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Questions about my router ASUS AC3200

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  1. #1

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    Hi JR,

    2.4GHz
    Likely to have further range, although more interference with other 2.4GHz electronics, such as a cordless telephone. Speed is slower.

    5GHz
    Range likely to be less, speed is higher, and less interference with other electronic devices.

    Having two - 5GHz modes
    Do you mean having a guest account? Some routers allow you to add a guest mode, i.e.
    2.4 GHz
    2.4 GHz guest
    And that allows someone to connect to your network without having access to your shared files or hard disk.

    Some routers let you set up multiple SSID's. You can run several different WiFi networks at the same time and they all show up on your WiFi list when searching for networks from your computer or mobile.

    Rebooted
    Well, I think things need to be rebooted from time to time. Just like a car needs to be started once in awhile and not left sitting. I think the same principal.


  2. #2

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    Yeah I think you can reboot every few months, not needed on a weekly basis.


  3. #3

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    I would agree with most of what M&M wrote, except with the need to reboot the device. This might have been true about ten years ago, well branded home stuff seems much more stable. I'd say that if it seems to work okay, just ignore it and leave it up. There is absolutely no need to schedule reboots, and you would only do it if your network seemed to be acting up.

    I reboot my wifi device only if I accidentally disconnect the power, or if I'm messing around with it for some reason. Never done it for stability reasons.

    Regarding the speed differences on 2.4 vs 5, note that you're probably bottlenecked at your internet connection rather than your internal wifi network, so any potential speed difference is probably only noticeable when you are transferring between machines within your network (e.g. copying files from a laptop to your NAS). And even then, I have found the primary factor in wifi speeds seems to be distance between the devices and the wifi point rather than frequency.

    Last edited by jgl; 24-10-2015 at 11:23 PM.
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  4. #4

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    I agree that it isn't required to reboot, but I think some people are recommending it now that the routers have CPU's.

    How do you obtain the highest transfer speed? I thought you had to connect to both 2.4GHz and 5GHz at the same time, but how does one do that?

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  5. #5

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    @jkrob, one of the things that might account for the speed differences between the two devices could be how many links each is able to maintain. The AC standard seems to be able to use multiple links for additional bandwidth (this might be what M&M is talking about, but the links only work on 5GHz, not 2.4). Some devices will only be capable of one link, I'd expect the vast majority of phones to be in this category.

    I didn't realise you were on such a fast net connection, in which case the speed of your wifi links are relevant, though IMO everything is probably "fast enough" unless you've got some very non-standard home use cases. Most the time you're probably not next to the router, try running throughput tests at greater distances and see if you become constrained by distance. I've noticed that moving my phone just a metre can result in really large bandwidth differences.


  6. #6

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    So it sounds like only AC can support multiple links to get the full speed that is claimed on the box. 3200mbps. I thought this was offered on N technology too, but maybe I'm wrong.


  7. #7

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    Original Post Deleted
    Are you seeing two 5GHz networks when you try logging in from a phone or tablet? Or when you go into your router admin via a web browser?

    You probably have a guest network enabled. Your router should be able to support multiple guest networks. Just check that you have a password on the guest network as well, in your router settings.

  8. #8

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    I don't know how to achieve the highest speed. Was hoping someone else would chime in on how.


  9. #9

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    Oh, right. Marketing blurb from the Asus site:

    Tri-band Smart Connect
    Our Tri-Band Smart Connect technology automatically assigns each device to either the 2.4 GHz band or one of the two 5 GHz bands, according to the device's speed, its signal strength, and how busy each band is. This means you never have to decide which band to use, as RT-AC3200 does it all for you. This means you get better range and faster, more reliable connections — all the time!


    Looks like it has two separate 5GHz networks and splits wifi devices between them so there is less contention between devices. To be fairly mild about it, this looks to be dubiously useful to most people and sounds like the kind of feature that a marketing department would come up with.

    Edit: Just read a review on this router. The auto-assignment of network is something called "Smart Connect" and you might be slightly better turning it off and manually assigning devices to either network. Though if you've only got a couple of devices that are browsing the web there is no way this could possibly matter.

    http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wirel...owall=&start=5

    Last edited by jgl; 25-10-2015 at 11:21 PM.
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  10. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by MandM!:
    So it sounds like only AC can support multiple links to get the full speed that is claimed on the box. 3200mbps. I thought this was offered on N technology too, but maybe I'm wrong.
    You're correct. 802.11N supports MIMO.

    Quote Originally Posted by MandM!:
    I don't know how to achieve the highest speed. Was hoping someone else would chime in on how.
    Wifi has overhead that has to be taken into account when looking at speeds. Real world 802.11N is in the 40-50Mbps range and 802.11AC is in the 70-100Mbps range. A triband (like your ASUS AC3200) or quadband router could do 120-250Mbps on 802.11AC. Real world 802.11AC is very different from the 1300Mbps (perfect lab scenario) that it advertises.
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