Dr_MC
New Around Here
Hi all,
I've been lurking around here for some time before getting a new wireless router. I went with the AC86U due to the positive reviews around early January. I knew about the risk of those "other" reviews stating various problems with the 2.4Ghz band, but I thought those would be isolated issues.
In the beginning it was great-- however after a few weeks I started having problems during Zoom calls on the 2.4Ghz. I tried to fiddle with the settings following the advice in the forums, but it didn't help. Then it got worse, doing a speedtest I would get around 30Mbps, and at times it would drop to ~1Mbps or less. Doing the same test on the 5Ghz band I'm constantly getting 100+Mbps. Then, suddenly the 2Ghz band would drop everyone and disappear, or not allow new clients. I've tried changing channels to the least busy ones, not much difference.
My router is a 2020 build made in China, always using the latest stock firmware. I've read about issues on the 2018 builds or so but not on the more recent models.
Based on the description above, should I assume this is a hardware issue? I've seen plenty of comments about doing regular factory resets, setting up daily reboots, trying merlin's firmware, etc, but this sounds odd to me given that one would expect this device to work out-of-the-box without the need of such rituals.
I have one more week to return it, so any advice welcome
Thanks!
I've been lurking around here for some time before getting a new wireless router. I went with the AC86U due to the positive reviews around early January. I knew about the risk of those "other" reviews stating various problems with the 2.4Ghz band, but I thought those would be isolated issues.
In the beginning it was great-- however after a few weeks I started having problems during Zoom calls on the 2.4Ghz. I tried to fiddle with the settings following the advice in the forums, but it didn't help. Then it got worse, doing a speedtest I would get around 30Mbps, and at times it would drop to ~1Mbps or less. Doing the same test on the 5Ghz band I'm constantly getting 100+Mbps. Then, suddenly the 2Ghz band would drop everyone and disappear, or not allow new clients. I've tried changing channels to the least busy ones, not much difference.
My router is a 2020 build made in China, always using the latest stock firmware. I've read about issues on the 2018 builds or so but not on the more recent models.
Based on the description above, should I assume this is a hardware issue? I've seen plenty of comments about doing regular factory resets, setting up daily reboots, trying merlin's firmware, etc, but this sounds odd to me given that one would expect this device to work out-of-the-box without the need of such rituals.
I have one more week to return it, so any advice welcome
Thanks!