Asus AC3200 Wireless Issues

[Philip_9]

I have a AC3200 router running 378_9313. Can someone explain to me why I can 't download a 15mb file either wireless OR wired. I can surf the internet without any problems on ANY wired or wireless device. When I go to download a simple 15 mb file, I'm getting the STOPPED (ERR = -3295) message about the network connection has been reset. The file will start to download and get to about 13mb and then die on me. That is when I receive the error message.

I have rebooted the router and that didn't resolve the issue. This router has become unreliable if I can't download a small 15mb file. Perhaps, I have QoS configured wrong. I have Adaptive QoS and web surfing as the highest and file transfer as the lowest.

How do I make this router stable and reliable so I don't encounter any problems such as the above error message?

 

[Philip_9]

Bill001g~ Thanks for the response. I will run a survey to find out what channels my neighbors are on and set the bands to a higher channel. Should I put all wireless devices on 5 band and leave 2.4 reserve or not use 2.4 at all? What MHz should I be setting for each band? I have a lot of wireless devices such as iPods, Kindle Fires, iPhones, laptops, etc... and everyone likes to stream videos or watch Netflix movies on these devices. A good percentage of my devices use wireless. I need to configure the router to handle streaming and downloading without experiencing any delays or network connection reset messages.

 

[bill001g]

asus is one of the better ones. You just go to the software update screen and tell it to load the file from your PC. It is very simple. Make sure merlin is actually supported. Sometimes it takes asuis a bit to release a merlin image for some of their routers.

It depends how technical you are, you could load wireshark and it should show you why the session is being closed. It depends if you see lots of errors and retransmission and one end resets the connection or if you just get a reset when everything is fine. If you see errors and retransmission you might want to try it on your vista machine.

When you run torrent you want to run it in tcp mode which is not as efficient but it will more properly compare since UDP does not have the concept of sessions really.

 

[Philip_9]

Bill001g ~ Should put all wireless devices on the 5 bands? For example, put some on 5.1 and some on 5.2 bands to even out the bandwidth. Should I not use 2.4 band? What should I set the MHz on each band?

Again, I was told to use Merlin 378_56.2 and I hope this IS a stable firmware. If this doesn't work, I am going back to my Linksys AC1900 router where I had less problems.

 

[bill001g]

The radio band likely makes little difference. What is most important is you spend the time to figure out which has the least other people. Even just looking at all the neighbors routers and what channels they use should give you a idea which channels to avoid when you set up your equipment.

Generally you do not see errors like you are when it is a wireless issue. What you see when you have bad wireless is extremely slow response times because the wireless is taking time re transmitting the data attempting to get a copy with no errors. If it is really bad you will actually get a disconnect in the wireless connection itself which is very different than just a file transfer failing.

 

[Philip_9]

For the most part, this is what is going on "If it is really bad you will actually get a disconnect in the wireless connection itself.....". I am getting wireless disconnects when I download a 15mb file. I usually get this message WIRELESS CONNECT HAS BEEN RESET which to me it means a disconnect from the router. However, on my wired PC, I can download a large torrent file. Also, when 5 or more wireless devices are trying to use the wireless, it boggles down a little bit and response times start to slow down on all wireless devices.

So, it comes down to this, is it the router itself is bad, bad firmware or the wireless settings need to be adjusted to handle the large demand of the # of wireless devices AND wireless activity.

 

[RealBeast]

Bill001g ~ Should put all wireless devices on the 5 bands? For example, put some on 5.1 and some on 5.2 bands to even out the bandwidth. Should I not use 2.4 band? What should I set the MHz on each band?

Again, I was told to use Merlin 378_56.2 and I hope this IS a stable firmware. If this doesn't work, I am going back to my Linksys AC1900 router where I had less problems.

The version for the ASUS AC3200 (HERE) is a beta that was released about 3 weeks ago as the initial release. I've not heard anything good or bad and don't have an AC3200 so have not used it myself.

And as I said earlier, I would return to the AC1900 router for now, although you can use the AC3200 as an AP if needed:

I agree that it is a router issue *if the QoS is off* and computers connected via Ethernet are having the same issue, most likely a firmware issue.

Do you still have the Linksys 1900AC? If so, and the 3200 does not work properly with the QoS off, replace it with the 1900AC and use the AC3200 as an AP until the firmware matures unless you can return it for refund until the bugs are ironed out.

 

[Philip_9]

Well, I will try Merlin's version first to see if that resolves the issues. If it doesn't then I will be forced to go back to Linksys. I will post my results tomorrow.

 

[RealBeast]

And look closely at bill001g's posts, he makes some very important points for getting the most you can out of your network. Try that free version of inSSIDer that I linked above.

 

[Philip_9]

Yes, I will use inSSIDer to determine the channels and set the wireless to those channels. However, I still need some clarification on Bands and Bandwidth. Should I put all wireless devices on 5.1 OR spread them out between 5.1 and 5.2? Should I even use 2.4 at all? Also, for each band, what should I set the bandwidth?

I want to maximize performance and get the best speed for the wireless devices.

 

[RealBeast]

As bill stated, the question of channels is one of logistics and not the cause of the dropped downloads.

Once you solve the main problem, I would see what is in use around you and adjust your channels accordingly.

No reason not to use 2.4 if there are no interfering networks, as AC3200 has excellent 2.4GHz range and performance -- it allows you to break up your block of users so that everyone is not competing for the same channel that has limited bandwidth relative to using for example three different 2.4GHz radios on channels 1, 6, and 11 (coordinated from that on the main router and the others on your APs). It of course also depends on where the user is located relative to the AP radio, so it takes some planning.

 

[Philip_9]

Since the last post, I installed Merlin 378_56.2 on this router. Everything appeared to be working just fine. I did run a tool to determine which channels my neighbors are on and adjusted the 2.4 and 5 band channels accordingly. I was getting good speed and surfing the internet wasn't a problem. I was able to download torrent files and I was able to download an iOS app directly from my iPhone. Everything appeared to be working as it should be.

BUT......

About a week later, I started to experience some of the same issues AGAIN. I started to experience the STOPPED (ERR = -3295) messages on my Macbook Air and Apple devices. I noticed the same recurring issues on my WIRED Mac Mini. But I was able to download a torrent file on my WIRED Vista computer.

I rebooted the router unplugged anything of non importance. I connected my Macbook Air to the router and tried to download an iOS app and still the problem continued to persist.

I turned off the Asus router and factory reset my Linksys 1900ac router running 1.1.10.167514. I have ZERO problems with this router and any Apple products. Right out of the gate, I am able to download torrent files and iOS apps to ALL my Apple devices. I am able to download iOS apps WIRELESSLY on my Macbook Air and iPhone without any issues.

The Linksys router is in the same location in the garage where the Asus router was located. On the Linksys router, I have the 2.4 and 5 band channel set to AUTO and I don't have any issues.

I don't understand why I have so many issues with Apple devices and Asus router. It appears I have less issues with Linksys router and Apple devices. I would like to use the Asus router for the AiProtection, Traffic Analyzer and Firewall features but not if I will be experiencing issue with my Apple devices.