PC World - USA (2020-10)

104 PCWorld OCTOBER 2020

HERE’S HOW SPEED UP YOUR HOME INTERNET ON THE CHEAP

My dual-band Asus RT-AC88U is a 4x4 MU-MIMO that I recovered from an eWaste bin. It’s very fast and

features integrated gigabit ethernet.

name]_Repeater), and broadcasting the same

packets regardless of need.

With AiMesh and Mesh, you can have just

one SSID, and the traffic is handled more

intelligently. Management of the network is

also done from one device, rather than having

to run around the house resetting the range

extender or hauling a laptop to it with an

ethernet cable to update firmware. In my

anecdotal experiences setting up extenders

for friends and family, performance has also

been sketchy, so it wasn’t my first choice.

SETTING UP AIMESH

The first step in setting up AiMesh is to bring

both routers to the same room, and update

the firmware to the latest versions available

that support AiMesh. You then factory-reset

the node, connect it to your PC directly using

ethernet, and tell it to set up as an AiMesh

node. Finally, you connect your PC to the

AiMesh router via ethernet, and tell it to set

up the AiMesh network.

It didn’t go as smoothly for me as it did in

the Asus YouTube videos, but if you can find

your router’s IP address (check the manual, or

the bottom of the router) and roll up your

sleeves, you can get it done. It may require

resetting both routers to default states, but if

one router is already set up, you can save the

configuration file, which can be uploaded to

the router after it is reset and paired.

For the five months I’ve had the

RT-1900P, Asus has pushed no fewer than

three firmware updates for it. That many

updates suggests that there might be lots of