Stability of XT8 (possibly others) when under load.

[DraconianCurve]

Hi,

I have been a silent observer of this forum relating to Asus routers, and have taken much useful advice from it.

For context, I run an XT8 mesh involving a router and two additional XT8 AiMesh nodes around a large-ish home which I share with my wife and two teenage kids.

I have the latest (non-beta) firmware installed (3.0.0.4.386_41793-gdb31cdc) on all units. When installing, I did a full factory reset to default settings on all units. I try to retain default settings as far as possible. No QoS, but I do enable IPv6. I have the various WiFI frequencies pinned to certain bands/channel combos too, rather than leaving on auto.

What I have observed with this firmware, and previous ones, is that the system is basically stable until it comes under load. This is typically during the evenings for us, when there is often considerable draw on the network as various devices begin streaming content off the internet or gaming online. Our external connection is via 900mbps full-fibre, so we've plenty of capacity to accommodate this level of use.

Once under this sort of load, the wifi becomes incredibly flakey and often falls over altogether, requiring a reboot of the main router. Altogether, we have between 20 and 30 devices connected to the router of various sorts most of the time, including a number of IoT devices (Nest, camera, Hue etc). So I don't think the issue is number of devices, it really does appear to be just a question of load.

Another possible consideration is whether certain devices (namely iPhone 12pro) streaming via WiFi6, could be the cause, rather than overall load in itself....

I'm keen to hear of your thoughts, and any suggestions you may have as to how I might be able to improve stability...

Many thanks

 

[OzarkEdge]

Hi,

I have been a silent observer of this forum relating to Asus routers, and have taken much useful advice from it.

For context, I run an XT8 mesh involving a router and two additional XT8 AiMesh nodes around a large-ish home which I share with my wife and two teenage kids.

I have the latest (non-beta) firmware installed (3.0.0.4.386_41793-gdb31cdc) on all units. When installing, I did a full factory reset to default settings on all units. I try to retain default settings as far as possible. No QoS, but I do enable IPv6. I have the various WiFI frequencies pinned to certain bands/channel combos too, rather than leaving on auto.

What I have observed with this firmware, and previous ones, is that the system is basically stable until it comes under load. This is typically during the evenings for us, when there is often considerable draw on the network as various devices begin streaming content off the internet or gaming online. Our external connection is via 900mbps full-fibre, so we've plenty of capacity to accommodate this level of use.

Once under this sort of load, the wifi becomes incredibly flakey and often falls over altogether, requiring a reboot of the main router. Altogether, we have between 20 and 30 devices connected to the router of various sorts most of the time, including a number of IoT devices (Nest, camera, Hue etc). So I don't think the issue is number of devices, it really does appear to be just a question of load.

Another possible consideration is whether certain devices (namely iPhone 12pro) streaming via WiFi6, could be the cause, rather than overall load in itself....

I'm keen to hear of your thoughts, and any suggestions you may have as to how I might be able to improve stability...

Many thanks

Some ad-hoc troubleshooting ideas:

o Disable IPv6.

o Assume marginal hardware somewhere... rotate in a different router... rotate OFF each node to temporarily remove it from service.

Make one change at a time and look for an improvement.

OE

 

[DraconianCurve]

Excellent, thanks for those suggestions. The idea of rotating the units around is one I'd also considered. For now, I've disabled IPv6 and will see if that yields any benefit...

 

[L&LD]

When was the reset performed 'when installing' the firmware it is currently running?

 

[DraconianCurve]

When was the reset performed 'when installing' the firmware it is currently running?

Hi, it was done once the new firmware was on all units.


Further to earlier suggestion, with IPv6 disabled, we just had another wifi outage. I was still able to access the router interface from my wired PC, and could see that a few wireless devices were still connected, but they were all connected 2.4GHz. Does that give any clues as to underlying cause.

Next step is to swap round units to see if the fault lies with the one acting as the router atm.

 

[OzarkEdge]

Hi, it was done once the new firmware was on all units.


Further to earlier suggestion, with IPv6 disabled, we just had another wifi outage. I was still able to access the router interface from my wired PC, and could see that a few wireless devices were still connected, but they were all connected 2.4GHz. Does that give any clues as to underlying cause.

Next step is to swap round units to see if the fault lies with the one acting as the router atm.

Perhaps a 5.0 radio is falling down.

A WiFi Analyzer or similar app would allow you to see how signals are behaving.

OE