Comments on: Asus RT-N16 Review

By: wayne

wayne — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 06:18:33 +0000

hi, i somehow got here while surfing on RT N16 related subjects. I got my RT N16 recently, and I played with several firmwares and settings. Then learned some tricks and tips from Asus website's forums.
By now you might know Asus has newer firmware that improve functionality.
Now I used their latest beta firmware 9.3.1.2 and had good functionality for my simple functions such as file copying, internet surfing , USB NAS etc.
My small network supports 3 desktop computers ( on 1000M and 100M Lan adaptors), 6 laptop ( some with N wireless from intel 5100 and intel 5300, some with old G wireless). All of them worked well and very stable. I chose to set wireless WPA-Auto-Personal (AES) so as to get best performance for N wireless clients running at 150-300Mbps and still have all the old G wireless clients running with connection between 40-54Mbps
To get to such N speed I have to work some on intel 5100 new drivers and a setting of Auto instead of default 20M channel width.
To get USB NAS to transfer 5-7MB/s i used FAT32 format as NTFS format seems to run slower at 2-2.5MB/s

If you would like to view more details on my test data, i put them on following forums:

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&id=20100403175530953&board_id=11&model=RT-N16&page=2&count=13“ rel=”nofollow”>http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?SLanguage=e…

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20091120111032687&board_id=11&model=RT-N16&page=1&SLanguage=en-us“ rel=”nofollow”>http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20091120…

if you would like to try out their new beta firmware 9.3.1.2, it is here on their FTP server ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/wireless/RT-N16 date 4/9/2010

well, hope this helps.
wayne

By: Thomas

Thomas — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:59:55 +0000

I also get ridiculously low throughput from the USB harddrive. The two beta firmwares makes it very hard to detect the USB drive so I have to stay with the old non-beta version.

Wireless dies slowly on it and needs a reboot every other day.

Another thing – the QOS is an absolute joke. I have IP phones connected and if download manager is enabled and downloading it completely kills all chances of using the IP phones, everything stutters and disconnects no matter how I tweak the QOS. I also have “High Priority” set for the phone without doing any good.
I must say that I have never had as many problems since I traded my Dlink DIR-635 for this thing. It seems to me that the product is not ready for the market and way too buggy still. Both thumbs down – I am definately heading back to Dlink again.

By: danseswithmice

danseswithmice — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:39:00 +0000

I´m using the latest firmware version 1.0.0.6. Can´t find a newer Beta at the asus website – link ?
What speeds are you getting with your version ?

By: Jony

Jony — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 23:33:35 +0000

Was having the same problem. Updated the firmware with the beta at the Asus website. Problem solved.

By: danseswithmice

danseswithmice — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:41:23 +0000

I can`t get better speeds from my USB harddisk than 0.5 mb/s up and 1mb/s down when using the RT N16 as a file server. Is that the way things are or is anybody else having more luck out there ?

Danseswithmice

By: John

John — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 07:26:46 +0000

Bought one the other day. Still a bit doubtful, and definitely needs firmware updated ASAP!, But I think you will find that the Media Server DOES work. It creates a share directory when you connect a drive, and if you copy stuff into it, that media is shared. (I haven't actually copied anything into it at this stage, but can see the shared media directory remotely.)
John.

By: dang

dang — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:35:33 +0000

That's great news!

By: danseswithmice

danseswithmice — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:38:12 +0000

Problems solved (I think and hope).

The RT-NT16 in default mode runs with "auto" channel .
Following your advice I changed to manual channel selection. 1-7 to choose from. Tried No 1 first. That gave stability but very low speeds. Then switched directly to channel 7 that maintained the stability, but also gave me maximum speeds for my connection. Tried once to change back to auto-mode with instant return of all the problems, so now I´m just leaving it on 7 and crossing my fingers.
Why it works I´m clueless to.

Kind regards and thanks for the help

Danseswithmice

By: dang

dang — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:58:48 +0000

We had a netgear in the office, and I had to reset it about every day or so. I ended up buying Netgear WNDR3700-100NAS wireless router from newegg and haven't had an issue:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122326" rel="nofollow">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item...

However, I had the issue, even when we moved offices and switched channels. Some of the routers that exhibit this behavior just suck. :(

Another thing to look for is upgrading the firmware if you can.

By: danseswithmice

danseswithmice — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 18:29:51 +0000

Thanks

No cordless phone, only use mobile phones.
The router sits on top my cable modem, which has a wi-fi option (that i don`t use) and i can`t exclude some interference from that source, but not much I can do about it.

Besides that I live down town and by my last count 19 other networks where reachable from my home....

The router has behaved itself reasonably for the last 24 hours, but if the problems relapses I guess I´ll have to try and mess with the channels. Not having to do that sort of thing was however one of the main reasons for buying the RT-N16...

By: dang

dang — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:03:15 +0000

Ugh, it seems that more and more routers these days are picking up more interference.

Do you have a cordless phone? Try changing the channels on the router to use something different and see if that helps.

The main thing is basically seeing if something in the house is causing the interference with the router.

By: danseswithmice

danseswithmice — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 05:06:11 +0000

Not a techy.
Bought the RT-N16 on account of the reported user friendliness in the set-up and interface, because of the option for a NAS on the router and because of the option of creating my own ftp server (want to give the grandparents access to the pictures of the children).

Well, the good news is that it is very simple to use and the user interface seems really good – it has all the features I was looking for and a lot off advanced ones I don`t plan to touch. Setting it up took ½ an hour, making a nas out of my 4 years 320 GB external hard-drive 5 min.s and the setting up off an ftp server is pretty straightforward as well.
The bad news is that its been in my house for 16 hours and I´ve so far had to do 3 restarts of the router :( . Its a right pain – when you`ve been off-line for a short while theres no way off login on to the router again with out doing a restart. Any one else with same problem and a fix ?

By: predatorx

predatorx — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:15:11 +0000

Yep.. I've attached a 1 TB selfpowered External HDD which works like a charm..

By: Toastman

Toastman — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 03:32:01 +0000

Name Router
Tomato mod release for the RT-N16 by Teddy Bear

This is a beta first release, however, it's pretty good!

Model Asus RT-N16

Time Sat, 09 Jan 2010 07:24:49 +0100
Uptime 0 days, 11:21:41
CPU Load (1 / 5 / 15 mins) 0.00 / 0.00 / 0.00
Total / Free Memory 124.19 MB / 113.2 MB (91.15%)

By: richard

richard — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 16:07:05 +0000

this router sucks. Poor documentation & i still can't print like over 5 pages using this router. on 1 of the pages, it just prints half a page, and the other half of the page on the next piece of paper…. Damn regret. should have bought d-link 655 instead.

By: pmshah

pmshah — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:41:55 +0000

I faced a similar (usb storage) problem on a usb connected CablesToGo 4port KVM switch. My Seagate free agent drive would not spin up with a single headed cable when connected to the built in USB hub on this switch. I had no double headed cable to solve this problem. By chance I connected a cable I had laying around as part of an old time Casio digital camera. Lo and Behold the short single headed cable would not pass enough current to the drive the longer Casio supplied cable did. So I suggest that in future you also try this and look for a cable with lower impedance/resistance. It just might work !!!

By: bobvious

bobvious — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 04:46:19 +0000

if the USB ports are unpowered, why not try an external HD with its own power supply like many of WD's larger drives? you can have your network-attached-data and print it too :)

By: k0mp

k0mp — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:46:21 +0000

I want to see how this baby performs with some REAL firmware on it, like the latest version of DD-WRT. As of about five hours ago, DD-WRT can now run on this router.