Asus RT-N18U weirdness

[Misterer]

Hello,

I'm replacing an old router (Buffalo WHR-HP-G54) with a new one (Asus RT-N18U) for my parents and I'm having weird issues with that. There are 3 wired clients (3 PCs) and only one of them works well with the Asus router (none of them have any connectivity issues with the old Buffalo router).

One client simply gets disconnected randomly (it simply disappears from the client list in the router control panel). Re-plugging the network cable does not help.

Another client acts even more weirdly, it simply won't boot to neither Linux nor Windows AT ALL unless the network cable is disconnected. Whenever I re-connect the cable again, the whole PC freezes completely (HDD activity led lights up). Disconnect it - unfreezes instantly.

If I re-connect all devices back to the old router - none of these problems happen. Wtf?

I have the firmware updated to the newest version. Rebooted it numerous times. Changed LAN ports connected. Nothing helped. All settings set to defaults except for WiFi and MAC address (had to use the old router's MAC so that the router could get a public IP).

Checked the logs of the router - no obvious errors that I could see.

Anyone has ever experienced something like that? How do I troubleshoot this?

 

[FNtastic]

Factory reset the Asus and see if that changes anything.

It's possible the Asus has a bug, or something else. There are so many possibilities. Power surge fried something, piece of code in the firmware is off, setting in the router is off, etc. I know you said everything is set to defaults, but I'd go with a factory reset. If that doesn't work, check whether this device is under within the return window for the place you purchased from. If it's within the return window, and the factory reset didn't work, I'd personally return it for a new one because, frankly, it isn't doing what it's designed to do. Based on my experience, flashing another firmware won't fix what you described, but resetting it to factory defaults might. If you aren't within the return window with the company you purchased from, the option to flash custom firmware might exist for that router, if you choose to explore that route. Tomato, dd-wrt, and merlin are all popular ones. Again, I don't see this resolving what you described, but I at least wanted to point it out to you so that you can consider all of your options.

Good luck. And, keep us updated.