Joined: 04 Oct 2010 Posts: 28 Location: Fairbanks, AK
Posted: Thu Jun 24, 2021 23:37 Post subject: Restoring ASUS firmware on a RT-AC68U
I am currently running DD-WRT v3.0-r46979 on my Asus RT-AC68U. I recently upgraded my internet connection, and found myself running into the issue reported here: https://forum.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1083998, where the speed is limited to around 350 Mbps, even though internet speed is much faster. As such, I figured I'd try using the ASUS firmware instead. I downloaded version 3.0.0.4.386.43129 from https://www.asus.com/us/Networking-IoT-Servers/WiFi-Routers/ASUS-WiFi-Routers/RTAC68U/HelpDesk_BIOS/ for this purpose. Unfortunately, everything I tried resulted in the router stubbornly booting back to DD-WRT. Things I tried (in no particular order):
- Uploading the Asus firmware from the DD-WRT firmware update page (said upgrade successful, now rebooting, but rebooted to DD-WRT)
- Putting the router into recovery mode and using the ASUS Firmware Restoration tool (took about 5 minutes, got to 100%, then said upload failed)
- Putting the router into recovery mode and using the web interface, both on Safari and Chrome (sat for a while, then said unable to connect to server. No apparent effectiveness)
- Putting the router into recovery mode, and using TFTP to upload the ASUS firmware. (spent about 5 minutes transferring, before saying sent 98680852 bytes, which looks to be the right amount. Waited 5 minutes. Nothing more happened, so rebooted the router manually. Came back as DD-WRT still)
What am I missing here? Why can't I get my router back to ASUS firmware? Thanks.
Joined: 08 May 2018 Posts: 14208 Location: Texas, USA
Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2021 2:11 Post subject:
Is this over wired ethernet with a static IP assigned to the Mac? Is your Mac running Big Sur? I presume that you have tried CTF, SFE, and CTF/FA options to test if any help? _________________ "Life is but a fleeting moment, a vapor that vanishes quickly; All is vanity"
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Linux User #377467 counter.li.org / linuxcounter.net
Joined: 04 Oct 2010 Posts: 28 Location: Fairbanks, AK
Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2021 13:31 Post subject:
Wire ethernet, static IP yes. Tested both from Catalina and Big Sur, although all my attempts to revert to Asus firmware were from the Catalina machine.
My understanding from the threads I read was that DD-WRT did NOT support CTF, and that this was the main source of the slowdown (although those thread WERE kind of old). If that has changed, where might I find those options? I'd love to be able to stick with DD-WRT if I can get full performance from it!
Joined: 04 Oct 2010 Posts: 28 Location: Fairbanks, AK
Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2021 14:43 Post subject:
kernel-panic69 wrote:
I presume that you have tried CTF, SFE, and CTF/FA options to test if any help?
Ah ha! there it is. Right under "Basic Setup" Shortcut forwarding engine was set to SFE, and Flow Acceleration was disabled. First tried just setting Flow Acceleration to CTF & FA, but that didn't seem to make a difference. Then I tried changing the Shortcut Forwarding Engine to CTF, and bingo! Speedtest jumped up to 750Mbps. Still not quite gig speeds, but much better.
Then I had the thought to try a different speediest server, and that gave me 881 Mbps, and I saw peaks as high as 950Mbps, so I suspect that's as good as I'm going to get in the real world. Yay! That'll teach me to trust old internet information...
Just out of curiosity, since CTF gives so much better performance than SFE, why isn't it the default? Or maybe it is on new installs, and just wasn't enabled on mine because I have been upgrading since before it was an option? Is there some tradeoff such that if you have a slower connection, SFE would be preferable?
Shortcut forwarding engine was set to SFE, and Flow Acceleration was disabled. First tried just setting Flow Acceleration to CTF & FA, but that didn't seem to make a difference. Then I tried changing the Shortcut Forwarding Engine to CTF, and bingo! Speedtest jumped up to 750Mbps. Still not quite gig speeds, but much better.