@Kevin_Z 

1 - Normally the devices are connected to the 5GHz channel, I will be running the router on 2.4GHz only the next week and see if the problem only happens with the 5GHz channels are open.

2 - i have a few different devices, two printers, two mac laptops, three different iphones of different models. i can't tell if the printers have issues on the network, as i don't use them to surf the web. however from both laptops and all 3 iphones we will see the hanging requests. Its hard to tell if the archer is still broad casting as the blips are fairly quick, and by the time i ckeck it everything seems normal. I have seen the leds on the front change color to orange a few times, not sure for what as its happens very quick.

i ran a few ping tests as you asked. It looks like sitting 15 feet away from the router, with an RSSI of -43 (as reported from my computer) i am getting odd delays in sending packets, and getting a few dropped packets when just pinging to the router. This was done in the evening without really any other active devices using the network.

5GHz run twice:

--- 192.168.0.1 ping statistics ---

100 packets transmitted, 97 packets received, 3.0% packet loss

round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 1.109/4.903/62.725/7.520 ms

--- 192.168.0.1 ping statistics ---

101 packets transmitted, 100 packets received, 1.0% packet loss

round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.973/2.592/24.587/2.628 ms

2.4GHz run twice:

--- 192.168.0.1 ping statistics ---

100 packets transmitted, 100 packets received, 0.0% packet loss

round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.972/8.805/113.488/22.089 ms

--- 192.168.0.1 ping statistics ---

100 packets transmitted, 100 packets received, 0.0% packet loss

round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.913/4.083/23.898/4.623 ms

As far as seeing if all devices has problems at the same time, its hard to tell as the blips are quick, however we have noticed both of our phones experience the wifi issues at about the same time.

The IP addresses assigned from the Archer are correct and still within the range they are assigned by the DHCP service.

The devices don't normally have an issue reconnecting, I have seen a few times where we will turn the wifi on our devices off and on, and it will take about 10+ seconds to actually reconnect. normally this would take just 3 seconds or so.

@Kevin_Z So i hvae been running only on the 2.4GHz channel since i last posted, and the good news is that we havent seen any issues with hanging requests or needing to turn device wifi on and off. However, I am going to be switching ISPs within the next few weeks to one that offers a gigabit connection, and to be able to take advantage of that fully, I really want all three channels on my router to be stable. That was one of the reasons I originally purchased this router.

@Kevin_Z I really dont think my ISP has anything to do with the 5GHz channels being spotty. But like I said I am switching ISPs to get a Gigabit connection, and i doubt my ISP is casuing packets to be dropped between my router and computer. It seems much more likely that the router it self is having problems as packets are being dropped when I ping my router from my computer, and only on the 5GHz channels and not the 2.4 or wired connections.

As far as which devices need to be connected to the 5GHz chanels, they all can connect to either the 2.4 or 5 channels, however for work I upload and download milti GB files and having a fast connection, even when im not wired directly into the router, saves me a lot of time. 

I bought this specific router as it seemed to be fast and flexible enough and I justified the extra cost of the thing assuming I would not have to spend weeks figuring out how to get it to perform well. But I was wrong on that count, even though it was more expensive, it develped problems only 1 month after using it, which is completely unacceptable.

I switched back on the 5 ghz channels this morning, and all my devices, same as last time I checked, are connecting to the wifi just fine, but having problems connecting to the internet, downloading data, pinging the router, etc.