New Router: ASUS RT-N56U

Has anyone tried the new ASUS RT-N56U?

"The RT-N56U is ASUS' new top-of-line wireless router. It is simultaneous dual-band 802.11n with four-port Gigabit switch and two USB 2.0 ports that support storage and printer sharing."

Wondering how well it performs with the -N 6200 wireless card... and if it would be a better purchase than the Netgear N600 WNDR3700 for about the same cost ($130)

 

With the latest firmware...
ASUSTeK Computer Inc. -Support- Drivers and Download RT-N56U

... the RT-N56U seems to be the better choice.
(As long as you don't need VPN- and if you don't know what that is, then you don't need to worry about it.)

Check out
Router Charts - LAN to WAN Throughput - SmallNetBuilder



If you can wait, there is a new version "coming soon"- RT-N66U.
Have no idea how much it will cost, but it's supposed to have very good speed and a lot more memory, and a better fit with 3rd party firmware.

 

What about the Cisco Linksys E4200?

Coming out in May, Amazon has it at $160.

Am I too limited by my wireless card (Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6200) to take advantage of these more advanced routers? Don't want to waste $$$ on a better router if my card can't take advantage of their features.

(As to as my internet service, I move around a lot, so I don't want to lock into a router based on that)

 

Yes, I've tried it. Very nice router.

 

Linksys E4200 is already available.
E4200 is better in 2.4GHz range- it's actually the best 2.4GHz router.
As for 5GHz RT-56U is faster although the test was run @300mbps so talking about speed may not be such a good idea. You don't buy a 450mbps router to compare 300mbps connections.

RT-65U is not supported by DD-WRT which makes it a no-go for me.

Asus firmwares for more advanced routers used to be rubbish and this one seems to be no different- VNC doesn't work in more cases than it does (HW NAT probably), USB drives "vanish" from time to time, Linux machines can't establish a gigabit connection with IPv6 enabled.

I would go for WNDR3700 if I had to buy one at this point.
E4200 is tempting but it's also too expensive- it's in essence E3000 with more RAM and on steroids so price tag is not easy to justify.

 

I would stay away from any asus router that couldn't use a third-party firmware.

I had the opportunity to try out an RT-N56U and while the router itself was fast the firmware was horrible if you do simple things like checking e-mail or just browsing the web it's fine but if you plan on doing more look elsewhere as you will run into issues.

Their interface has very few options most are very basic and half of them don't even work properly...

 

I don't know about that. It's fairly simple, but I'm running a Filezilla server, a Mumble server, and three Killing Floor servers (plus some P2P and direct download programs) on a Windows-based server, and I've yet to run into any problems because of the router. I stream video wireless on the 5GHz band just fine, and downloads and uploads are fast for a wireless connection. Tight VNC doesn't have any problems connecting, and I can manage my various programs using their respective WebGUI outside the network.


I was having problems with inconsistent downlink speeds a while back, but I discovered that had something to do with my server's LAN/chipset. I changed out the motherboard (I'm currently using an AMD chipset and Realtek LAN versus my old nVidia chipset/LAN, and transfers are strong and consistent.)

I admittedly haven't tried real advanced things like VPN, and I don't use a USB drive, but there you go. (And I don't use linux-based machines, so compare what I have to say versus Downloads)

 

Thanks to all.

I will go with the 'tried & true' WNDR3700.

One final question: would you have any qualms about purchasing this refurbished?

 

It depends on is it covered by warranty and how much does it cost?

 

$80 (v. $130 new) 60 day warranty
Amazon.com: Used and New: Netgear N600 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router WNDR3700

 

I wouldn't- the warranty is too short for me.

 

Do you use filezilla client at all?

You will get directory listing failures and failed transfers in time if you haven't already.

You will get errors like the one below when in passive mode attempting a directory listing it doesn't always happen but it will come up enough times to become annoying.

Error: Disconnected from server: ECONNABORTED - Connection aborted
Error: Failed to retrieve directory listing

I've also found that ssh and various other things will not maintain a stable connection however the easiest one to reproduce would be trying ftp.

Open an ftp connection on filezilla client let it sit once your server's timeout limit has been reached try refreshing your directory listing that's usually when that error will come up.

It also does this on dd-wrt by default with other routers however adjusting the tcp timeout setting on dd-wrt seems to fully resolve it however asus firmware has no such option that I saw.

 

I don't FTP into my own server much. It's mainly for some friends to grab files from it when they need to. (Speed's a bit paltry; The landlord's Comcast has a roughly 2mbps upload)

But none of at least four people who download and upload to my server every couple of days or so have reported anything to me. Granted, I don't know if they're looking for a specific problem or not.

I just tried the idle thing, and I had no problems updating the directory after timing out. I'll give it a shot outside my network, though.