RT-N66 upgrade

sansnom

sansnom

sansnom

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14 Feb 2004
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Gents

Not sure what's going on with my router but it can't seem to hold a stable connection for **** these days. If more than 2 or 3 clients are connected to it around the house it starts to fuzz out and it randomly drops connections for no apparent reason.

Anyway, maybe it's on its way out which is bizarre as it's been used for less than 6 months in total since I got it. It also seems to have gotten worse after a recent firmware update from asus.

Any idea what I can upgrade it with? I want something solid, reliable and not too expensive. It needs to be able to handle a 24 port switch, htpc, media player, and about 12 clients (phones, pcs, laptops, guest devices etc)
 
The n66u is rock solid for me, but I use johns fork firmware a customised version of merlins.

You should try either merlins or johns firmware first and see if that helps.
 
hmm never heard of either of these custom firmwares for the router. This might sound a bit silly but, are they safe to use? I'd be worried if I tried a custom firmware and found out it's somehow not secured.

Also is it easy to load and possible to remove?
 
They're based on the official Asus firmware and it's simple to swap between them and the Asus versions. The only thing you need to watch is that it's often necessary to perform a hard reset after flashing so you'll need to re-enter the settings.

I've never seen any reports to suggest that they are any different to the official firmware from a security point-of-view.
 
N66U on the latest Merlin firmware here too - By far the best router I've ever owned! My suggestion would be to reset to defaults and set everything up again from scratch (not loading a past config save)
 
+1 for Merlin's firmware.

Upgrading my RT-N66U to an RT-AC87U purely for the boost in wireless. Will also be using Merlin's firmware on it.
 
Thank you OP for making this thread!i've been having similar issues with my n66u after recent firmware updates, I was just going to grin and bear it until asus pulled their fingers out; I had no idea there was other tweaked firmware for it!

I know it's already based on ddwrt so thought there wasn't much point in looking for something else, ha. Cheers everyone :)
 
Terrier_Jimlad said:
Please let me know how you get on, was thinking of going to the 87U myself to take advantage of the AC (I now have two AC devices)
Click to expand...

All seems well so far. Got it up and running, put on Merlin's firmware, then uploaded my previously saved settings. Dropped straight in and wireless is booming. There's also adaptive QOS which is a nice touch. So far, so good.
 
Used to run the RT-N66U for years with merlins firmware - he definitely supports this particular model more than others.

I wanted to upgrade to AC and have a large number of wireless clients so went for one of the new X-Stream routers - Stuck with Asus in the hope merlin did just a good job on it.

Unfortunately Merlin doesn't develop very much for this expensive router - but even with stock firmware it has sterling performance (older crappier stuff on 2.4 radio, slightly better stuff on 5Ghz-1 radio and super fast AC only on 5Ghz-2 radio).

Have to admit I love the extra features over the older router on this RT-AC3200. Just a shame Merlin doesn't sprinkle as much magic on this one :(
 
Well after 10 days or so, I'm not getting on as well with the RT-AC87 as I thought I would. I've got QOS set to on and I'm downloading from Newsgroups, and normal browsing is terrible. My link is being fully saturated and the internet is just horrible to use. I've tried both adaptive and classic QOS. I've been downloading for most of the day:

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I never used to get this with my RT-N66U.

Both have been running Merlin's firmware.
 
Not really an option as I require OpenVPN server capability. Saying that I could host that off my Synology.

EDIT.

Don't believe the stock firmware works with my ISP (Sky Fibre).
 
Bit of a thread revive. Sansnom, did you install the custom firmware in the end? If so, did it fix your issues?

I'm having the same problem with my router and have an RMA lined up. If the custom firmware fixes the problems, then I might give it a try. Otherwise, I'll just RMA and hopefully get a replacement.
 
Helios1234 said:
Bit of a thread revive. Sansnom, did you install the custom firmware in the end? If so, did it fix your issues?

I'm having the same problem with my router and have an RMA lined up. If the custom firmware fixes the problems, then I might give it a try. Otherwise, I'll just RMA and hopefully get a replacement.
Click to expand...

Flash it and see, it only takes 5 minutes from start to finish.

S2KIP said:
Not really an option as I require OpenVPN server capability. Saying that I could host that off my Synology.

EDIT.

Don't believe the stock firmware works with my ISP (Sky Fibre).
Click to expand...

In general running an FPU intensive task on a device with no FPU (your router for example) is a poor choice. Putting it on something that does have a FPU (eg most x86/x64 architecture) is a much better idea unless you have a slow connection. Generally I put a VPN on a single device that needs it as having it at a LAN level can be problematic.
 
Damit, I thought there would be a good solution for an RT-N66 replacement in this thread :)

I was looking to replace with something with more "oomf" as the new house we've bought has solid stone walls.

The signal gets everywhere we need it but disconnects are common.

I despise wireless extenders as even my experience with commercial ones, with automatic handover of connections, are never up to muster.

What's the latest and greatest we can get in the UK?

Oh, and I got Ethernet sorted in the house about 2 days after we moved in - got my priorities straight there ;)

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