking about youtube videos working better, as it is youtube vids that I am dling in particular that are causing me issue right now.

Unfortunately the how to link in the OP is gibberish to me. I'd need better hand holding than that to use what I assume is a modified version of padavans firmware?

 

[L&LD]

Just look at the download prebuilt images link, sort by modified date as indicated and download the latest trx file.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/jytn55k8ms3879c/RT-N56U_3.4.3.8-084-moonman-8.trx


The link above is the direct link for the RT-56U and the current latest firmware from moonman.

After you download it, simply flash as normal.

 

[Dundalis]

Just look at the download prebuilt images link, sort by modified date as indicated and download the latest trx file.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/jytn55k8ms3879c/RT-N56U_3.4.3.8-084-moonman-8.trx


The link above is the direct link for the RT-56U and the current latest firmware from moonman.
.
After you download it, simply flash as normal.

Ok thanks. Can I do it through the upgrade firmware section in the GUI of my current version of Padavans firmware? Or does it need to be done different?

 

[L&LD]

Use the gui. I would probably do a reset to factory defaults though and a hard reboot (pull the power plug) after the update completes.

 

[Dundalis]

Doesn't seem to have made much of a difference. Is there something else I can try? Or maybe the router has had it and I need an upgrade?

 

[L&LD]

You may want to adjust how many connections (sorry, don't know the correct term here) your torrent client is using.

 

[Dundalis]

That won't work for the download accelerator. So maybe I need a better router? Any suggestion on one that can handle many connections?

 

[moonman]

This router can handle thousands of connections, even with hardware nat disabled. Last i checked i had over 5000 active connections and downthemall can do a maximum of 10. You either have misconfigured it or there is something else going on.

Are you using wireless or hardwired?
Have you tried direct connection to modem? Maybe the modem/isp is to blame.
If using wireless, update wifi driver to latest, especially if you have an older intel wifi. Make sure you are using channel with least interference and so on. There are so many factors at play here. I bet a new router will have the same behavior.

 

[Dundalis]

This router can handle thousands of connections, even with hardware nat disabled. Last i checked i had over 5000 active connections and downthemall can do a maximum of 10. You either have misconfigured it or there is something else going on.

Are you using wireless or hardwired?
Have you tried direct connection to modem? Maybe the modem/isp is to blame.
If using wireless, update wifi driver to latest, especially if you have an older intel wifi. Make sure you are using channel with least interference and so on. There are so many factors at play here. I bet a new router will have the same behavior.

I have tried a wired connection to the modem and using downthemall in combination with flashgot downloader to dl a youtube vid, I was able to dl 6 videos of about 500-800mb each with no issues. I was getting faster speeds also though that would be expected.

I use a wireless connection to connect to the Asus router, about 2-3 rooms away. I get 4-5 bar connection. I will be lucky to get through 1 dl of above videos without the internet connection cutting off and having to do a hard reset of both router and modem. Often a video of that size I will need to do it twice before it completes.

I will try the wifi driver advice. Not sure what you mean as far as a channel with the least interference? I'm a newb as far as the technical stuff goes.

 

[moonman]

hard reset? you mean you power cycle them both or you actually reset the settings to defaults?
What happens if you just power cycle the router and not the modem?
What if you hardwire your PC to the router this time (instead of the modem).

To scan for channels use something like inSSIDer and see what channels have the least number of APs. Keep in mind there are 3 non-overlapping channels in 2.4 band: 1, 6 and 11. Don't use anything in between. Set mode to g/n mixed (or just n if you don't have any wireless g clients). Channel width to 20MHz.

 

[Dundalis]

hard reset? you mean you power cycle them both or you actually reset the settings to defaults?
What happens if you just power cycle the router and not the modem?
What if you hardwire your PC to the router this time (instead of the modem).

To scan for channels use something like inSSIDer and see what channels have the least number of APs. Keep in mind there are 3 non-overlapping channels in 2.4 band: 1, 6 and 11. Don't use anything in between. Set mode to g/n mixed (or just n if you don't have any wireless g clients). Channel width to 20MHz.

Ok this may not only have fixed the problem, but given me a slight boost in speed, after setting to channel 6 and 20mhz width. Will continue to monitor it, but so far so good!

On an perhaps unrelated note, I have noticed that the client name of my laptop is nothing like the actual name of my laptop. I notice because I had an issue where the laptop could not connect to the internet because it said someone else was using the same ip address. I've somehow gotten my laptop to connect to the internet again, but as a result I've noticed this which is odd.

My laptop name for example is XXXX-PC, which shows up when I navigate to the network folders also. However the client status screen for the router, it appears as YYYY-iMac?? Is this a bug, or some sort of virus/spyware?