Is my router dead?? Recommendations?

johnt · May 29, 2023

I think my router died... but not in the way I expected. I purchased an ASUS RT-AC68 back in 2016 and it's served me religiously. I can't believe it's lasted this long with all the devices I have thrown at it... home hubs upon hubs (hue lighting, that samsung box for a bit, garage door), cameras, set top boxes, like 20 wifi devices, and a switch with four cables routed through my attic to different rooms... I've bought a lot since 2016!

But now the funny part is that I can still connect using wifi, but the on board connections disconnect. I've never owned a router previously where this happened. Usually the wifi gives up for me, and I have to restart it every other day. This ASUS has only been restarted when the power goes out, which is not often. A restart fixes it temporarily and I can connect with the network ports again, but I restarted it two days ago and it's doing it again right now. Is it dead? Dying? What is this crazy weird issue? I would say overheating but it's been in the same place since 2018 and the ambient temps are like 68F right now.

If it is dead, what be the recommendations? I'm eyeing the Dream Machine SE and I thought they had a wifi 6E access point, but I can't find it on their site. I do like the POE cameras. But I really don't want to drop so much money and be stuck with 1 gbps network. Should I just live with another $200 ASUS for another 5 to 7 years? I can probably assign it the same name and password and transitioning my devices might be easier.

Hot damn I hate buying routers. Thanks for your help!

Edit: Is ubiquiti even good or just hype? It's too expensive for me to experiment.

johnt · June 2, 2023

Anyone?

Bdavis · June 2, 2023

I have a full ubiquiti setup and am satisfied. It was expensive though. The dream machine SE has a 10gb sfp+ port that you can connect to a switch if you want faster than gigabit speeds. The U6 enterprise is their wifi 6e access point and it's also expensive. I use the u6 lite which is only $100.

The main thing I like is I can buy more access points, switches, and cameras as I need them. If you don't plan on using cameras it's pretty expensive for a home router. I live in half a duplex with three kids so it's pretty convenient to have one box instead of a router, nvr, and switch all separate.

Alex Atkin UK · June 2, 2023

On 5/29/2023 at 7:29 PM, johnt said:

I think my router died... but not in the way I expected. I purchased an ASUS RT-AC68 back in 2016 and it's served me religiously. I can't believe it's lasted this long with all the devices I have thrown at it... home hubs upon hubs (hue lighting, that samsung box for a bit, garage door), cameras, set top boxes, like 20 wifi devices, and a switch with four cables routed through my attic to different rooms... I've bought a lot since 2016!

But now the funny part is that I can still connect using wifi, but the on board connections disconnect. I've never owned a router previously where this happened. Usually the wifi gives up for me, and I have to restart it every other day. This ASUS has only been restarted when the power goes out, which is not often. A restart fixes it temporarily and I can connect with the network ports again, but I restarted it two days ago and it's doing it again right now. Is it dead? Dying? What is this crazy weird issue? I would say overheating but it's been in the same place since 2018 and the ambient temps are like 68F right now.

If it is dead, what be the recommendations? I'm eyeing the Dream Machine SE and I thought they had a wifi 6E access point, but I can't find it on their site. I do like the POE cameras. But I really don't want to drop so much money and be stuck with 1 gbps network. Should I just live with another $200 ASUS for another 5 to 7 years? I can probably assign it the same name and password and transitioning my devices might be easier.

Hot damn I hate buying routers. Thanks for your help!

Edit: Is ubiquiti even good or just hype? It's too expensive for me to experiment.