Have been looking for a router after missing a £99 deal on Netgear Nighthawk. After DAYS of reading reviews i decided to go with Asus as its wireless performance is actually faster and it is said to have more/better sw options out of the box. The only downside is slower read/write for an HDD but that shouldn't be a problem. Amazon currently has it listed for £99 but it's out of stock. Went with Currys.
17 comments
Chuggee
28 Nov 161#1
Fantastic deal for £100. Remember to install the ASUSwrt by Merlin on it after. No issues with this router unlike the tri-band ones and the faster than 1900MBps AC routers.
tjc2005 to Chuggee
28 Nov 161#3
We have this router as a second hotspot, what's better about the Merlin firmware? I was going to do it ages ago but I've never had a problem with the Asus firmware.
Really good for adblocking from a centralized point via USB attached to the router. However it doesn't block some youtube adds to mobile, tablet clients. Desktop ad block is 100% though which is fantastic.
Merlin F/W just has more tweaks. Best reading on SNB
ambc_666
28 Nov 16#5
Fantastic router. I bought it last week :smiley:
jasee
29 Nov 16#6
If it`s simply adblocking using a hosts file, there are many free simple solutions which can be applied to each machine, they can be easily switched off, which is sometimes necessary if links don`t point directly at the url (for instance the ones used here) :wink: Not necessary to buy a router just to do that. :smiley:
JoeSpur
29 Nov 16#7
How is the DSL version of this router (with the modem included)?
I don't really like having so many devices cluttering up the place, let alone a huge one!
Is it just as good but with the modem?
gwapenut
29 Nov 16#8
That modem is pretty poor by all accounts. For a tenner extra it may be worth a punt, I guess it can be bypassed with an external modem, but what's not clear to me is whether custom firmware can be flashed over a modem version.
I know custom firmwares don't support modems, I'm just not sure whether you can flash over it and ignore the modem part if that's what you fancy later down the line.
JoeSpur to gwapenut
29 Nov 16#9
That's one of the things I wanted to know too. I hear a lot about the modem part being poor, but in what sense? Surely it's better than stock ISP modems? Would it be better to go with BT's new Hub6 (or whatever it's called)? You can't even change the DNS on these ISP modems...
I don't like having the modem separate with two plugs and stuff, it's all a bit messy, but everyone seems to prefer it...
JoeSpur
29 Nov 16#10
If one was to turn the modem part OFF in the DSL version (and use their own separate one), would it not be exactly the same as this model?
tinky13
29 Nov 16#11
Received the unit today and.... It's driving me nuts! I'm sure it's great and all that but I can't get it to connect to Internet. Superhub 2ac is in modem mode, can access both Asus and SH2ac to configure but no internet connection! Any suggestions? Been trawling Google for solutions but so far can't find anything.
cibic to tinky13
29 Nov 161#12
That's because you when you turned the SH2 to modem mode it turns off auto IP assignment (DHCP). You can either:
1) give network interface cards (NICs) IP addresses one on the SH2 and another one for Asus router OR
2) disable modem mode on SH2 so to enable DHCP and also turn off wi-fi radio both 5GHz/2.4GHz on SH2
tinky13
29 Nov 16#13
Thank you. I'll have a play. Doesn't make sense to me though, shouldn't Asus just pick up DHCP duties?
1977testing
29 Nov 16#14
Does it have a modem built in?
Thanks
tinky13 to 1977testing
30 Nov 16#15
This one doesn't
cibic
6 Dec 16#16
It sure does for local interfaces. You can leave the WiFi AP do it for you of course but it can't give an address outside of local network such as the SH2 interface.
tinky13
6 Dec 16#17
Thanks. It actually fixed itself. WAN works just fine now and once i disabled CTF it's rock solid wifi connection (was dropping it now and again).
Opening post
17 comments
http://www.ebuyer.com/581503-asus-rt-ac68u-wireless-ac1900-dual-band-usb3-0-gigabit-router-rt-ac68u
http://www.snbforums.com/threads/release-ab-solution-3.35540/
Really good for adblocking from a centralized point via USB attached to the router. However it doesn't block some youtube adds to mobile, tablet clients. Desktop ad block is 100% though which is fantastic.
Merlin F/W just has more tweaks. Best reading on SNB
I don't really like having so many devices cluttering up the place, let alone a huge one!
Is it just as good but with the modem?
I know custom firmwares don't support modems, I'm just not sure whether you can flash over it and ignore the modem part if that's what you fancy later down the line.
I don't like having the modem separate with two plugs and stuff, it's all a bit messy, but everyone seems to prefer it...
1) give network interface cards (NICs) IP addresses one on the SH2 and another one for Asus router OR
2) disable modem mode on SH2 so to enable DHCP and also turn off wi-fi radio both 5GHz/2.4GHz on SH2
Thanks