ASUS RT-N56U Dual-Band Wireless-N600 Gigabit Router

5 reviews for ASUS RT-N56U Dual-Band Wireless-N600 Gigabit Router

1. Rated 4 out of 5

   ist – May 30, 2011

   For the small footprint of this router, it is very good. The range is acceptable and typical with the 2.4GHz travelling much further than the 5GHz band. It has alot of basic features made easy to configure, but also has several advanced features not typically seen like iTunes media server and Network neighbourhood share, telnet & ftp server etc. The interface is nice too. It cannot compare with the complexity of say a Bufallo router based on DD-WRT but it is good. The USB Speed seems to be a bit slow, I only get around 16-18 MB/s so if you’re dumping files from some super-fast internet connection onto the external usb drive, any internet faster than 100 Mbps sustained might actually be bottlenecked locally. LAN to LAN measured for me exactly up to 910 Mbps, not the 1000 Mbps claimed. I can’t measure the WAN to LAN portion, because I don’t have internet THAT fast, and am not bothering to tether another router into the wan port for testing. It does get warm though, so I purchased a thermaltake usb 120mm fan to cool it and the external hard drive close to it all at once. (I am powering the usb fan with an iPhone charger, or any USB charging A/C adapter that might come with your logitech mouse etc [5V]), so i can use both usb ports on the router for other purposes. Some of the english on the router’s page in general is obvious translation and not natively written, so you might find the text funny sometimes, but typical of ASUS products. The packaging and presentation is good too.in a summary, it’s small sleek and fast, and featurefull but not exceptionally powerful. I do think that true power is going to come from a Buffalo AirStation or similar (but these routers are larger). only get this is you don’t need top-notch but very good will do. otherwise, get a Buffalo.4 stars because -I did have a problem with the 2.4 GHz network disappearing when I have it set to mix mode 20/40 mhz so I ultimately had to settle for just 20 mhz at 54mbps on the 2.4 band only. This is on firmware 1.0.1.5.The wireless bridging feature (WDS) is not anywhere close to what you would see in other routers and is hard to understand for the average newbie. I tried to bridge a NetGear WNDR3700 with this asus router but there was alot of problems. I ultimately had to bridge via the WAN port and a pair of NETGEAR powerline 500Mbps adapters.
2. Rated 5 out of 5

   Logan Awesome – November 4, 2011

   I have been through 3 different routers, each one plagued with their own problems. This one seems to be well rounded and perfect for what i need it for.Pros:My home network is larger than most and this Router handles them wonderfully. I have a 2TB external hooked up to it that handles backups and steaming to the Xbox and other computers. It built in media sever works great after it finds all the files it can stream( takes awhile for everything to show up on the xbox after first plugged in) but after that is smooth. There are some files that the xbox can not see but that a limitation of the xbox. And when uploading to the External at full speed (around 12 to 13 MB/s, better than most routers with USB storage) the internet is not bogged down and is still able to handle everything.It is really good about handling network traffic and giving each device its share of bandwidth, While streaming to the xbox from the external, Roommate playing wow, And downloading a game on Steam i was still able to get my max download speed. without my roommate noticing any lag with his game.Wifi range is excellent on the 2.4 GHZ band. I am unable to test the 5GHZ because i don’t own anything that supports that or have a need to get one. If something i buy has it than it will be there for me. In my room i get around 90% and with the old router i would get half that.It has a network monitor that shows you how much you data is going through your network at any given time and also bandwidth controls and priory for devices if you want to use that.I am not getting any dropped connections anymore like i use to with my old router.Cons:The download manager sucks. It works however when using it to its fullest it will greatly bog down the network and bring it to a crawl. The router is just not able to handle it properly. But it does work… just i recommend using a low power laptop or your desktop if you plan on downloading anything.When the Media server is finding the files on a External things will show up slowly to any player you are using (xbox) and if you try to write anything to the drive while it is finding the files it will also slow down the network, Their is no way to tell when it is doing it or how long it will take.Tips:Remember to Disable TKIP for max Wifi performance. It comes with it enabled for backwards compatibility but it limits Wifi Speed to 54Mbps. and is also a weaker encryption. AES without TKIP is the best way to go. most devices support it now a days.Its also a good idea to set static IP address for the devices you use the most if you plan on setting priority for them. It does use a DCHP server so IP address can hop around and change priority after the lease is up.After plugging in a external let it sit for a hour or two so the media server can find the files it needs to stream. Than you can use it to its fullest.My home network currently has 3 desktops, 3 laptops, 2 Xbox360s, 2 Blu Ray players, 1 Wii, 3 Phones and 1 Ipod connected to it. 4 Devices are hard wired Via A 8 port Gigabit switch that takes 2 ports to the computer room, living room. and the other rooms have a single port. Everything else is in Wifi. The ports on the router go directly to 2 of the desktops, 1 laptop (handles downloads, monitoring, and other things on the network) And to the switch.
3. Rated 4 out of 5

   NeoEngineer – February 28, 2012

    I’ve owned the Cisco Linksys E4200 for about 3wks and we get very poor YouTube performance. Even worse than with our old Linksys WRT54GL router that it’s supposed to replace.EVERY SINGLE VIDEO that we play get stuck buffering on the E4200, a problem that we NEVER encountered on the WRT54GL.I bought this finally hoping to make the jump to WiFi-N.We have Comcast broadband that is advertised at 20mbps download.The Cisco Linksys E4200 router is really a disappointment and gets very hot on the bottom as well. I don’t know how it got so many high reviews on here?I read a lot of good reviews on the Asus RT-N56U. So, after 2wks of ownership, it’s lived up to the reviews. As you can see, the video compares how well the E4200 and RT-N56U streams YouTube videos. The RT-N56U streamed it very fast, while the E4200 was choking all along the way. I really couldn’t believe how poorly the E4200 performed, even compared to our old WRT-54GL!However, here are some things that make it not a perfect product like the Linksys WRT-54GL:- The router software is VERY UNORGANIZED and cluttered. It feels like they just shoe-horned features into an existing software design.- The network map feature is basically USELESS. It’s never accurate. Even after I try to refresh it. It’s almost always in a constant “refreshing” state, meaning it always says it’s refreshing. I’ll have Android phones and Wii’s and PS3 hooked up to the device but they don’t even show up. But the devices are definitely hooked up because we’re getting internet on them.- It does a very poor job of displaying attached network printers. We have 2 HP Ethernet network printers and neither of them show up in the Network Map feature. Please fix this ASUS! It makes editing ports on network printers impossible.I’ve read some people say that Tomato and DD-WRT will install on this router, I may have to go that route but I’d rather use the stock software so I can eventually test out hard drives on the USB port.BTW, using hard drives on the USB of the E4200 is nearly impossible. And after reading many reviews, it’s basically a broken feature that will NEVER work properly or perform consistently well.Here is the link where LOTS OF PEOPLE are having this same issue:[…]I wish I knew this before hand, I would never have bought this router. Asus still has not been able to fix this issue.
4. Rated 2 out of 5

   Pier – January 23, 2015

   The product works perfectly, but I’m very disappointed that for almost 90$ I received a USED PRODUCT. The router is full of scratches and dirty of dust. If I wanted a used product I will have saved money. Unbelievable!
5. Rated 1 out of 5

   I Singh – February 24, 2016

   15ft. 97mbps (on 5ghz)25 ft. Intermittent 30ish (on both 2.5 and 5ghz)Same floor.