The ASUS RT-N16 with dd-wrt.

ASUS RT-N16 with dd-wrt

I bought the ASUS (RT-N16) Wireless-N 300 to replace my old school Linksys WRT54G running dd-wrt.

I’ve been down this road before numerous times. The last fail was the WRT160N. I upgraded it to dd-wrt and for a couple days it seemed ok. As with all the other failures before it, it was inconsistent and sometimes unresponsive (even though I was connected) and needed rebooted. It just got worse and worse.

This left me feeling like I’d never get N speeds!

After much time researching I finally found the ASUS RT-N16. I once again dared to dream.

Important Specs:

• CPU: BCM4718
• CPU Speed: 480MHz
• FLASH: 32MB
• DDR2: 128MB

Essentially this is a computer in AP clothing.

Other cool features of the stock firmware:

• USB Print Server
• USB Hard drive support (NAS)
• Bittorrent downloader (wow)

I have 32MB of flash to play with. DD-WRT is very supported on this router, so I opted to not use the stock firmware, and instead upgrade to DD-WRT (Mega/Big).

DD-WRT upgrade went well. One thing I almost forgot is that the 802.11N standard requires AES, so AES+TKIP had to be changed to AES in the wireless security settings.

This allowed me to move my old faithful WRT54G to a client bridge to serve my basement media center where G speeds are OK. I then took the WRT160N, made it a client bridge and put it on my Tivo Premier, which was previously G speeds. I can now what youtube videos without it stuttering and stopping all the time.

It's been 2 full weeks of rock-solid, blazing fast N speeds for my tablets, laptops, and my Tivo Premier. I mist say that this router is every bit as good as the WRT54G was back in it's prime. 

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Filed under: Hardware - @ February 4, 2013 2:00 pm

Tags: 802.11n, ASUS, dd-wrt, Premier, RT-N16, TIVO, wrt160n, wrt54g