#ASUS ROUTER BLOCK WIRED CLIENT INSTALL#

If you don’t want to invest in a stand-alone NAS (network-attached storage) device, connecting a USB hard drive to the Netgear’s Nighthawk USB 3.0 port is a viable alternative. I didn’t have a client that supported TurboQAM, but I plan to review some Wi-Fi adapters that do in the near future. The Nighthawk’s 2.4GHz 802.11n network performed much better than the Asus’s router on this test, but it certainly wasn’t the fastest in this category. If you have legacy clients, this router should serve them well. In fact, all the routers performed very well on this test, but the Netgear and Asus products have far superior feature sets.Įach router’s 5GHz 802.11n network performed well, but the Nighthawk’s overall performance was the second highest, compared to the RT-AC68U’s fourth-place finish.

The Asus RT-AC68U beat out the Nighthawk when tested with a client equipped with a Linksys WUSB6300 802.11ac Wi-Fi adapter, but the Nighthawk was just 1.5 mbps slower. The two finished second and first, respectively, but the overall difference was a razor-thin 0.3 mbps this time.

The contest between the Netgear and Asus products was even tighter when each router was paired with a client connected to a Linksys WUSB710 802.11ac bridge. But Netgear has no answer for Asus’s dual-WAN support or the RT-AC68U’s ability to support a 3G/4G dongle for broadband backup. The Nighthawk supports Apple’s Time Machine backup technology for Macs on the network.

#ASUS ROUTER BLOCK WIRED CLIENT INSTALL#

Netgear also provides free ReadyShare Vault backup software that you can install on as many client PCs as you want to back up its hard drives. The Nighthawk comes with both DLNA media and iTunes music servers, so any DLNA-compatible device or Apple AirPlay device on your network-an AV receiver, Roku box, Apple TV, or the like-can stream media from a hard drive attached to it (though the iTunes server supports only music). Using Netgear’s free service, you can set up an easy-to-remember ftp address (such as ) and use it with any Web browser to access the contents of the drive. The Nighthawk provides a personal ftp server, with dynamic DNS support to make it easy to access a USB storage device connected to the router from the Internet. The router has two USB ports and can support both a USB printer (you’ll need to install Netgear’s USB Control Center utility on each client) and a USB storage device. The Nighthawk also supports OpenVPN, which gives you secure access to your home network-and all of the client PCs running on it-from anywhere that provides Internet access.

In addition to supporting OpenDNS, you can block websites based on keywords, you can operate parental controls according to a schedule, you can exempt specific PCs from the parental controls, and it can send you email alerts when someone attempts to connect to blocked sites and services. The Nighthawk also has better parental control features. This means the Nighthawk can recognize network traffic such as a Netflix stream and assign it higher priority than other traffic, such as a BitTorrent upload. The Nighthawk matches the Asus RT-AC68U almost feature for feature, and it’s superior in two respects: First, Netgear’s router offers downstream Quality of Service( QoS), where most routers-including the Asus-support only upstream QoS. In some cases, this can be accomplished via a firmware update, if the manufacturer offers one. To enjoy the higher link rate, the client must also support 256-QAM. Unfortunately, not all old 2.4GHz, 802.11n devices will suddenly become faster. Broadcom markets this capability as TurboQAM. Most routers rely on 64-QAM, which provides a maximum link rate of 450 mbps with 2.4GHz 802.11n networks. The higher-than-usual 2.4GHz link rate is made possible by the device’s use of 256-QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation).

That number stems from its ability to support physical link rates of 1300 mbps on its 5GHz radio (using the 802.1ac networking standard) and of 600 mbps on its 2.4GHz radio (using the 802.11n networking standard). Netgear describes the Nighthawk as an AC1900 Wi-Fi router. The last two LEDs on the right side are also buttons: One turns the router’s wireless capability on and off, and the other enables WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup) for connecting a client. Each LED is labeled, but the tiny gray symbols on the gray enclosure are nearly impossible to read. A dozen LEDs on top of the router inform you of the status of its wireless radios, USB ports, Internet connection, ethernet and USB ports, and other features. In any event, the Nighthawk’s sharply angular industrial design and huge antennas make it look very much like its namesake, the F117 Nighthawk stealth jet fighter.

Asus router block wired client