Info How to work out Asus Aimesh wifi 6 160MHZ problem with RT-AX89X

[FAhentai]

Hi everyone, a few weeks ago I did post some thing here regarding Asus's Aimesh problem, Mod moved it to somewhere else, here is the link
However, for this post, I will just simply give a solution for the problem. Before we start, I just want let you know that this problem may not happen to all Asus routers, and you need a phone app called "WIFI Analyzer", which is a fee app you can down load from google store to check if the job is done or not. And also, this solution can only work out the problem with ehternet backhual mode, which means that your primary router need to connect your mesh units with ethernet, rather than wireless since I did not test it with wireless backhual mode, nevertheless if you had similar problem you can still have a try.
If you are using Asus RT-AX89X as the primary router and other Asus routers that supports wifi 6 160MHZ mode, there is a high chance that you found out that both your primary router and your mesh units back to 80MHZ mode. If you are not sure about that, please use wifi analyzer to check this out. Once that happens, here is a few things you need to do:
1. go to your primary router, RT-AX89X, click the number after "Firmware Version" and follow the instruction there to update your firmware, inlucidng your mesh units.
2. After upgarding the firmware, disconnect all the mesh units, go to wireless setting-professional---choose 5G band,and scroll down, you can see there is a selection says "Extended NSS", disable it,click apply. Then go back to wireless- general-scroll down to 5G setction,unselect and select enable 160MHZ, then you will found the selection of 20/40/80/160mhz is back. click apply.
3.Use your wifi analyzer to scan the wifi, to check if 160MHZ mode is on on your primary router, please notice that for 5G band, only those control channel from 36 to 64 supports 160MHZ mode, thus, if you found your wifi channel is already more than 64, then, no matter what happen you just can not enable 160MHZ mode. In this case, you have to check the wifi eviroment to found out the best channel then apply to the router, ,Eg, you found your neighbours are using channel 36 40 48, then you go back your router, set your wif router's control channel to 52 or even 60 and make sure the channel that you are using is used by no one else. If all those control channels that is <= 64 are used, then you check out the weakest one, choose the control channel, click apply.
4.Plug the ethernet connection of your mesh units back. Go back to your primary router setting managment page, Go aimesh section on the top left, choose the mesh units, please notice that it may take a few mins before those mesh units can back online, so if you found out all your mesh units are still off line, don't be suprised, choose one mesh unit, go management on the right, scroll down, choose Reboot Node. Then go other Mesh unit, reboot them one by one. Then wait for a few seconds, after that use your wifi anlayzer to check out if all your mesh units are working on 160MHZ mode. Please also notice that based on my experience, physically restart the mesh units, by turn it on and off might not work, you have to do it this way.
5. After you done all this, you can go back to your primary router to check the wireless setting. On the wireless-general-5G section, you will found out that this page looks like this

https://imgur.com/fi6kZiY

View: https://imgur.com/fi6kZiY


However, by unselect and select enable 160MHZ, the choice of 160mhz and 20/40/80/160MHZ will jump out but once you clieck apply, it will go back to where you start from. Yet it does not matter, 160MHZ mode will be still on.
I hope this can help you if you have problem like this.

 

[kanewolf]

160Mhz mode for 5ghz does not penetrate walls well. You could get so many retries that your throughput may actually be better with lower bandwidth. I do not recommend 160Mhz use in 5Ghz. 6Ghz is OK, but 6Ghz penetrates walls even less than 5Ghz.
I would recommend you actually test throughput if you are attempting to use AIMesh nodes with 160Mhz.

 

[FAhentai]

160Mhz mode for 5ghz does not penetrate walls well. You could get so many retries that your throughput may actually be better with lower bandwidth. I do not recommend 160Mhz use in 5Ghz. 6Ghz is OK, but 6Ghz penetrates walls even less than 5Ghz.
I would recommend you actually test throughput if you are attempting to use AIMesh nodes with 160Mhz.

I did and you may not even believe the result. In fact even I can not believe the result myself. 🤣
The router in fact plays a very important roles here.

https://imgur.com/a/OvCZuZF

View: https://imgur.com/a/OvCZuZF

This is the topology of the network system in my house.My room is on LV1, this is the screen short of the wifi eviroment there.

https://imgur.com/a/bDPqFm4

View: https://imgur.com/a/bDPqFm4

The funny thing is, if I connect my computer onto NBN 5G, and manually bond my computer to the GT-6 router which is on "GF rent out", which is the -56 one on the screenshot above, the speed is even faster than the -49 one, which is the primary AX89X that just a few steps away from my room. 🤣

 

[FAhentai]

Okay, I was wrong.
It seems like, all those things that I have done above, can only makes WIFI Analyzer APP shows Asus AX89X is working at 160MHZ mode, yet when I test with my laptop, (AX201) and Desktop (AX210), as well as my ROG 5S mobile, non of them is able to get wifi 6 160MHZ speed.
I have tried everything, encluding switch on and off Extend NSS, MUMO, none of them eventually worked.
Ironically, the ROG GT-6, as a mesh Unit, it just works fine on 160MHZ mode, in my bedroom, the single level is showed above,(-47 with AX89X and -56 with ROG GT-6) connect to ROG GT-6 is even faster than connect to Asus AX89X. 🤣
I did test it with both my laptop and desktop, as well as my mobile, the result is shocking. If I try to load and write something from my NAS to my laptop and desktop, both of my laptop and PC get 150MB loading speed and 90MB writting speed, while connect to AX89X, both loading and writting speed goes 70MB-90MB up and down. 🤣
I don't know any of you can understand Chinese, it seems like one of the vloger in China confirmed that with Asus AX89X, there are something wrong with A1 A2 block, that "can not even called WIFI6 router". https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1uZ421H7wn/ here is the link, and my test results are very close to what he had at the first place. However, he send it to RMA and eventually he got his router replaced with B1 version, the problems seems fixed. Now I am suspecting that I get an A1 or A2 version that Asus dumpped to Australia market.
And also, in this forum (English) people mentioned something about RT-AX89X's A1 A2 problem, https://www.snbforums.com/threads/rt-ax89x.57884/page-22

 

[kanewolf]

Okay, I was wrong.
It seems like, all those things that I have done above, can only makes WIFI Analyzer APP shows Asus AX89X is working at 160MHZ mode, yet when I test with my laptop, (AX201) and Desktop (AX210), as well as my ROG 5S mobile, non of them is able to get wifi 6 160MHZ speed.
I have tried everything, encluding switch on and off Extend NSS, MUMO, none of them eventually worked.
Ironically, the ROG GT-6, as a mesh Unit, it just works fine on 160MHZ mode, in my bedroom, the single level is showed above,(-47 with AX89X and -56 with ROG GT-6) connect to ROG GT-6 is even faster than connect to Asus AX89X. 🤣
I did test it with both my laptop and desktop, as well as my mobile, the result is shocking. If I try to load and write something from my NAS to my laptop and desktop, both of my laptop and PC get 150MB loading speed and 90MB writting speed, while connect to AX89X, both loading and writting speed goes 70MB-90MB up and down. 🤣

What link speeds are shown?
A 90MB/s throughput is close to gigabit speeds. What were you expecting?

 

[FAhentai]

What link speeds are shown?
A 90MB/s throughput is close to gigabit speeds. What were you expecting?

link speed? In my bedroom, the WIFI Analyzer reasult showed above, AX89X is below 1201M, with both my lap top and desktop, 2401 for mobile, while GT-6 shows 1922/1922 on both my laptop and desktop, 1729/1729 for mobile.
160MB to 180MB is what I am expecting, after all all those routers are connected with 2.5G ethernet, in fact, I have already got 150MB speed with ROG GT-6 at the place I showed above, if I bring my laptop close to GT-6, it can go 180-210MB.

 

[kanewolf]

link speed? In my bedroom, the WIFI Analyzer reasult showed above, AX89X is below 1201M, with both my lap top and desktop, 2401 for mobile, while GT-6 shows 1922/1922 on both my laptop and desktop, 1729/1729 for mobile.
160MB to 180MB is what I am expecting, after all all those routers are connected with 2.5G ethernet, in fact, I have already got 150MB speed with ROG GT-6 at the place I showed above, if I bring my laptop close to GT-6, it can go 180-210MB.

Then your expectations are wrong. With a 1700Mbit link speed your effective throughput is 900Mbit (give or take). WIFI is 1/2 duplex. That means that only 1/2 the time can that 1700Mbit link speed be used to transmit to you. The other half it is your device transmitting status back to the base.

 

[FAhentai]

Then your expectations are wrong. With a 1700Mbit link speed your effective throughput is 900Mbit (give or take). WIFI is 1/2 duplex. That means that only 1/2 the time can that 1700Mbit link speed be used to transmit to you. The other half it is your device transmitting status back to the base.

No mate, your understanding could be out of date. In fact for many years I had the same idea just like you, until last year I tried WIFI6 stuff. 🤣
In general, based all those online router reviews I have wathced, wifi 6 80MHZ 1201M can do over 110MB/S if both the router and the wifi device are located at the same room and there is no block, while wifi 6 160MHZ 2401 speed can do 220MB/S+ in the same condition. If this theory stands, then the 80MHZ mode can not go over 600Mbps, which means that it can not go over 75MB/S, while 160MHZ can not go over 150MB/S.
When I found out those reviews online I can not even believe that at very first, thus I even test it myself. It seems like, with WIFI 6 80MHZ mode 1201 I can get 110MB/S, while 160MHZ mode I can get 190-210MB/S (Both test are done with ROG GT-6, all the device sits in the same room as the GT-6 where there is nothing in the way), which proves that the those reviews are true and the theory is wrong or at least out of date

 

[FAhentai]

Sorry for grave diging, but I Guess everything comes to an end. If any one read this tread, please make sure that you read this part
THERE IS NO SOLUTION IF YOUR ASUS RT-AX89X CAN NOT WORK AT WIFI 6 2X2 2401 SPEED!!!!
Here is the reason: It seems like there a few different blocks of Asus RT-AX89X, A1 A2 B1 and B2, amoung which, A1 and A2 may have such problem and there is NO SOLUTION!! By doing what I list there can only help your Mesh units work at WIFI6 160MHZ mode, meanwhile it can also makes your RT-AX89X works looks like working at that speed, yet never really deliever.
I have send my RT-AX89X to RMA 2 times, eventually, they give me a full refund, after that I used the money to buy an Asus BE88U. After setting the new one to WIFI 6 mode and using it as the primary router, the problem never happens again. The wifi can easily do 180-190M/s.

Since this router is already ceased production, the chance for you to buy a brand new one is low, However, if you are look for a second hand one, please be careful with this, make sure you test it. Otherwise, it will be better you use it as a wired router, since it supports 10G WAN and 10G LAN simutaneously, you can still use it for long time. Nevertheless, if want to have a decent wifi, it will be better if you buy a 10G L2 switch and a Gbic(10G transciever), connect them together and use AC+AP solution, such as TP LINK OMADA.