ASUS DSL-AC88U AC3100 Modem Router Review

Interface: Initialization and a First View

We had a look at the hardware, now it’s time to look at the software. But before we can do that, we need to initialise the device. That’s done in three simple steps once you’ve connected everything and entered the address you found under the router into your browser.

You’ll now be presented with the initialization wizard. The first step is to optionally change your admin username and mandatory set a new admin password. Do not use the same password here as you will for your wireless networks.

Once you entered the admin details, the router will attempt to discover the type of internet connection you have. If it fails, then you’ll have to enter your details manually. However, in 90%, or more, of the cases, the automatic detection will do the work for you.

An optional choice is to set your DNS servers manually. A lot of users prefer Google’s DNS here which is 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. But the choice is yours. Maybe you even run your own DNS server.

The last step is to configure your wireless networks. You can set the SSID and password for each band individually, but there aren’t more settings here. The full settings are available once we get into the user interface, this is just a quick setup help.

We get a final look at the settings before they are applied and the router is ready for our usage.

The sign-in page isn’t spectacular, but why should it be. Enter your admin username and password, and we’re inside.

Once logged in, we get a first look at the ASUSWRT user interface.

Before we start to make all sort of changes, we should check for a firmware update. The firmware update function is within the Administration part of the user interface, and it won’t take long to perform. There is a small risk of losing the configuration during any firmware upgrade, so it’s best to do it before you create your setup.

Dashboard Functions

ASUSWRT has a simple user interface which provides a lot of information. There is the status bar at the top which tells us the firmware version and set wireless SSIDs. The icons are the end of the line represent Guest Network, DSL connection, Ethernet WAN, USB Storage, and USB printer. Is the service used or device connected, then the icon will light up, and when you hover it, it will show a tooltip with more details.

The initial dashboard, or Network Map as ASUS named it, has all the vital settings available at a quick glance. You can press the individual elements to change the status bar to the right. You can change settings directly from here for the quickest configuration changes possible. Within the security panel is a System Status too. It will show us the CPU and RAM usage as text and in graph form. We also learn here that the DSL-AC88U has a dual-core processor and 457MB RAM.

It’s also worth mentioning that the interface has 21 languages and it will pick your browsers language setting by default – if available.