A fix for USB interference. Get yourself Copper Tape.
Spoiler alert: there are pictures at the end of this post.
Last week I picked up GL-AXT1800/ Slate AX and it has been a fantastic little router. I’m in love with this little tank!
But, it has a huge flaw that many wifi routers have. USB port interferes with 5Ghz or 2.4Ghz band and over a decade later, many companies aren’t fixing a simple problem.
After extensive testing with my Slate AX, verifying that USB Port is the root cause of my 5Ghz band issues, I started to look for solutions and I accidently found a simple fix that was done by another user on this forum on MT3000 router for the 2.4Ghz band.
Here is an issue I was dealing with.
I have an external hard drive attached to my Slate via USB 3.0 port and it works as my simple NAS that I have used on an older router for many years. I download a lot of movies and tv shows and copy them from my laptop over wifi to the hard drive that is attached to my wifi router. I download on daily basis, so I need that extra speed from USB port to move the files, but Slate AX wasn’t working as I expected it.
What would happen, as soon as I start to copy files from my laptop to USB drive, the speeds would drop and bounce around. At first I thought maybe this little router is not as fast as I thought it is. After several more diagnostic attempt’s, checking all the settings in the router, I noticed another issue. The link between laptop and the router, would drop at the same time when I start moving files and the link will stay low till a task is completed.
I would lose as much as 50% of WIFI bandwidth and that’s why write speeds to the hard drive were slow.
I got myself copper tape/foil and started applying inside my router. An hour later I was done.
The end result was a huge improvement and as much as +150Mbps!!
Before I started the project, I also verified the issue, by connecting my laptop to the router with a cat6 cable and moving large files on to my little NAS drive. For the record, this router can write on to an HDD, an average of 95MB/s via lan cable. This is with an Intel based MacBook Air, via USB adapter to Lan.
Via a wifi, Im now averaging 60MB/s. But before using copper tape, the average was around 40MB/s. So that’s a great improvement and link speed on wifi doesn’t drop by 300Mbps and bounce around, as low as 480Mbps.
Last few words. I applied 3 layers of copper tape around USB 3.0 port. It took some time but I got it there. It works well with 3 coats, but I should have gone with 5. Maybe this weekend ill take it apart and add more layers of copper.
I also added two layers on the covers that protect the CPU and WIFI chips. Did it do anything? Ehh…Maybe? I would love to take them apart and cover on the inside as well.
Engineers at GL.iNet, if you are listening, this I very cheap fix and a must one.
Last but not least, I have attached a few pictures. 
