[RT-N66U] Recommended fw for n66u newbie? (coming from WRT54GL w/tomato)

[caveman_0_1]

Hi Guys,

So finally I caved in and I bought based on my friends recommendation n66u unit to upgrade my oldie but goodie WRT54GL w/tomato.

I’ve had some issues with WRT54GL having troubles to handle my new 45/4 internet profile. The router on few occasions dropped D/L speed in half.

I try to use my hardwired gigabit (a couple of switches) network as much as I can. However I will be lying if I say I don’t use wi-fi.

The router location is in the basement (corner of 2 story house), so it is not perfect. With tomato firmware (boosted power) I was able to get to most of my wi-fi devices with some weak areas/spots on the 2nd floor.

My current setup consist of

- 2 - gigabit switches.
- 4 - HTPCs (win7/8) running mainly XBMC (wired)
- 1- PC/Server (wired)
- 1 - HDHomerun – ATSC network tuner (wired)
- 1- OBI110 VOIP device (wired)
- 2 – 3ds (wifi)
- 2 – android tablets (wifi)
- 1- laptop (wifi – n)
- 2 - Nexus 4 phones (wifi-n)
- 1- Nintendo Wii (wifi)

I do MAC filtering, assign static IPs on my wired network and some port forwarding. Otherwise nothing special. At the moment I’m not planning on using USB ports, VPN or any other fancy features (such as icloud).

I just want the most stable firmware that will fit my needs. Should I install latest ASUS RT-N66U Firmware Version 3.0.0.4.374.720, older? or go with one of Merlin’s excellent firmwares.

Perhaps there working Tomato build that is stable? I like Tomato fw layout and I've used it for years now.

Thanks in Advance for your help.

 

[RMerlin]

If you are familiar already with Tomato, the RT-N66U build of it works quite well. Take a look at Victeck, Shibby and Toastman's releases - they all support the RT-N66U, with different feature sets.

Asuswrt (and Asuswrt-Merlin) are currently in a bit of a state of flux due to the migration to a new wireless driver. If that doesn't bother you, then one of the following releases might suit you best:

Asus:
3.0.0.4.276

Asuswrt-Merlin:
3.0.0.4.374.32

Both are based on the older, more stable driver. 276 is an older release however, and might not have all the latest goodies from the 374 release. One benefit of my FW (and Tomato) over stock would be to be able to assign hostnames to your DHCP reservations - quite handy if you have a large amount of devices to manage.

 

[caveman_0_1]

Thank you very much for taking your time to answer my post.

Tough call , tomato which I'm familiar with (offers nice graphs etc) or yours which offers better wifi performance from what I've read.

Did anyone tried both Shibby's 112 and Merlin's 3.0.5.374.32?

TIA

If you are familiar already with Tomato, the RT-N66U build of it works quite well. Take a look at Victeck, Shibby and Toastman's releases - they all support the RT-N66U, with different feature sets.

Asuswrt (and Asuswrt-Merlin) are currently in a bit of a state of flux due to the migration to a new wireless driver. If that doesn't bother you, then one of the following releases might suit you best:

Asus:
3.0.0.4.276

Asuswrt-Merlin:
3.0.0.4.374.32

Both are based on the older, more stable driver. 276 is an older release however, and might not have all the latest goodies from the 374 release. One benefit of my FW (and Tomato) over stock would be to be able to assign hostnames to your DHCP reservations - quite handy if you have a large amount of devices to manage.

 

[caveman_0_1]

so finally I installed Shibby's 112 fw (full one). First time it failed in the middle, second time it did it fine. I did clear VRAM and rebooted the router. Everything seems to be working but I cannot get wifi to work properly... I tried few things but I'm going in cycles... The difference between my to be retired WRT54GL "G" and this Asus n66u is small... I have tried to play with power settings... 100mW and 0 to hardware's default...

My settings are:

Wireless (2.4 GHz / eth1)
MAC Address
Wireless Mode Access Point
Wireless Network Mode N Only < - had on auto
Interface Status Up (LAN)
Radio Enabled
SSID VU-17
Broadcast Enabled
Security WPA / WPA2 Personal + TKIP / AES
Channel 11 - 2.462 GHz < - tried 1 and 6
Channel Width 20 MHz <- played with 40Mhz
Interference Level Acceptable
Rate 39 Mbps

Wireless (5 GHz / eth2) (hide)
MAC Address
Wireless Mode Access Point
Wireless Network Mode N Only <- had auto too
Interface Status Up (LAN)
Radio Enabled
SSID VU-17 <- same as 2.4ghz
Broadcast Enabled
Security WPA / WPA2 Personal + TKIP / AES
Channel 149 - 5.745 GHz
Channel Width 40 MHz <- had it on 20MHz
Interference Level Acceptable
Rate 19.5 <-- it was 450 and it dropped... no idea what is going on...

I'm using my Nexus 4 phone with wifi analyzer to help me... Wired speeds seem to be fine...

Would Merlin's 3.0.5.374.32 be better firmware for wifi?

Too be honest I'm a little disappointed. Hopefully it is wrong setup or user's error..

Please help....

 

[ezhangin]

I'm pretty sure there is a problem with the Nexus 4 and 5 GHz Wi-Fi on Android 4.3.

Some people suggest changing channels and whatnot but I'm just going to use 2.4 GHz for now and wait for a patch. Or, failing that, build the latest version of Android from AOSP because for some reason the OTA for 4.3 wasn't totally up to date.

See: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2009780

 

[RMerlin]

Personally I just stick with 2.4 GHz for my mobile device (Nexus 4 and Nexus 7). They don't need the extra speed, so I'd rather have the extended range of the 2.4 GHz for these.

 

[caveman_0_1]

thank you for your feedback and help.

I remember reading somewhere about n4 and 4.3 wifi issues.

So should I be using 20hz or 40hz with 2.4? I'm currently using 40hz for both.

2.4
Channel 1 - 2.412 GHz
Channel Width 40 MHz
Interference Level Acceptable
Rate 13.5 Mbps

5
Channel 36 - 5.180 GHz
Channel Width 40 MHz
Interference Level Acceptable
Rate 450 Mbps

Not sure why 2.4 rate varies by minute (up and down)...
Any suggestions to improve 2.4 frequency?

thank you...
More tests to follow...

 

[RMerlin]

Go with 20 MHz on the 2.4 GHz band. Too many sources of interference in that band to be able to get a reliable connection at 40 MHz width.

 

[RogerSC]

thank you for your feedback and help.

I remember reading somewhere about n4 and 4.3 wifi issues.

So should I be using 20hz or 40hz with 2.4? I'm currently using 40hz for both.

2.4
Channel 1 - 2.412 GHz
Channel Width 40 MHz
Interference Level Acceptable
Rate 13.5 Mbps

5
Channel 36 - 5.180 GHz
Channel Width 40 MHz
Interference Level Acceptable
Rate 450 Mbps

Not sure why 2.4 rate varies by minute (up and down)...
Any suggestions to improve 2.4 frequency?

thank you...
More tests to follow...

On 2.4GHz. I would use 20MHz. channel width, tends to be much more stable in most realistic locations. Generally there are too many visible neighbor wireless networks for 40MHz. channel width to work consistently on 2.4Ghz. Also, be sure to use only WPA2/AES.

 

[amd7674]

Thank you very much guys for all your input.

As you can see I’m not networking guru and everything you say helps me a lot

As you guys suggested I will stick with 20Hz on 2.4Ghz. I can see a lot of router on usual suspects (Channels 1, 6, 11).

For security I have ‘WPA / WPA2 Personal + TKIP / AES”, one of you suggested to changed it to “WPA2/AES”, what would be benefit for it?
If I’m not mistaken my nintendo wii needed TKIP (I could be wrong though).

Also what about power levels? Should I leave them at 0mW, which should use router’s defaults. At the moment I have them at 100mW.
Tomato allows range between 0-400mW, however I don’t think it works.

Although the signal strength is not that much stronger on my 2nd floor (router in the basement) comparing to WRT54GL w/Tomato (increased power).
There is a difference In speed, speedtest.net yelds 30-45mbit d/l and 4mbin u/l for my 45/4 cable modem profile.
I was getting about 16 d/l and 4 u/l using WRT54GL. Also the new router (with internal gigabit switch) should help distribute internet throughout
my internal 1gigbit wired network.

Do you guys overclock your n66u routers? Is it need it? I believe it can accomplished with few commands in the router’s starting script.

Just last comment, the Shibby’s tomato looks very good (and I’m familiar with Tomato fw on WRT54GL) however I won’t use probably 80% of all the features it offers.
Hence if Merlin’s fw offers better raw speeds I might try it in the future…

Once again thank all you for all your help.