RT-N66U 2.4Ghz drops, but clients can't reconnect

[marnold]

I just upgraded to Merlin's 378.56_2 firmware. I've had problems with the 2.4 suddenly stopping working once in a blue moon, but since the upgrade it's happened twice in 12 hours. Either the 2.4 channel disappears entirely or it refuses connections.

FWIW, I have different SSIDs for both channels. There is no one on channel 6 on 2.4 except my router. Everybody else seems to be on 1 or 12.

Since then I've not experienced the problem. I don't know what happened, but I haven't seen it again.

 

[Fandroid]

Trouble free since 11 November but today it happened again...

 

[Serbig]

Hi everyone!
I'm new to this forum and wanted to ask whether there is a solution to the aforementioned problems.

Since a week or so, I'm experiencing the same problems with my RT-N66U. Hard to tell when it exactly started since all of my devices use the 5Ghz frequency, but my wife is having trouble connecting her iPhone 4S and HP Deskjet 3055 printer.

At first, I thought the router was acting up, so I restarted it and that seemed to solve the problem. However, it didn't take long until the issues resurfaced.

I used iStumbler on my Mac to scan the area and noticed that it is highly populated with 2.4Ghz wifi networks - my router is the only one in the vicinity that also has a 5Ghz band. But I still don't think that it's too probable that interference from other wifi networks are the cause. I mean, 20 wifi networks didn't just appear and cause my router to block all 2.4Ghz connections, right?

It doesn't seem to be a firmware issue because I still had the original firmware that came with the router (back in 2013, I believe). To be sure, I flashed several newer original firmware versions as well as the newest Merlin firmware (380.58_0). Didn't help at all. I also switched off b/g protection and changed the channel multiple times.

Greetings from Germany

 

[terribell]

I have been having this problem also, even with a script to reset wireless everyday at 4h30, and it seems to be related to selecting channel 1 manually for 2.4G.
Since I've put it on auto it seems stable, which unfortunately selects channel 6 that has some neighbors on the same channel.
The connection is not so strong but at least it does not drop.

Anyone with similar experiences?

 

[Fandroid]

I have been having this problem also, even with a script to reset wireless everyday at 4h30, and it seems to be related to selecting channel 1 manually for 2.4G.
Since I've put it on auto it seems stable, which unfortunately selects channel 6 that has some neighbors on the same channel.
The connection is not so strong but at least it does not drop.

Anyone with similar experiences?

I don't know how you came to the conclusion that it's related to selecting channel 1 manually but I have this issue occasionally and my router is configured to channel 1 manually.

 

[terribell]

I don't know how you came to the conclusion that it's related to selecting channel 1 manually but I have this issue occasionally and my router is configured to channel 1 manually.

I came to this conclusion after days and days of experimenting, with lots of trial and error.
Maybe there is a problem with the stability of manually selecting channel 1.

If more people confirm the problem, maybe @john9527 or @RMerlin can help.
Not sure since the wireless driver is closed source and they cannot change anything in regards to this.

 

[john9527]

Maybe there is a problem with the stability of manually selecting channel 1.

I really doubt there is something special about channel 1 as far as the router goes. More likely the presence of some external noise source that's hitting the lower channel freq.

 

[sfx2000]

Again - intermittent problems like this - always check power... esp. on devices that were working well, and then all of a sudden, without any changes, start behaving badly...

If the gear is over 2 years old, that shiny 200 dollar router is powered by a 2 dollar AC adapter, and yes, they do fail - esp. going soft under load...

 

[RMerlin]

Again - intermittent problems like this - always check power... esp. on devices that were working well, and then all of a sudden, without any changes, start behaving badly...

If the gear is over 2 years old, that shiny 200 dollar router is powered by a 2 dollar AC adapter, and yes, they do fail - esp. going soft under load...

Thankfully, the quality of the AC adapters in newer high-end models seem to have improved (at least they don't look and feel so cheap anymore - I don't have a scope to actually test them out).

 

[mgeoffriau]

I'm also experiencing this problem. Has anyone pursued an "overheating" theory? That's my next step. I just posted this over in the Merlin subforum:

Interestingly enough, I switched to Merlin from the stock ASUS firmware when my 2.4 Ghz radio started dropping clients intermittently. Merlin seemed to sort things out (3 stable weeks), but just had it happen again yesterday.

Now I'm wondering if it's an overheating issue. For a while I was definitely stressing the router -- mounted horizontally, with a USB HD attached, a SIP phone, OpenVPN, etc. House temp is usually around 70 F. I have now mounted it vertically (and no more USB HD), but it's near the ceiling so I don't know that it's much cooler than before. Merlin reports radio temps in the 55 - 57 C range.

I am considering opening up my router, checking and reapplying thermal paste where necessary, and then drilling some vent holes in the top of the case and mounting a 5V fan for some active cooling, and seeing what that does for my stability.

 

[mgeoffriau]

Posted my fan mod for my RT-N66U here:

$9 Router Cooling (RT-AC68U Example)

We'll see what effect it has on the 2.4Ghz radio stability.

 

[terribell]

On my case clearly overheating is not a problem as it sits atop furniture with lots of open space around.
Also the temperatures on the GUI are about 53ºC, which is quite normal.

But I'm curious on your findings.

Did you try another power source as suggested above?

 

[Rick Smith]

Wow these problems are maddening!!

My Rt-N66u worked reliably from January 2016 to 2 weeks ago (May 2016), and it has the same wifi drop issues like you all.

I was tearing my hair out trying to figure out why it wouldn't connected.

Switched to Netgear router and all seems to be working now.

I'm hoping we find an answer to this!!!

 

[terribell]

I'm still having these wifi problems...
The only way I've found to keep it moderately steady is to leave the control channel on Auto, which is very bad due to interference...

I should be using channel 1, which is the best when the wifi is up, but cannot due to these drops...

 

[Rick Smith]

Thanks for the update... that is very disheartening to hear.

Based on all the great things we hear about ASUS routers, you'd think these problems would be solvable or at least we'd get some explanation of why things don't work as they should.

With two mysterious and unsolvable issues (so far) with ASUS routers, I'm very weary of using them again until things improve.

I'm still having these wifi problems...
The only way I've found to keep it moderately steady is to leave the control channel on Auto, which is very bad due to interference...

I should be using channel 1, which is the best when the wifi is up, but cannot due to these drops...

 

[marnold]

I haven't had as many problems with this since moving to John's fork.

Sent from my XT1049 using Tapatalk

 

[terribell]

I haven't had as many problems with this since moving to John's fork.

Sent from my XT1049 using Tapatalk

I have this router for some years without any problems, but always with control channel on auto, and have been on John's fork since it was released but only found these problems a few months ago after moving house and needing to select the control channel.

 

[Rick Smith]

I haven't had as many problems with this since moving to John's fork.

Sent from my XT1049 using Tapatalk

I'm using the stock firmware and it has the same issue. Nothing changed, was working great from january to May, then 2-3 weeks ago it drops wifi clients and nothing can reconnect.

Maddening!!

 

[Joseps]

I know this is an old subject, but I reached this thread looking for help with a similar issue and just signed here to share my experience, in case someone has come here too looking for help.

I upgraded my mother's old WRT54G with my own RT-N66U, flashed the last merlin, and copied the setup by hand, except for the wireless filter, that I charged via shell, editing a nvram-save (r24) file. As soon as I did that the 2.4GHz stopped working. No device was able to authenticate, with nothing shown in logs. The 5GHz with some entries in the filter worked flawlessly though.

After a reset everything worked again, and just filling by hand some of the mac addresses in the filter was fine, but loading again the nvram full list triggered the problem.

After some tests I randomly reached a fix: just erasing a few of the oldest unused devices in that list, just through the webui, fixed the problem. After that I checked my old list exported from the old Linksys, and there were 64 entries, so maybe reaching that limit was the issue.

This is probably not related with the thread problem, but hopefully could help some other people. Sorry if it's inadequate posting that way (and sorry about my English if there are some grammar horrors).

 

[wouterv]

Looking in my RT-AC68U the answer is there:

Max Limit: 64.
I wonder though why your mother need a MAC filter list of 64 or even more addresses, I assume she only has a few devices.
Besides, MAC filtering is not considered a safe way to keep strangers out.