Wireless bug in 3.0.0.4.374.34 ? [2.4Ghz]

[Phylion]

Not sure if it is a bug, or works as designed.
Situation:
Asus AC66u with RMerlin 3.0.0.4.374.34 installed
2.4 GHz settings:
wireless mode auto
WPA2-Personal
AES
Check optimized Xbox and b/g protection

channel bandwith 20/40Mhz

With these settings it seems that setting a specific channel does not work at all: every single choice of the array [1l,2l,3l,4l,5l,5u,6l,6u,7l,7u,8l,8u,9l,9u,10u,11u,12u,13u] outputs to wlan channel 6

Tested this with dd-wrt build 22118 and inSSIDer.

To make it even more strange, I was able once, and only once, to get the WLAN channel according to my setting of 11u. But every next attempt te reproduce this, kept bringen channel 6 back alive.

I am investigating this issue because I have great trouble to have dd-wrt and/or tomatousb as wireless clients to connect to the asus. Right now i am not sure where the issues are. But I do know that connecting the same hardware/software combination to for example an Apple Airport Express seems to work OK. Only switch SSID settings and no luck at all. (At my home all WPA2 keys are set with the same personal passphrase).

So I don't know is the above described behaviour is a bug, or works as designed with the auto channel with settings on. In the latter case I think it should be impossible to set user channels.

Tnx all

 

[RMerlin]

I have seen a few isolated cases reporting it, but so far I have been unable to reproduce it here. All I can suggest is to try clearing the browser cache, or try a different browser. If it still fails, erase nvram and manually reconfigure everything.

 

[Phylion]

Then it can be considered a bug.

Another browser does not help. And clear to factory defaults done already since I thought I messed up too much settings. (and even tried with Ipad instead of windows 7). Under your firmware .33 I changed country code to US to get higher WLAN output, but I changed that back. Since reset to factory defaults and upgrade to .34 I did not touch any nvram setting by hand.
I am quite confident that this behaviour also was under .33 firmware. Due to the fact it did not work as proposed, I cleared tot factory defaults.

With 20Mhz or 40Mhz channel width it is working properly. But not with the 20/40 auto settings. Just rechecked.

No idea if/how I can help to tackle this item. If it helps I can give you openvpn access to the box.

For me just setting it to 20Mhz channel width does the job since i live in a reasonable densed area.

 

[RMerlin]

Then it can be considered a bug.

Another browser does not help. And clear to factory defaults done already since I thought I messed up too much settings. (and even tried with Ipad instead of windows 7). Under your firmware .33 I changed country code to US to get higher WLAN output, but I changed that back. Since reset to factory defaults and upgrade to .34 I did not touch any nvram setting by hand.
I am quite confident that this behaviour also was under .33 firmware. Due to the fact it did not work as proposed, I cleared tot factory defaults.

With 20Mhz or 40Mhz channel width it is working properly. But not with the 20/40 auto settings. Just rechecked.

No idea if/how I can help to tackle this item. If it helps I can give you openvpn access to the box.

For me just setting it to 20Mhz channel width does the job since i live in a reasonable densed area.

I suspect this is normal behaviour then. It's possible that the router is downgrading to 20 MHz due to interference when you are in 20/40, in which case the router automatically switches to channel 6. In that case there is nothing I can do, the wireless driver is closed source.

 

[jim769]

I can confirm the issues as well with most of the newer firmware released the fix is to leave 2.4 ghz set to 20 mhz only this fixes it.

 

[Phylion]

Personally I think it is a bit strange behaviour if in 'overcrowded' area's Always a fallback channel of 6 is used. Sounds to me as an extra issue, and in that case it is better to remove the 20/40 auto settings as far as I am concerned.


I understand its closed source status, so I'll leave things here as they are.
As mentioned before: setting to 20Mhz bandwidth is good enough for me at the moment. For higher transfer rates I'll use the 5Ghz band.

( and no: also the 5Gz band doe not satisfy when out of the box. Since with the EU profile only channeld 36,40,44 & 48 are available. Channes above 100 do have a better performance by far, even when the output is set to 100mW.

 

[aircoreboy]

Had exactly the same problem when choosing 20/40 MHz option, having tested various channels and channel widths, would always default to channel 6 with auto channel selected. Following advice on this forum and with my own testing, I have found I get best performance with only 20MHz option with manually selected channel, I just used the site survey tool in the F\W and choose the best channel from there, on 2.4GHz I get noise level of -90db with signal level around -60db, this is the same as I get with the 5GHz band, and with only 1 other 5GHz network in my area, I'm assuming this is quite good!

 

[_robodoc_]

I already did, and still can't reproduce it here.

Had exactly the same problem, too and already reported it.
But what happened to the driver from .33 beta 1 to .33 beta 3 ?

 

[RMerlin]

Had exactly the same problem, too and already reported it.
But what happened to the driver from .33 beta 1 to .33 beta 3 ?

Asus's GPL 374_726 was merged in at that time. A LOT of things changed between the two throughout the whole firmware.

 

[seth_space]

Read these articles for correct understandig of the 20/40 feature and its working.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-features/31743-bye-bye-40-mhz-mode-in-24-ghz-part-1

 

[DrTeeth]

( and no: also the 5Gz band doe not satisfy when out of the box. Since with the EU profile only channeld 36,40,44 & 48 are available. Channes above 100 do have a better performance by far, even when the output is set to 100mW.

There are many differences across the EU in the microwave bands and having an EU setting is just plain daft. Once should be able to set one's country correctly.

 

[Phylion]

Well I've read the articles mentioned by @seth_space. Actually I skipped the equation stuff. I was already aware of the co-existence checks. In my own words: following specifications only 40Mhz channels allowed when there is a clear radio spectrum available.

The mentioned articles do not say anything of auto channels when auto20/40mhz is set.
So I still think it is working akward, and for sure not how it should work. Current firmware makes channel 6 very crowded, and that should simply not be the case.

As stated by RMerlin: the drivers are closed state, so the solution and correction can't be done by him.

 

[WaVeR]

Hi folks,

We should not be blocked by the driver or the firmware to decide wich channel we want to use for 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz.

As explained on: http://goo.gl/OvcnYA , since the begining I was able to set the channel that I want even if I choose 20/40Mhz.

Merlin, are you able to escale this issue to upstream (Asus)? I don't like this idea to don't have free control

 

[Mav3ricK]

Not that I want to go there - but what happens when using DD-WRT on an AC66U? Same effect?
Has anyone tested that, I would...

 

[RMerlin]

Not that I want to go there - but what happens when using DD-WRT on an AC66U? Same effect?
Has anyone tested that, I would...

DD-WRT uses a completely different driver.

 

[Mav3ricK]

I see, then it doesn't make any sense. My router works fine with the setting now (Control Channel + 20Mhz).