Which one of these routers are better?

[techmax123]

I am looking to upgrade from my router that currently drops.I tried numerous adjustments and changing settings it still happens. I am considering buying of these router which The Asus RT AC66U or the Netgear AC1750 R6400.I am worried the ac66U is about 4 years old and if it will go outdated quickly, the ac68u is out of budget at the moment.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I recently purchased an AC68R (same HW as AC68U), off of Newegg's ebay store, REFURB, for like $120. I then flashed Shibby Tomato 138-MultiWAN onto it.

 

[gpse]

you can try an Archer C7, it's affordable and decent.

 

[DesiPower]

I wouldn't worry about the age, Asus makes great routers, they signal strength is awesome.

 

[boomerang]

I can't recommend Asus routers.

AC66U that would drop the wireless many times a week and sometimes multiple times a day. I did an RMA on that one and the replacement drops the wireless a couple times a day but recovers on its own. I set it up to reboot daily in the middle of the night in hopes of making it more reliable but it seems to have no effect on reliability.

N66U at a second residence that dropped the wireless so frequently that I turned the wireless off and put a Unifi AP AC Lite in place to handle the wireless connections. I must say that the N66U has been rock solid now that it is not handling the wireless chores. But I also have that one set up to reboot automatically one a day.

I just can't recommend them to anyone. I have built many, many systems around Asus motherboards and that is what led me to their routers. Their motherboards I like, their routers - not so much.

YMMV

 

[VirtualLarry]

I just can't recommend them to anyone.

Edit: Sorry to hear that you had such troubles with your Asus routers and their wireless.

My previous setup, had an Asus RT-N12/D1 handling routing duties running Tomato, and an Engenius ESR1200 handling wireless. I rarely, if ever, had any dropouts, once I had a few firmware updates under the hood for the Engenius. (Initially, I had issues.)

Currently (for almost a month now?), I'm using an Asus AC68R (refurb), with newest 138 Shibby Tomato, and using the AC68R's native 2.4/5Ghz (AC) wifi.

Had a minor glitch once, but other than that, it's been fine.

I can't help but wonder, if you had such troubles with the Asus routers with factory firmware, why didn't you try third-party firmware? (Or did you?)

 

[boomerang]

I can't help but wonder, if you had such troubles with the Asus routers with factory firmware, why didn't you try third-party firmware? (Or did you?)

I have had numerous iterations of Merlin on both. Here's the thing, and with the understanding that this is a tech forum it may sound rather blasphemous but, I shouldn't have to install third-party firmware to make a product work. It should work out of the box. Yes, I am able to install other firmware but many aren't able to because it's simply not even on their radar. They want something they can purchase, go through a simple wizard that launches automatically and be up and running. Done. This is why I from time to time express my thoughts on Asus routers.

And it must have known that I was dissing it and decided to teach me a lesson because yesterday I had over six dropouts. I lost count there were so many. Already, I have had one this morning after having been online for an hour and a half.

It's time to replace this thing. I used to be a huge Netgear fan but they lost their mojo for me. So I'm in the same boat as the OP. Hmm, what router should I get? That's rhetorical, I'll have to figure it out on my own and let the chips fall where they may.

 

[Yakk]

you can try an Archer C7, it's affordable and decent.

I've been using a C7 and it's been rock solid for years handling 4 networks (2.4, 5ghz each for network and guest) with 4 wired and approx 10 to 15 mixed wireless connections any given time. However it doesn't have much of a "bling" fancy factor which seems so important these days for home use.

 

[VirtualLarry]

However it doesn't have much of a "bling" fancy factor which seems so important these days for home use.

Didn't you know? Routers are the new "Art Deco"...

 

[Suman Verma]

I am using Linksys E900 Wireless-N300 Router and haven't had any bad experience till now. Try using it, I am sure this will be helpful.

 

[razel]

What type of drops are you experiencing?

 

[gus6464]

Don't understand why people buy expensive gaudy looking home routers when a Ubiquiti ER-X is $50 and a Unifi AP-AC-LR is $90.

 

[DesiPower]

Yeah, imho $80 - $100 provides a lot of good options...

 

[PliotronX]

Don't understand why people buy expensive gaudy looking home routers when a Ubiquiti ER-X is $50 and a Unifi AP-AC-LR is $90.

This setup is just ridiculous I know most folks can't handle discrete routing and AP devices so they won't know the joys of actual reliable home networks. They see huge numbers and shiny exteriors and fall for it every time.

 

[BW86]

Don't understand why people buy expensive gaudy looking home routers when a Ubiquiti ER-X is $50 and a Unifi AP-AC-LR is $90.

This. So much this.

 

[Viper GTS]

ER-L + 2x AC-Pro here. Have been in Ubiquiti gear for a few years now, had 1xAP-Pro and then upgraded to two AC-Pros.

Absolutely rock solid in a fairly high use home network. Fifteen to twenty wireless clients all the time, another 30 hard wired clients, 300mb FIOS, multiple VLAN routing, a few servers hosted to the outside world, it just works. I recently added the Cloud Key to move the Unifi management to dedicated hardware, that has been completely solid as well.

Viper GTS

 

[bbhaag]

Hate to beat a dead horse but I also went with the Ubiquiti ER-X + Unifi AP-AC-LR combo about 3 months ago and will never go back to the all in one consumer combos. My WD N900 was the router that finally broke me. Never again.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Those are some really glowing endorsements! I'm still semi-hooked on all of the advanced features of Tomato firmware, otherwise, I would consider taking the plunge as well.

My wifi, thankfully, has been fairly stable for the past few years, though, so I'm in no hurry to change. Then again, I rarely, if ever, run routers with stock firmware. (Other than my FIOS router, which VZ handles the firmware updates on.)

 

[ch33zw1z]

I also have an er-x and uap-ac-lr, love it.

Don't want to back to standard soho device ever lol

 

[gus6464]

I started out with an ER-Lite couple of years ago with the N Unifi AP and then upgraded to the AC-Pro on our new house. I am currently running 2x Netgear 8port gigabit switches with the steel case but will end up buying an Edgeswitch Lite 24 port in the future.