[SOLVED] I bought R7000 and ac68u. Which to return?

[pIGnaChI]

Hi everyone,
I just bought the Netgear R7000 (111 euro) and Asus AC68U (114 euro), but eventually will return one of them. I know they are identical when it comes to SoC and I plan to use Merlin on both. Can you provide some reasons for keeping one over the other?

• What ASUS/Netgear specific features I am losing by choosing Merlin/Vortex on both?
• Is Asuswrt-Merlin open source? I would prefer that over the closed source of Vortex.
  
• Does one beat the other in range or stability? I read that R7000 has better range and lower cpu temperatures.
  
• Is it a deal-breaker if the AC68U comes (tomorrow) with the 800mhz cpu?

Thanks a lot - I am learning a lot from you folks!

 

[messerchmidt]

Keep the r7000 and flash ddwrt. Better built router. Follow the guide on the ddwrt forum. I suggest the kong builds. I suggest adding a laptop cooler below it and running it off the USB on the back. There is a merlin Asus WRT port for it, but ddwrt is better in my opinion.

 

[RMerlin]

If you want to run my firmware then keep the Asus. The Netgear port of my firmware is an illegal and incomplete port.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[pIGnaChI]

Thanks for chiming in both.

Keep the r7000 and flash ddwrt. Better built router. Follow the guide on the ddwrt forum. I suggest the kong builds. I suggest adding a laptop cooler below it and running it off the USB on the back. There is a merlin Asus WRT port for it, but ddwrt is better in my opinion.

I'd prefer to take it one step at a time - this will be my first exploration of custom firmwares on routers, so I wouldn't start with dd-wrt. When you say it's better built, does it have anything to do with its range?

If you want to run my firmware then keep the Asus. The Netgear port of my firmware is an illegal and incomplete port.

I could image that it's illegal in some respects. What do you mean by incomplete - what features are missing? Also what exactly is lost by using your firmware over stock Asus? Thanks again

 

[RMerlin]

I could image that it's illegal in some respects. What do you mean by incomplete - what features are missing? Also what exactly is lost by using your firmware over stock Asus? Thanks again

The Trend Micro related features are lost, and there's also a good chance that at any time Asus might implement a lockdown preventing Asuswrt from running on non-Asus hardware (they've already implemented various software and hardware-based validation in the newest 382 code).

At this time, you won't be losing anything by running my firmware instead of the stock Asus firmware. All of Asus's features are still available.

 

[sfx2000]

I could image that it's illegal in some respects. What do you mean by incomplete - what features are missing? Also what exactly is lost by using your firmware over stock Asus? Thanks again

Running AsusWRT on non-ASUS HW - it's not Netgear that did the port - it was a couple of enterprising enthusiasts that did the port, and there's issues with GPL and their changes.

There's also things outside of GPL to consider - they continue to use the Asus (and RMerlin's) artwork and other items that have issues related to copyright and third-party licensed code that is limited in scope to being deployed on Asus HW.

Basically - stay away from the AsusWRT forks that run on non-Asus HW.

 

[pIGnaChI]

OK, these are actually very important points and overweight any hair-splitting of performance between the two. I will keep the ac68u.

Is there any known way to boost its usb 3.0 performance? Through insulating the hard drive cord, positioning in some way, etc. It's the E1 revision.

 

[RMerlin]

OK, these are actually very important points and overweight any splitting hairs of performance between the two. I will keep the ac68u.

Is there any known way to boost its usb 3.0 performance? Through insulating the hard drive cord, positioning in some way, etc. It's the E1 revision.

The primary bottleneck is at the hardware level, so assuming a properly shielded USB3 disk, don't expect much beyond 55-60 MB/s out of this router.

 

[pIGnaChI]

The primary bottleneck is at the hardware level, so assuming a properly shielded USB3 disk, don't expect much beyond 55-60 MB/s out of this router.

That would be excellent. I am getting 20MB/s reads on usb 3.0 with "usb 3.0 optimization" and 25MB/s without. It might be the hdd, but I doubt it.

 

[sfx2000]

That would be excellent. I am getting 20MB/s reads on usb 3.0 with "usb 3.0 optimization" and 25MB/s without. It might be the hdd, but I doubt it.

Reasonable if using WiFi - the wire is going to be faster, just because of duplex issues (WiFi is half-duplex by design, Ethernet is full-duplex)

 

[RMerlin]

That would be excellent. I am getting 20MB/s reads on usb 3.0 with "usb 3.0 optimization" and 25MB/s without. It might be the hdd, but I doubt it.

Make sure you disable the USB 3.0 Interference reduction setting under Wireless -> Professional,as this downgrades the USB devices to USB 2.0 mode.

 

[pIGnaChI]

I used wired gigabit and what I meant was that I get 25MB/s with the Interference reduction turned off up from 20MB/s when enabled. Having the wireless 2.4GHz radio on or off made no difference. I'll update the firmware, make some tests and report back.
Thanks

 

[pIGnaChI]

OK, I tried a different PC and got rock-solid 60MB/s with the Interference reduction turned off, which is good enough for me.

Is there any tangible negative effect on the 2.4Ghz network if I leave the USB 3 cap off? I know the theory, but I was wondering whether there's any experimental consensus on these forums.

 

[RMerlin]

OK, I tried a different PC and got rock-solid 60MB/s with the Interference reduction turned off, which is good enough for me.

Is there any tangible negative effect on the 2.4Ghz network if I leave the USB 3 cap off? I know the theory, but I was wondering whether there's any experimental consensus on these forums.

As long your hard disk is properly shielded, it should be fine. All tests that I ran didn't have any impact on wifi performance when I tested my Vantec enclosure with it (which is an aluminium enclosure, with a fairly sturdy/shielded USB cable).

 

[pIGnaChI]

Thanks!