ASUS Wireless AC1200 Dual-Band Router RT-AC1200

Everything was fine except that the delivery date promised at check out was different that the one that appeared on the confirmation of the order.

Good fast delivery. Works really well, solved our internet problem at our lake house!

First, I would like to share with you my experience with the router. I know that people have different experiences with products and it looks like not everyone’s experience with this router has been positive; I would like to speculate about the negative reviews and why some are having a negative experience.

I’ve had the router for about a week. I got it at Micro Center for $65 with a $10 mail in rebate. I couldn’t believe finding a 1200AC router to finally make use of my 100 Mb/s down 20 Mb/s up internet. I was using the modem/router combo that comcast gave me. It would barely ever go over 50/10. I decided to inspect all the settings. They had disabled anything useful on the modem that would even allow me to troubleshoot or make a difference; basically, the modem is locked down suit the way comcast would like it to be. I called them up and they ran through diagnostics with me (basically 2 hours just to restart it a few times) and they decided to send me a new one. Same s***. I knew it was their fault, so I decided to grab this router for a steal.

After some simple configuration, I get 90-100 down and 15-20 up when plugged in. Pretty good. I could not believe the wireless though…. You can see it in the attached picture. This is wireless. You can choose to believe me or not. I put the wireless sys tray icon in the screen shot. I am currently sitting one floor up and about 20 horizontal feet from the router. In my experience, I am sitting at much more distance than desired, but with this router, it doesn’t seem to matter. Also take note that this is on the 2.4GHz band. Side note: for those of you thinking 5GHz band should be better, faster, etc just because it is a bigger number and newer technology… it is rarely the case. The 5GHz band will be phenomenal if you are within eye shot of the router. You might be able to get away with one thin wall. For all other cases, the 2.4GHz band will be better. If you would like a better explanation, you can read all about it with a quick google search.

Now, for those that have not had so a great experience. Here are some potential reasons.

Your modem is not in bridged mode: If you have a modem router combo from your ISP, you should put it in bridged mode. The bridge will disable all routing functions on the modem so that the router can properly govern them. If you simply plug this router into your modem, then you have multiple layers and things are not going to work as intended. If you do not know how to do this yourself, call your ISP and tell them that you have decided to buy your own router and ask them to please put the modem in bridged mode. After you do that, power off both devices, power on the modem. Wait till you see the “online” light, then power on the router.

Right out of the box, your router should be set to default settings, but you may want to reset to default settings anyway. If you have messed with any settings and cannot get good results out of it, try to reset to default settings.

Once you set to default, try to upgrade the firmware. I personally have not upgraded the firmware because it is working so well. If I told to an obnoxious know it all tech geek, he would tell me I’m an idiot, but if it isn’t broke, don’t try to fix it. I have a career in IT myself, and I know that you can always take steps to make things work more efficiently, and firmware is definitely one of them. I will upgrade the firmware, but right now I am enjoying some of the best internet I have ever had.

*** For those that have had issues with the firmware, you may want to try again. ASUS admits that their last series of firmware for this router messed things up more than it helped. They release a new version literally today, right before I started this review. You can download it here: […]
Channel Bandwidth (can be found under Advanced settings > Wireless > General tab): I would recommend leaving this at 20/40. The router should operate at the most appropriate channel, but it doesn’t always get it right. If you are having wireless problems, try switching it to 20MHz. If you have a lot of other networks broadcasting around you and they are trying to use 40MHz as well, you are going to have lots of interference issues. The 20MHz channel is more refined and less affected by other signals in the air.

QoS settings (located under traffic manager > QoS tab): This should be disabled by default. You may have been looking through the settings, read the description for QoS, and thought to yourself, “Wow that sounds very desirable!” QoS settings are tricky. If you enable this, your speed test is going to be crap. That is because the router is saving bandwidth for other things. If you are interested in learning more about QoS, there is a terrific guide here: […] Personally, I would recommend leaving it off. I might turn it on if I had many people in the house all using bandwidth in unique ways. If you decide to use this setting, instead of letting ASUS “smart QoS” govern your bandwidth, I would recommend choosing the dropdown, choosing user defined QoS rules. Take note that if you do a web based speed test, your speed test will only be as fast as what you set it to.

Other than this, I can’t think of any reason you would be having a bad experience with this router. I know that it is always hard to troubleshoot if any issue is with the router or the modem, but your issues could be something to do with the modem. Call your ISP and tell them about your woes. The router could even be restarting because of incorrect modem settings.

Make sure all the antennas on the router are properly connected, and ALWAYS have network secured. Make sure it is not a password that could be guessed like password, admin, or your address. Make sure your password is not the same as the broadcast name, or any variation of it.

If all of this fails and you are still having a bad time with this great product, call asus and ask them if they will replace it because you suspect bad hardware. Good luck everyone!

Works well and has decent range. However I would have preferred that they had stated that it is only a single core router. This means that if your internet connection is super fast and you try to use a lot of bandwidth at once it could get bogged down. Overall it works well but power users will be disappointed. Casual users will love the ease of set up and small size.