Windows 8 ASUS RT-N66U Trials and Tribulations

Mitchell_A

Essential Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2009
I bought this router in July 2012 and suffered issues with all wireless clients being frequently disconnected.
I tried everything to fix it, from changing the channel, to the security, to adjusting the Tx power on the three antenna's. None of it worked. It made trying to do anything that required a consistent connection to the internet (gaming) a pain.

After several months of playing around with it and making no progress, I decided I would take it to work to replace our ISP supplied router from 2001. Much to my surprise, with ~100 different people connecting per day, not a single disconnect occurred throughout the entire summer. So I decided to take it home again and re-evaluate what might be causing the problem. Some sort of interference was my first guess. This turned out not to be the case as with almost every device that could possibly interfere unplugged it still occurred. The event log on the router would always show "Signal 15 received-goodbye" right at the time of the disconnect. So I contacted ASUS and had an RMA sent. Very fast customer service and handling times, by the way.

Needless to say, the unit I received also had the same issue. So I looked at my connection to the internet. I have an ADSL2+ connection which logs in via PPPoE. In theory, my router modem combo supplied by my ISP could be configured to hand the login over to the ASUS router, however the firmware was very locked down and had no easy settings for bridge mode. Instead, I configured the local IP network settings as "custom" and was able to check off the option "Enable PPPoE pass-through" (which is essentially a more technical way of saying bridge mode). With that enabled, I set my PPPoE connection type and username on the ASUS router and have not experienced another issue since. Anyone who has a DSL connection and a similar problem may want to make sure their modem is configured correctly to enable the router to handle login functions with your ISP. At work we have a static IP connection which requires no such configuration, hence why the disconnects never occurred there.

So now instead of another 9-months of my 2-year warranty remaining, I have a 90-day "reconditioned parts warranty" on my RMA. Oh well, at least it finally works. For anyone looking at this router as a potential option, it is simply exceptional assuming it's configured correctly.
 
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