Some questions

[panther427]

Hello all,
Thanks for taking the time to read and respond.

A little back history.. I have had my most recent"current" router for several year. It is a Netgear WNDR3400v2
Served us great for how i used it.. Basically to get free web at home and not the cell phones data. That and for the wife to browse on her very cheap lap top. Her sister was over and noted the wifi sucks... lol Well between her comment and a flyer i got in the mail from comcast stating i will be getting a speed boost, i started to investigate.. Well my old router was only a 10/100.... and after checking setting changing channels and running speed test. Yep the wifi is going out too.. Could not even pull 16megs over 5Ghz next to the router.

So far i have used an ASUS RT-ac87u, Netgear R7300(the best buy specail), first gen OnHub, and Asus RT-AC68P..
My set up. Current internet speed via speedtest is 125 hardwired from modem to my computer. Should be jumping to 150+ soon.

Currently my router in in my basement. the first floor and basement are in a "L" shape. With the garage filling up open part of the "L", then the 2nd story in above the garage and back of the "L".
I bought her a new xbox one and 4k tv so now all the sudden we need solid wifi. And of course our room in on the other side of the house.

So the Onhub was nice and easy to use great signal SLOW speeds. The Netgear had acceptable speed and range over wifi. However the powerline addapter didnt work out very well. Forgot my basement is on a seperat circuit from the rest of the house so the powerline was slower than wi-fi. That and the lack of options and difficulties i had with smart router had me taking it back..

So onto the ASUS products. The AC87 had great setup and fast speeds. The range im not sure on as one of the attennas was broken internally.. Shake it and it made a bad sound . On 5Ghz in the same room on my LG G4 smart phone i was getting 120Mbps+ on speedtest.net

The AC68P has been giving me fits though. When i have changed the Qos it doesnt automatically reconnect to my computer. In fact i have had to power cycle both the computer and router to get a connection back.
That and the fastest i have seen my LG G4 get in 92Mbps. Between the slower speeds and communication issues with the AC68P makes me worry i have a not great router.

I do not care about price to much, that said i really wouldn't want to spend much more that 200 dollars. All these routers need to do right now is connect to either the Xbox one or 4k tv one at a time over 5Ghz. Everything else is wired or can run on the 2.4Ghz band and for the most part will not be power hungery

Based on current results from everyone should i get a different AC68P, Go back to a AC87, or is there a better option i should Consider.. My biggest needs are range and 5Ghz throughput for internet.
Thanks

 

[thiggins]

Powerline works between circuits (breakers). It won't if it has to pass through a distribution transformer. Check your breaker panel to see if there are AFCI (not GFI) breakers. Some brands can kill signals. Powerline is also sensitive to noise from small wall-wart power adapter like cellphone and USB chargers. Remove, relocate any that are in the same room that the far end adapter is in.

Run an Ethernet cable and get your router up to the first floor. Then most any router will probably work. The NETGEAR R7300 powerline DST adapter would then work too.

Return the broken AC87. OnHub is way too early in development, so I'd return it also if you can.

 

[panther427]

I have returned all products and got a second AC87 for testing. I a semi newb to the adjusting of routers. I have some future plans in moving the router to the main floor involving swapping over one the homes Cat5e phone lines to an ethernet line. But that will be a future project.
I have made sure beam forming is enabled and disabled b/g protection on the 2.4Ghz band. Trying to maxamize the output on the N and AC bands. Also adjusted to a better channel on 2.4Ghz. Is there any other options that i am missing to change?

What should i expect out of the routers? This current AC87 is not giving me 120Mbps second over 5Ghz in the same room on speedtest. Is this indicative of a problem or am i just simply expecting to much. I just find it odd the original AC87 and R7300 could give me near identical speed as my wired connection under ideal circumstances.
I understand the basic ideas behind WiFi and there will be expected loss in data speed relative to distance and barriers.

Would changing FW help this lack of percieved throughput?