[Review] Asus RT-AX88U

uncle_josh

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anyone of you encounter the internet led turn red out of sudden? encountered quite few times, had to reboot router to resolve.
had changed the cable from ONT to router wan, also tested ONT directly to laptop to test internet also working. just the internet went off in the router.
Could be a sign that your router going to uplorry if it is frequent. Call your ISP for replacement.

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uncle_josh

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Speed is irrelevant especially with only a gigabit router.
In practice, a well made cat 5e cable can support 10Gbps speeds at a short distance.

most ethernet cables you buy from a store/online are not even up to specifications e.g using copper clad aluminum instead of solid copper for the cables and in the case of those flat ethernet cables, no shielding, no cable twist to prevent crosstalk etc
I would agree there are always some black sheep. Most stores/online could still be trusted.

Cat5e is not meant to support more the 1Gbps. If you manage to make it works for a 10Gbps connection, good for you.

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uncle_josh

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Maybe try update to latest firmware and do a reboot?
Don't teach chewren bad.
You may flash your router but the firmware of the ONT is a NO Go.

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dryteletubby

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I would agree there are always some black sheep. Most stores/online could still be trusted.

Cat5e is not meant to support more the 1Gbps. If you manage to make it works for a 10Gbps connection, good for you.

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I bought 3 different cat5e/6 ethernet cables from challenger and all 3 were copper clad aluminum cables instead of solid copper cables. I cut the first cable into several 10cm cables to connect devices to my switch and it works fine for that use case. However the 2nd cable can't power my PoE AP properly and the 3rd would constantly drop connections to my PC. I replaced the last 2 ethernet cables with in spec ones from sim lim square and my issues were solved.

If all you do is connect your pc to your router, any cheap cable will work fine unless the length is long.

For PoE and longer runs, those cheap cables that are not made up to spec can't work reliably

Don't teach chewren bad.
You may flash your router but the firmware of the ONT is a NO Go.

Sent from 今天工作不努力, 明天努力找工作 using GAGT

I don't think you can modify the firmware on the ONT even if you tried. Those things are locked down by the ISP
 

phayze

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How long were your cable when it gave you problem?


I bought 3 different cat5e/6 ethernet cables from challenger and all 3 were copper clad aluminum cables instead of solid copper cables. I cut the first cable into several 10cm cables to connect devices to my switch and it works fine for that use case. However the 2nd cable can't power my PoE AP properly and the 3rd would constantly drop connections to my PC. I replaced the last 2 ethernet cables with in spec ones from sim lim square and my issues were solved.

If all you do is connect your pc to your router, any cheap cable will work fine unless the length is long.

For PoE and longer runs, those cheap cables that are not made up to spec can't work reliably



I don't think you can modify the firmware on the ONT even if you tried. Those things are locked down by the ISP
 

Lucky177

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Xaiobai asked any setting can do within the router...

Spectral said internet went off in the router.

So I thought was talking about the router for both cases. Hence, my suggestion about the update was actually referring to the router. Not ONT. Sorry if I ever misinterpreted and didn’t make myself clear enough.

Don't teach chewren bad.
You may flash your router but the firmware of the ONT is a NO Go.

Sent from 今天工作不努力, 明天努力找工作 using GAGT
 
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spectral

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Could be a sign that your router going to uplorry if it is frequent. Call your ISP for replacement.

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this is getting quite often, maybe I will do a factory reset 1st.
 

fishdundee

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anyone of you encounter the internet led turn red out of sudden? encountered quite few times, had to reboot router to resolve.
had changed the cable from ONT to router wan, also tested ONT directly to laptop to test internet also working. just the internet went off in the router.

Had the same issue too, happen once every few days. Now I set my router to auto reboot once every 2 days. So far looks ok.

It does look like a firmware bug.
 

HuatKway

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I'm using Netgear orbi mesh, wondering if this can cover a 4room hdb? Last time my ac68u didn't manage to reach the master bedroom
 

xonix

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I'm using Netgear orbi mesh, wondering if this can cover a 4room hdb? Last time my ac68u didn't manage to reach the master bedroom

If you place it middle of house, maybe can. But you could pair it with your ac68u ( if you still have it ) using AiMesh.
 

fishdundee

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With this router..

It seems i can never never achieve a link rate higher that 192mbps

With my old router (rt-ac88u) I can get 866mbps at full signal.

Not to mention, at this link rate (192mbps), its impossible to stream a 4k video (50gb file size).

I could easily stream this when using my ac88u

AX-88u firmware version: 3.0.0.4.384_6210
 
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kashix

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With this router..

It seems i can never never achieve a link rate higher that 192mbps

With my old router (rt-ac88u) I can get 866mbps at full signal.

Not to mention, at this link rate (192mbps), its impossible to stream a 4k video (50gb file size).

I could easily stream this when using my ac88u

AX-88u firmware version: 3.0.0.4.384_6210

Ur ax is it disabled? You don’t have the clients you try disable first and try again.
 

fishdundee

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Ur ax is it disabled? You don’t have the clients you try disable first and try again.

AX has been disabled, HE has been disabled

In any case, I decided to flash the merlin firmware into the AX88u, straight away i can get the desired maximum link rate. What is interesting is that I noticed my huawei P30 was connected at a link rate of 1.5 Gbps (with 160mhz enabled), I did not have a chance to stream a 4K video yet to see how it goes. Streaming videos on my nvidia shield tv was drastically improved. I figured that maybe speedtest might not be the best way to validate the performance of the link rate.

The only issue that i noticed now is that it could not sustained the connectivity, it will disconnect occasionally and reconnect again. Resulting in interrupting the video stream.
 
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HuatKway

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Some advice needed.
What's the best setting for this router for 5g? Enable 160mhz band and disable HE from what I see are the key changes? Do you all also enabled DFS?
 
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kleave

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Hi, I would like to check is there other setting that I missed out because I disabled AX frame and I keep getting the speed around 90+Mbps and I am on 1Gbps fibre plan.

The test client
MacBook Pro 2019 Model
Iphone X
Notebook with AC connection

Thanks.
 

kashix

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90mbps on 2.4ghz?

Hi, I would like to check is there other setting that I missed out because I disabled AX frame and I keep getting the speed around 90+Mbps and I am on 1Gbps fibre plan.

The test client
MacBook Pro 2019 Model
Iphone X
Notebook with AC connection

Thanks.
 

fishdundee

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Hi, I would like to check is there other setting that I missed out because I disabled AX frame and I keep getting the speed around 90+Mbps and I am on 1Gbps fibre plan.

The test client
MacBook Pro 2019 Model
Iphone X
Notebook with AC connection

Thanks.

It seems that this router have a special preference for channel 149 in my case, which result in slow performance...

In the 5Ghz settings, instead of setting the wifi channels as auto, set it as channel 36 hardcoded. YOu will see significant increase.

Reverting back to asus official firmware caused my wan ports to be down once every few days, and i need to reboot. Merlin seems stable but wifi signals tends to drop when there is a huge file transfer.

Honestly,at this point, I would gladly trade my AX88U for a BRT-AC828U. Getting pretty exhausted taming this beast.
 
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