What's new

Wifi Auto or N or A/C?

  • SNBForums Code of Conduct

    SNBForums is a community for everyone, no matter what their level of experience.

    Please be tolerant and patient of others, especially newcomers. We are all here to share and learn!

    The rules are simple: Be patient, be nice, be helpful or be gone!

Col8eral

Regular Contributor
Ive just done a firmware upgrade. I read somewhere on here that the wireless mode should not be set to "Auto".

For 2.4hhz the options are Auto, N Only or legacy

for 5ghz the options are auto, N only, N AC mixed or legacy

Could someone advise what my settings should be?

Could someone also advise what the channel bandwidth settings be for each 2.4ghz and 5ghz

Thank you kindly
 
Nobody can advise you on what the "correct" settings are because everyone's requirements, devices and environment are different. So go with the default values unless you have a particular reason to change them. So for Wireless Mode that would be Auto.
 
Thank you.

For some reason I thought I read somewhere that auto was a bad choice, but I could be wrong. It wouldnt be the first time :(
 
Could someone also advise what the channel bandwidth settings be for each 2.4ghz and 5ghz

Thank you kindly
Channel bandwidth on 2.4ghz, set to 20mhz. Choose channel 1,6 or 11 and set manually.

Leave channel bandwidth on 5ghz set to auto. Pick your best 5ghz channel and set it manually.
 
Thank you.

For some reason I thought I read somewhere that auto was a bad choice, but I could be wrong. It wouldnt be the first time :(

Footnote: With ASUS AiMesh, if you enable Smart Connect, then wireless mode, channel bandwidth, control channel, and extension channel will be adjusted automatically i.e. its all Auto.

OE
 
Nobody can advise you on what the "correct" settings are because everyone's requirements, devices and environment are different. So go with the default values unless you have a particular reason to change them.
I can't disagree with that but I'm an old guy and even I don't have B/G devices anymore.
For 2.4hhz the options are Auto, N Only or legacy
If you don't have any "ancient" devices you might pick up a bit (as in there's a bit of a performance hit in being backwards compatible) by choosing "N only".
for 5ghz the options are auto, N only, N AC mixed or legacy
I've not noticed that choice before but "N AC mixed" does sound tempting. (I assume "legacy" means "... including A devices", virtually no one uses "A". )
 
Last edited:
Not all Asus routers that support AiMesh have smart connect.

Yeah I know. I guess I should have clarified my point... AiMesh with Smart Connect does not think 'Auto' is a bad choice.

OE
 
Channel bandwidth on 2.4ghz, set to 20mhz. Choose channel 1,6 or 11 and set manually.

Leave channel bandwidth on 5ghz set to auto. Pick your best 5ghz channel and set it manually.
If using TurboQAM on 2.4Ghz, Channel needs to be set to AUTO. Not sure why TurboQAM can't function in N Only mode, but that's what the instructions say.
 
I've read that auto is the best setting to use. I change the following options from the defaults and have had good luck them. I agree with using 20 MHz for the 2.4 band unless you live on the moon without any neighbors. For the 5 GHz band go with the default channel width. I set my channels manually for both bands based on my environment.

Wireless 2.4 GHz Professional
Turbo QAM - Disable (Only helps with clients that support it and there are not very many)
Airtime Fairness - Disable
Explicit Beamforming - Disable
Universal Beamforming - Disable

Wireless 5 GHz Professional
Airtime Fairness - Disable
Universal Beamforming - Disable
 
Only things I disable is like what Merlin defaults to which also work good on stock.

Both bands:

Airtime Fairness - Disable

Roaming assistant - Disable

Only other change is setting 2.4 to 20 MHz.
 
As nobody nowadays uses b-mode (with 22MHz bandwith and different DSSS-modulation) it is better outside US (all the large world) to use channel 1-5-9-13 to allow 4 parallel networks.
g- and n-mode are optimized to use 20MHz channels (one channel got 5MHz so 4 are needed for 20MHz)
Or 8 channels between for 40MHz who lives >50m away from others, that are 1+5 (medium 3) and 9+13 (medium 11).
Only US is limited to 3 and so they have no benefit to change their >20 years old known 1-6-11 system.
Even in US it is allowed now to use 12/13 but with not really usable power limitation (so left out).

AND ALL who want to argue better to leave a channel between used channels, NO SENSELESS and bad choice for others/neighbours as one usable channel will stay unused!!!

QUESTION: Or do you use in 5G only every second channel as 2 beside (e.g. 36-40-44-48) will work exactly the same as 1-5-9-13 in 2G wifi?
There is no difference in modulation in n-mode (g- uses same bandwith and OFDM-modulation) between 2G and 5G, and in 5G using 40/80/160 MHz not leaving free channels too between combined channels.

Please answer this question BEFORE you begin to write any argument to stay on 1-6-11 OUTSIDE US!
 
Last edited:
If using TurboQAM on 2.4Ghz, Channel needs to be set to AUTO. Not sure why TurboQAM can't function in N Only mode, but that's what the instructions say.

Where does it say that in the instructions?

On my RT-AC86U, I have it set to: Up to MCS 11 (NitroQAM/1024-QAM) on the 2.4GHz with Channel Set to 11. I will be using my RT-AC68U which supports TurboQAM as a repeater on the 2.4GHz band. I probably could set the 86U to Up to MCS 9 (TurboQAM/256-QAM) since that is all the 68U supports.

My 5GHz band is also set to Up to MCS 11 (NitroQAM/1024-QAM) with manual Channel setting.

.
 
Where does it say that in the instructions?

On my RT-AC86U, I have it set to: Up to MCS 11 (NitroQAM/1024-QAM) on the 2.4GHz with Channel Set to 11. I will be using my RT-AC68U which supports TurboQAM as a repeater on the 2.4GHz band. I probably could set the 86U to Up to MCS 9 (TurboQAM/256-QAM) since that is all the 68U supports.

My 5GHz band is also set to Up to MCS 11 (NitroQAM/1024-QAM) with manual Channel setting.

.
I spoke to tech support that's what they reccomend. Only Broadcom chips supports it, but over the years the support for TurboAM in wifi card has been dropped. My ASUS PCI-E 68u wifi adapter supports it but the recent driver removed the options to enable it. I think only the lastest Asus PCE AC88 and maybe Dlink still supports it.
 
I cannot rely on any one 5g channel because of congestion in the evenings, it has to change sometimes so I use Auto on all settings here only. 2.4 is set at 20 and ch 1 as all channels are jammed most of the time and my 56u "hunts" too much on Auto.
 

Sign Up For SNBForums Daily Digest

Get an update of what's new every day delivered to your mailbox. Sign up here!
Top