Rt86U boot loop.

[repeater]

My less than year old 86u went into a boot loop after I rebooted via the webpage.

A couple months ago I had to reset it and reconfigure due to it having this same issue.

I was on the latest Merlan or one behind .13 can't remember. I tried the WPS button reseting and using the recovery tool. The recovery tool was able to load the firmware but it kept boot looping.

The router has been pretty good besides when rebooting via the web portal. 50% if not more times I would have to use the power button to get it to come back up.

Whats the reliability on these? It's nice Asus has the 3 year warranty. Just stinks I had to use my 56u from ages ago with Padovan firmware for the time being. Funny thing is the 56u seems to be a bit snappier when surfing the net for some reason.

 

[CaptainSTX]

My less than year old 86u went into a boot loop after I rebooted via the webpage.

A couple months ago I had to reset it and reconfigure due to it having this same issue.

I was on the latest Merlan or one behind .13 can't remember. I tried the WPS button reseting and using the recovery tool. The recovery tool was able to load the firmware but it kept boot looping.

The router has been pretty good besides when rebooting via the web portal. 50% if not more times I would have to use the power button to get it to come back up.

Whats the reliability on these? It's nice Asus has the 3 year warranty. Just stinks I had to use my 56u from ages ago with Padovan firmware for the time being. Funny thing is the 56u seems to be a bit snappier when surfing the net for some reason.

Look at the reviews on Amazon. One third of the reviews are one or two stars. Unfortunately for some people the reliability and longevity isn't that great for this unit.

 

[repeater]

Any thoughts on the cause of the poor reliability? Could it be thermal?

I saw this fan kit on Amazon below. This is not for the 86u but same body. It is a great router when working especially with Merlin. If its thermal I could rig something like below up pretty easy.

I use Mine with two hard drives connected. VPN server and clients. Once I left the server connected to my phone for a few days and that caused a total crash and it had to be reset. That was a month ago. Today was a simple reboot and it Sh1t the bed. Asus chat was fast at sending me an RMA#. I did have all the right answers for the troubleshooting I did.

Any thoughts oh wise wizard?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0721SYYTF/?tag=snbforums-20

 

[Val D.]

Unfortunately for some people the reliability and longevity isn't that great for this unit.

The router is amazing when it works, but I'm already thinking about other options.
I miss simple routers days when you just set your network once and forget about it.

RT-AC86U has so many annoyances that it is now a habit to monitor it constantly:

- is it still ON, because sometimes it doesn't reboot properly
- is the WebGUI still working, because it stops from time to time
- is it overheating, because it does in some specific environments
- is it running out of available RAM, because it happens constantly
- is the CPU load normal, because it sticks to 100% from time to time
- are all clients up and running, because Network Map doesn't show all of them
- are all DHCP reservations still there, because the table already disappeared once
- is the WAN still up, because the router shows it disconnected from time to time

This router is not just all-in-one solution. It tries to be 50-in-1 and this is where issues start.
Most likely I'm going to resume my x86 pfSense box project and use some proven reliable APs.

In my experience, the only way to run RT-AC86U so-so reliably is to disable all the crapware it comes with. I also have active cooling similar to the link above. CPU temperature 96C doesn't look normal to me, sorry ASUS engineers. And the cheap power supply brick is probably some leftovers from RT-N66U days. I'm using a better one from an old laptop. It is much more stable and doesn't heat-up like the ASUS provided one.

Sorry guys, just had to share my experience with this product at some point. I know a lot about hardware and networking and I can deal with many issues, but I don't want to. Once I fix something I just like to move on, not to come back and fix it again and again. This is a waste of time.

 

[Smokey613]

I am very happy with my “underpowered” RT-AC68U. I am running Skynet, Diversion, FreshJR, AiProtection, DoT, DNSSEC but no VPNs of any sort. CPU hovers at 80C, RAM around 89% and the 1000 MHz CPU under normal activity stays around 6-26%. Very stable wifi for all our smart devices and streaming two instances of FuboTV through two Firestick 4K devices. I considered trying an RT-AC86U but this router just plugs along without a hiccup so unless it takes a dump, I will just keep status quo. And, no issues doing a web reboot if needed.

 

[Jack Yaz]

My 86U runs just fine

 

[Marin]

All of my 86Us (three of them) have run just fine and have not the issues that have been described in these forums.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[CaptainSTX]

My 86U runs just fine

Consider yourself lucky and part of the fortunate majority of owners.

Currently I am on the third AC86 that ASUS has sent me on the four RMAs.

I am trying to reliably run the following on my AC86 using Merlin 384.13

Two VPN clients
One VPN server
Three guest networks which are used for IoT devices
Scripts; AMTM, Skynet, connmon, spdMerlin, entware

Today I have them all running for a few hours, however if I try to run WiFi radar currently it reports no interfaces found. Yesterday both radios went off line even though the GUI showed them as being on.

The router will not do a factory reset from the GUI.

If I fix or at least try and fix that issue the VPN server fails, or The VPN clients or both. To resolve the issue requires NVRAM erase and probably a factory reset.

The other AC86s I have had have had similar or in some cases more severe issues.

I have to do something almost every day to keep this router functioning. As Val D said this isn't something you want or should have to do every day to keep your network functioning.

I have an AC1900P which runs all of the above services flawlessly and reliably for days. Why do I keep trying the AC86 is because it can process the VPNs at line speed (165 Mbps) while the AC1900P is limited to 50 - 60 Mbps.

I even have an old N66 which can run most everything but the scripts but with it the VPN is very slow.

I have looked at the other ASUS routers and the only one that Merlin supports and has an AES-NI enabled processor is the AX88 and I'm not going to give ASUS another $340 to try it.

 

[Val D.]

I keep my RT-AC86U running "just fine" with no TrendMicro services and no User Scripts, bare bones router. Otherwise it can't go longer than a week with no attention. It transmits over WiFi about 200GB data a week and if I use the "recommended" firmware features, then something always slows down, something becomes unresponsive, something gets kicked out of the memory, etc. I believe the problem here is first in original chipset manufacturer software, second in third-party TrendMicro software. ASUS builds their firmware on top of already buggy software, then Eric tries to build his version on top of buggy ASUS firmware. The end result is something remains always broken. This router was released in August 2017, now is August 2019. Two years time should be enough for ASUS to figure it out.

 

[Jack Yaz]

I keep my RT-AC86U running "just fine" with no TrendMicro services and no User Scripts, bare bones router. Otherwise it can't go longer than a week with no attention. It transmits over WiFi about 200GB data a week and if I use the "recommended" firmware features, then something always slows down, something becomes unresponsive, something gets kicked out of the memory, etc. I believe the problem here is first in original chipset manufacturer software, second in third-party TrendMicro software. ASUS builds their firmware on top of already buggy software, then Eric tries to build his version on top of buggy ASUS firmware. The end result is something remains always broken. This router was released in August 2017, now is August 2019. Two years time should be enough for ASUS to figure it out.

I'm running AiProtection, Adaptive QoS and a full suite of scripts. Guess I'm just lucky?

 

[Val D.]

I'm running AiProtection, Adaptive QoS and a full suite of scripts. Guess I'm just lucky?

You are probably not. Adaptive QoS custom settings always get messed up after router reboot. On ASUS official firmware and on Asuswrt-Merlin, no difference. If the router is willing to reboot and doesn't turn off in the process. Also, Adaptive QoS is not working properly. Why it was necessary to add custom script to it in an attempt to fix it?