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New ASUS RT-AX88U router

 I have been using Asus routers for many years, and have been pretty happy with them. The web interface is superb, and the firmware upgrades are timely and easy to apply, and over the last couple of years have introduced newer features that kept my old router relevant and functional. 

After many years of service, my older router finally gave way, and started dropping Wifi connections randomly, especially when under heavy load. The connection drop happens whenever the kids have a Zoom meeting, or my wife and I are on work calls. Turning the laptop/iPad Wifi off and on again did not help, and we usually had to reboot the router to be able to connect again.

Out of curiosity I looked at the CPU/memory stats of the router under heavy load, and could not see any issues. Even when all of us were in video calls, the CPU/memory did not rise about 50%. I could not see anything abnormal in the logs either.

Online I saw that a lot of people had similar problems after upgrading to the latest router firmware, but could not pinpoint if what I had was a firmware issue, or an older router issue.

I decided it might be time to get a new router, and enjoy the newer hardware and protocol support. I wanted to see if I could still use my older router as a mesh router for non-essential devices, so I stuck with Asus. Despite the Wifi connection issues, I have had good experiences with their routers over the years, and I really liked their interface. 

I narrowed my choices to the RT-AX88U, and their ROG high-end routers. I could not justify the high price of the latter, and the online reviews were not very good, so I went with the RT-AX88U instead.

The setup was very seamless, and I kept the older network information. I was surprised that most of the Wifi devices connected automatically to the new router, without complaining that the router hardware has changed. For the laptops, and iPads the expected behavior occurred, and I had to re-enter the network information to get them to connect.

It has been about a couple of weeks now with the new router, and so far we had no issues, even under very heavy usage. The router does not break a sweat, and the speed tests for all the wireless modes (a/g/n/ax) show significant improvements over the previous router. Perhaps it is good to upgrade the routers every couple of years to make use of hardware and protocol improvements.

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