[Review] Asus RT-AX88U

ksksksks

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Try lower channels for 5ghz
Also lower mhz would be preferred
Say 20/40mhz < can try turning on just 20, but auto is fine for my case. I would highly recommend turning off 160mhz for 5ghz. Avoid dfs channel as well (not stable)

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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media bridging with AX88u

Anyway not sure if anyone have tried out...

I did a media bridge (replacing my powerline) using my very old RT_AC66u, and did a file transfer of a very large file across.

Performance hovers around 25 to 30MB/s, that's close to 4 to 5 times the performance of my powerline connection.

I am curious if using an AC88u as a mediabridge, would the performance be better.
 
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xonix

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Anyway not sure if anyone have tried out...

I did a media bridge (replacing my powerline) using my very old RT_AC66u, and did a file transfer of a very large file across.

Performance hovers around 25 to 30MB/s, that's close to 4 to 5 times the performance of my powerline connection.

I am curious if using an AC88u as a mediabridge, would the performance be better.

It would perform better if the link between the 2 is over 5ghz
 

xonix

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My current connection is over 5ghz, ac66u is a 3x3 mimo with a consistent link rate above 1000mbps

What I mean to say is over 5ghz, confirm AC88U (4x4) > AC66U (3x3)
But whether the improvement is worth buying the AC88U, I can't say for sure.
 

fishdundee

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What is the distance from ac66u to AX88u ? You can try place the ac66u to besides AX88U (< 20cm) and do speedtest again.

My one 2x2 can get around 300Mbps (about 31MB/s) at 12m away, so, yours should be higher, unless its the distance.

Hi Amat,

I do not really use speedtest, but I actually tranferred a 50GB file across the media bridge. It does burst beyond 35MB/s. After a while it just stabilise at around that value. Its no meaning looking at burst rates in my case. Ability to sustain a certain rate matters much more. Esp when you need a stream a very big 4k video over the media bridge.

Mine is less than 10m away.
 

fishdundee

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What I mean to say is over 5ghz, confirm AC88U (4x4) > AC66U (3x3)
But whether the improvement is worth buying the AC88U, I can't say for sure.

agree.... might not be worth it if the performance improvement is just a little bit more.

Looking at how low AC66u cost is in 2nd hand market, its really a pretty viable consideration to buy it as a media bridge. i do not really blame the AC66u.....

I actually suspect that the AX firmware still needs a lot of improvement.
 

fishdundee

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Oh, yours is in media bridge mode. So you connect from ac66u to your media, is it through lan or wirelessly ? Maybe the speed is due to the media.

Mine is in repeater mode, with lan cable to PC. Link speed is 867Mhz since 2x2, downloaded win 10 iso was 31MB/s, not burst speed.

I have a NAS and android TV box connected to the 66u via LAN.

My pc is connected to the ax88u. When I need to copy from my NAS, it will be via my media bridge.
 

zaviour

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My current connection is over 5ghz, ac66u is a 3x3 mimo with a consistent link rate above 1000mbps

May I know the firmware on your AC66U? I cant even get pass beyond 200mbps for my 5Ghz wifi using iphone XS. Normally stuck at ~160mbps. For the direct cable connection I can get to around 700mbps. The fibre line under M1 1Gbps.

Any recommendation for setting as well for the normal wireless setting for the AC66U?

And sorry to digress a bit, can I bought another AC66U, and making it as AP by connecting it wirelessly to main AC66U router? AC66U 2nd hand quite cheap to source as main reason hahaha :s13:
 

-Grift-

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May I know the firmware on your AC66U? I cant even get pass beyond 200mbps for my 5Ghz wifi using iphone XS. Normally stuck at ~160mbps. For the direct cable connection I can get to around 700mbps. The fibre line under M1 1Gbps.

Any recommendation for setting as well for the normal wireless setting for the AC66U?

And sorry to digress a bit, can I bought another AC66U, and making it as AP by connecting it wirelessly to main AC66U router? AC66U 2nd hand quite cheap to source as main reason hahaha :s13:
Make sure 5GHz is set to 80Mhz width
 

zaviour

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Your AC66U could be original HW version A1 (CPU at single core 600Mhz), while AC66U B1 is a lot faster (1Ghz dual core). Just look at the voltage, A1 is 1.58A, while B1 is 1.75A.

I just tested out Dlink 868L as repeater for my PC (on LAN), was able to hit 450Mbps. If I used back my 850L as repeater, it will only be 300Mbps+. 850L is 660Mhz Realtek, while 868L is broadcom 800Mhz dual core. so, a speed bump of 140Mhz can get it faster by 100Mbps+. Also, 868L linkspeed is quite stable at 867Mbps, while 850L linkspeed can fluctuate between 580Mbps to 867Mbps.

So, if you get AC66U, make sure its B1, or you can also consider the RT-1200G+, cpu is at 900Mhz, brand new some more at around $30.

channel bandwidth I left it at auto 20/40/80.

I will check it later when I get back home. For the RT-1200G+, I thought it will be slower since AC66U is AC1750, even though all those number is just a theoretical number. I am about to re-sign a new contact so getting the RT-1200G+ should not be a problem.

If that the case, will you suggest to swap it around? RT-1200G+ as main router then the AC66U as AP?
 

-Grift-

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I tried to set it to 80Mhz previously and the speed drop to ~70-80Mbps. So I changed back to 40Mhz, it seems the highest will the same setting as 80Mhz
I've always manually set 5GHz to 80Mhz width and channel 153, 600Mbps speed test no issue.
 

zaviour

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You need to check your ac66U HW version, if its A1, then can try out the 1200G+ as main router. If its B1, then it should be faster than 1200G+, so you might want to upgrade firmware, reset everything and start configuring again.

58ce589c-4254-442c-8997-da25d9994806-original.jpg


https://imgur.com/aZPLAEw

Okay let me check.. my firmware is using the merlin one. May I tried to reflash it with the latest firmware from Asus to try out since it has been sometimes back. As for the 5Ghz, my current setting 40Mhz with 36 as its channel due to I am the only one using this. Thanks.
 

zaviour

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Okay let me check.. my firmware is using the merlin one. May I tried to reflash it with the latest firmware from Asus to try out since it has been sometimes back. As for the 5Ghz, my current setting 40Mhz with 36 as its channel due to I am the only one using this. Thanks.

Verified mine is the RT-66U A1 model. I did a reflash to the latest firmware from ASUS website. There is an improvement over the 5GhZ wifi connection, now can get up to 300mbps vs previously max at 200mpbs. :s12:
 

-Grift-

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That's good to hear :). I also don't use merlin firmware, this firmware is for those power users that want to overclock cpu/ram and monitoring the temp etc (plus adding fan to its back etc). I think I saw somewhere that if not configure properly, the internet/link speed will actually be worse than stock firmware (probably due to thermal throttling I guess).

You can try the 1200G+ as main router and see whether the 5Ghz will improve.
Not sure where you read about needing to setup differently from stock 🤔
 
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