ASUS RT-N66U Best Merlin Firmware Version?

[ianch99]

I have a ASUS RT-N66U router running the Merlin firmware and was wondering if anyone else is using this router/firmware combination?

I am on version 3.0.0.4.270.26 which is fast and very reliable but it does have a few niggly bugs. Is anyone on a later Merlin build than this (for their N66U) and if so, how does it perform?

Many thanks

[Jumping]

Why not try the latest version? If its worse or doesn't fix your problem you can always revert to the old version.

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by Jumping

Why not try the latest version? If its worse or doesn't fix your problem you can always revert to the old version.

The problem with the new versions is that you have to factory reset and manually re-configure your router from scratch. I have quite a few settings (dhcp lists, mac filters, etc) and I wanted to minimize the number of times I would have to do this.

There is also changes going on re: the N66U and the use of the latest SDK6 drivers from ASUS (problems with range, stability, etc). Things seem quite confusing .. at least to me. So if someone had found a recent version that matches the speed & stability of the earlier ones (like my version), it would be useful to know and maybe save a lot of time trying new builds only to discover it is worse than the one I am on.

[Hom3r]

I have this router, and I'm sure there are options to back these up.

It might be worth taking note of these settings, and resetting the router anyway.

[ianch99]

Out of interest, what version are you on?

[Hom3r]

I'm running 3.0.0.4.374.979, when I click on it, it opens the firmware upgrade screen and states Firmware Version 3.0.0.4.374_979-gbc8961e.

It Asus Firmware and not a 3rd party.

---------- Post added at 18:02 ---------- Previous post was at 18:01 ----------

What niggles are you having?

[ianch99]

Looks like this Merlin build is where it picks up your Asus version:

3.0.0.4.374.34 (30-Oct-2013):
- NEW: Merged with Asus 374_979 (from RT-N66U).
AC56/AC68 AiCloud components taken from 374_217.
- NEW: Added RT-AC68U support.
- NEW: Added IPSec support to the kernel. Userspace tools
such as StrongWAN must be installed from Optware/Entware,
and manually configured. (Patch provided by saintdev)
- NEW: Adjustable MTU for DHCP/static IP WAN users
- NEW: WAN interface name passed as argument to firewall-start
- NEW: Configurable min/max ports allowed to be redirected by UPNP.
This allows WHS users to change the min allowed port from
the default value of 1024 to allow UPNP forwarding of
HTTP/HTTPS.
- NEW: Display CPU temperature on Sysinfo page (AC56 and AC68)
- NEW: Display CPU chart on Performance page (AC56 and AC68)
- CHANGED: UPnP rules will now be processed after manual
forwards and port trigger rules.
- CHANGED: Site Survey now reports supported protocol.
- CHANGED: Updated Dropbear to 2013.60.
- CHANGED: Updated dnsmasq to 2.67 final.
- FIXED: Some Traffic Monitor pages were missing the page tabs.
- FIXED: The webui would allow you to enable SSHD while not
setting an authkey or enabling password-based authentication.
- FIXED: 802.11h options should only be available on the 5 GHz band.
- FIXED: Wifi icon hover would report 5G channel as undefined if
2.4GHz radio was disabled.
- FIXED: IPv6 clients list failed to properly merge IPs from similar MACs
(Asus bug)
- FIXED: Minor layout issues with the Clients list
- FIXED: Samba wasn't started at boot time if browser master or WINS
was enabled and we had no USB disk plugged in.
- FIXED: Router/minidlna crashes when processing very large image
collections - various memory leaks plugged.
(patches provided by Paulo Capani)
- FIXED: Buffer overrun when entering more than 35 MACs on the
filter list. We now support up to 64 MACs.

The two main niggles are the iPad 3 won't connect to the 5G network and the Wireless client list has multiple entries for the name name (i.e. different mac addresses) which makes it tricky to see who is connected.

There are also security fixes (esp. an IPv6 one) which would be good to pick up ..

[Hom3r]

The only thing I can suggest with the iPad it try a Apple forum.