Asus RT-N66U is transmitting on 2.4ghz when I only have the 5ghz radio turned on.

[Melissa2008B]

This is weird. I'm looking at my signal with the free version of InSSIDer. I only have the 5GHz radio turned on, I'm 100% SURE of that.

Yet it's also showing my SSID as transmitting something in the 2.4GHz band. Here's the first screen shot, showing the signal in the 5GHz band:

Then looking at the signal that's also showing up in the 2.4GHz band, even though that radio is turned OFF:

Not sure what that 2GEXT means.

 

[bill001g]

I have that same router and have both my radios turned off. Turning on the 5g only turns on the 5g for me. Did you disable it from the professional tab in the wireless.

Maybe a bug try newer firmware asus has a single code base now so all the routers get the fixes. You could also try asuswrt-merlin firmware which asus does not directly support but it is based on the asuswrt (has exploit) that Asus did develop

 

[Melissa2008B]

I have that same router and have both my radios turned off. Turning on the 5g only turns on the 5g for me. Did you disable it from the professional tab in the wireless.

Yes.

Maybe a bug try newer firmware asus has a single code base now so all the routers get the fixes. You could also try asuswrt-merlin firmware which asus does not directly support but it is based on the asuswrt (has exploit) that Asus did develop

In the upper area it says that this is a Merlin Build.

Is it risky, messing with a firmware upgrade? This is critical to our home business and personal stuff.

 

[bill001g]

Then you already have third party firmware. That is really strange though. my n66 is on factory firmware at the moment but I have radios disabled on a ac56 running merlin and it does not show any ssid.

 

[Melissa2008B]

I downloaded Firmware Version:3.0.0.4.380_7378 from Asus and updated it, then spent about 3 hours in a panic, LOCKED OUT of my router, until I finally got it working again. ( I'm not a network tech - JUST an intermediate PC user who has managed to get things working, if it costs me enough time. ) And when I'm locked out, my home business is down, and everything in the house that depends on the wifi, which is TV stuff etc. ( we have Dish, but access Netflix and Hulu Plus via the wifi )

Anyway, I'm back, but guess what? InSSIDer is STILL showing the radio on, at 2.4GHz too, and this firmware doesn't even allow me to set mw of transmit power, all I can do is move a slider all the way up to the "Performance" end. The signal at my PC is about 10db lower now, so I suspect it's forced to the lowest power. How can Asus call this a high powered wifi and do this to people? The reason I bought it was because it was supposed to be a high powered wifi router. The firmware I just replaced went up to 200mw of power at 5GHz. No idea what this one does, but the signal is down.

 

[bill001g]

I have seen it appear to lock up loading firmware before but from what I have read this is normal ? Pretty much everyone says be very patient for it to load the firmware.

If you turn off the 5g radio also does the 2.4g stay on.

Not sure what to suggest. If the router software says it has a feature that says it disables the radio and it doesn't then why bother having the feature. At least with factory firmware maybe asus will talk to you.

 

[bill001g]

Ok I have another theory, do you have a netgear repeater. The mac addresses for those ssid are coming from equipment that you can map to netgear. The one without the ext options comes back to asus.

 

[Melissa2008B]

This is making me crazy. I finally, after 3 hours, got both PC's working with the wifi again, but both bedroom 5GHz wireless ethernet adapters are kaput and I cant figure how to get them working again! If I knew this would happen, I would NEVER have updated this thing!

I've been struggling with the TL-WA890EA for over an hour and the light on it is red instead of blue, meaning it's not even picking up the wifi?

I guess I should have taken photos of every setting in the RTN66U first. No, I shouldnt have even done this!...

They have a quick config thing by using a browser and going to http://tplinkadapter.net/ but that won't even pick up the box.

 

[bill001g]

So do you have a repeater. I wish I had seen the mac addresses before we got off into the firmware stuff.

 

[Melissa2008B]

We have 2 PC's, which were fairly easy, and then 2 ethernet to wifi dual band adapters - one for each TV, and I forgot ( it's been a long time ) that they have to be removed and physically hooked up to my PC, then gotten into with a link in their manual, and the wifi password has to be put in again, because it's looking like a new device after the firmware change. Then put back in each bedroom. THEN fricking netflix has to be logged into all over again, from each setup, because any device change triggers THAT.

This whole thing just cost me about 8 hours and I'm tired and disgusted, and the RTN66U is STILL transmitting on both bands, BUT because the firmware is apparently crippling it, the signal strength from one of my neighbors now exceeds this router, which negates the whole reason we bought it in the first place - to have a high powered enough router to reach 40 feet each way in this 80 foot long modular house, without having to have Netflix stuff reloading because of poor signal strength. It USED to do that pretty well, but now that the Asus firmware apparently crippled it to match the lowest common denominator among foreign nations, who knows?

 

[bill001g]

I don't think the asus is transmitting 2 signals. There is only the main ssid on 5g with asus mac address.

What it appears is there is a netgear repeater that is creating both the SSID with the EXT part added. It seems that is the name netgear uses. So the netgear is receiving the signal on 5g and then re transmitting it out on both the 2.4g and 5g.

It may be one of the devices you call dual band adapters you hooked to the tv. If it is not then it is very scary because you have a unauthorized repeater.

You can re download the merlin firmware image and just do a firmware update to go back if you want.

 

[Melissa2008B]

I don't think the asus is transmitting 2 signals. There is only the main ssid on 5g with asus mac address.

What it appears is there is a netgear repeater that is creating both the SSID with the EXT part added. It seems that is the name netgear uses. So the netgear is receiving the signal on 5g and then re transmitting it out on both the 2.4g and 5g.

It may be one of the devices you call dual band adapters you hooked to the tv. If it is not then it is very scary because you have a unauthorized repeater.

You can re download the merlin firmware image and just do a firmware update to go back if you want.

Oh wow. One of the dual band wireless adapters is a NETGEAR WN2500RP, but I cant imagine why it ould be transmitting all the time, and in BOTH bands!

As far as the Merlin firmware, where can I find that? It was a huge hassle though, switching to the Asus firmware. I even had to just input the password again on my PHONE, for Airmore.

BUT things seem to be running slower now with the Asus. It has me wondering if there might be settings that were changed, going from the Merlin to the Asus firmware, and I'm not very knowledgeable of these things. Like an idiot, I didn't take photos of the settings screens, before changing firmware.

Are there any recommended settings around, to speed up this Asus firmware?

Another thing I was looking into: Someone was saying that power doesn't count so much, because the devices cant shout back just as loudly. I actually found an article that explained why. So I found a set of three 9db antennas for this router, in an article at http://www.wirelesshack.org/best-2-4-ghz-and-5-ghz-antennas-for-wifi-dual-band.html

That could really help too.

 

[bill001g]

This is the download site for merlin. I would download the latest since I doubt you know the exact firmware you were running.
https://asuswrt.lostrealm.ca/download

There really is no setting that will make the router run slower. The power output is hard to say. The factory firmware normally runs near the legal maximum. Third party firmware has been known to attempt to go above the legal limits but since merlin is still associated with asus not real sure they would allow options that make the router illegal.

Larger antenna will help a small amount. Even though you see things like 3db more will double the power it doesn't really work like that in real life. Most chipset can hear much better than they can transmit since there is no limit on how good the sensitivity number is.

 

[Melissa2008B]

This is the download site for merlin. I would download the latest since I doubt you know the exact firmware you were running.
https://asuswrt.lostrealm.ca/download

There really is no setting that will make the router run slower. The power output is hard to say. The factory firmware normally runs near the legal maximum. Third party firmware has been known to attempt to go above the legal limits but since merlin is still associated with asus not real sure they would allow options that make the router illegal.

I did some web research on this. The essential thing about legality is WHERE? Some countries have low limits. In the U.S., I understand it's 1000mw, but also read that the FCC may have hassled them about interference, so they lowered the power in the firmware and don't even show the exact numbers anymore, which stinks, being I bought this to get a higher powered wifi.

Larger antenna will help a small amount. Even though you see things like 3db more will double the power it doesn't really work like that in real life. Most chipset can hear much better than they can transmit since there is no limit on how good the sensitivity number is.

Ok, I'm a ham radio operator, going back to around 1968, but inactive since around 1994, though I still keep the license up. The thing about antennas is the pattern. I wouldn't want the idea "omnidirectional" antenna for my wifi, because that technically means transmitting and receiving in all directions, including up and down, and we have a single floor ranch style house, so the up and down part would be wasted. I'd rather have antennas that would focus on just this one floor, which those above apparently do. There are ways of doing that, by tightening the pattern with inductance and capacitance, so it flattens out horizontally, and focuses on the main floor where we need it. THAT alone could really increase signal strength both ways. For $17 it's a cheap attempt. 🙂

 

[bill001g]

If you have a radio license then you will likely enjoy stuff like this.

https://fcc.io/MSQ/-RTN66U

You can actually read the reports they filed with the fcc. You will see the power is not consitent across the channels and it makes a difference what encoding you are using...ie 802.11b or 802.11n

 

[Melissa2008B]

Oh great. Well I'm not into the gory details. 🙂

 

[Melissa2008B]

This is the download site for merlin. I would download the latest since I doubt you know the exact firmware you were running.
https://asuswrt.lostrealm.ca/download

There really is no setting that will make the router run slower. The power output is hard to say. The factory firmware normally runs near the legal maximum. Third party firmware has been known to attempt to go above the legal limits but since merlin is still associated with asus not real sure they would allow options that make the router illegal.

With the previous Merlin firmware, I was seeing -60db signal strength here on my PC. Now with the Asus "update", though it's set for the max power "Performance", I'm seeing -69 to -70.

It would be tempting to try the latest Merlin, if it didn't mean losing every setting of every device. Could that have been because I named it differently, or something? Didn't think I did...

 

[bill001g]

You should only have to reconfigure the router but it is advised you wipe the router config when go to third party firmware. If you set the same ssid the end devices should be the same. Your tv that are on the repeaters need a function called WDS and sometimes you have to allow those devices in a table in the router manually.

I guess I have less issues switching firmware around. I run my wifi on a stupid device running as a AP. My actual routers which I mess with the firmware only use ethernet.

 

[Melissa2008B]

I have that same router and have both my radios turned off. Turning on the 5g only turns on the 5g for me. Did you disable it from the professional tab in the wireless.

Maybe a bug try newer firmware asus has a single code base now so all the routers get the fixes. You could also try asuswrt-merlin firmware which asus does not directly support but it is based on the asuswrt (has exploit) that Asus did develop

Update: I have the 2.4GHz radio turned off, in Wireless-Professional.

I tried new firmware - Merlin. Still doing it. Is there some kind of control channel that still operates on 2.4GHz, that I can switch to 5?

Should WPS be used in this? I'm using the RT-N66U as a wireless router, into a TM822 that goes to Comcast cable HSI. The WPS is set to off, but says current frequency is 2.4GHz. Could that be it?