Anyone Using an Asus DSL-AC68U

cuke2u · 31 Mar 2015 at 13:18

You can try but more than likely if you are using the asus it'll go back to interleaved pretty damm quickly.

Evil Shubunkin · 31 Mar 2015 at 13:30

michty_me said:
I might just take the plunge and order an engineer to reset as suggested by Zen. Although I have read of many people on BT forums stating it has taken up to 8 weeks in the past which I find pretty poor.

Openreach will only allow a DLM reset if the engineer fixes something on the line - if he turns up and can't find any fault, either on the voice or VDSL side of things, there's a high chance that his request to have DLM reset will be rejected.

If Zen are suggesting an engineer visit to reset DLM then they must be reasonably confident that there's a fault somewhere that can be repaired - what has their testing shown?

michty_me · 31 Mar 2015 at 17:27

chriscatt said:
You can try but more than likely if you are using the asus it'll go back to interleaved pretty damm quickly.

I'm still using the ECI modem with an N66U hooked up.

Evil Shubunkin said:
Openreach will only allow a DLM reset if the engineer fixes something on the line - if he turns up and can't find any fault, either on the voice or VDSL side of things, there's a high chance that his request to have DLM reset will be rejected.

If Zen are suggesting an engineer visit to reset DLM then they must be reasonably confident that there's a fault somewhere that can be repaired - what has their testing shown?

Zen were able to see my line profile drop from 75Mb down to 48Mb I think it was over the space of a few days. I rectified the issue but they stated that a banding of 67Mb still remains. They said they can instruct a DLM reset but if it comes back on at 67Mb and not my initial 75Mb then I will be charged £165 + VAT.

http://www.robertos.me.uk/html/street_cabinets_etc.html

According to the page posted above I have a Huawei FTTC cab 288 max. I'm tempted to stick my unlocked Huawei HG612 modem into my line seeing as it will be matching. Maybe give better compatibility you think?

sumowesley · 31 Mar 2015 at 18:04

Stats still making me nervous given a limit of 2000 CRC per day. Should just scrape in below that. Hugely different position from a weeks ago (many thousand in a few minutes) so big thanks to the folks at Asus. Not putting the HH5 into mothballs just yet though.

Code:

outDiscards=596
inDiscards=142
outBytes=3191510054
inBytes=3065155996
outPkts=6166480
inPkts=12487833
fwVer= FwVer:5.5.1.127_B_A60901 HwVer:T14.F7_0.1

lineState=up
Opmode=ITU G.993.2(VDSL2)
SNRMarginDown=5.9 dB
AttenDown=9.3 dB
SNRMarginUp=6.0 dB
AttenUp=0.1 dB
DataRateDown=70987 kbps
DataRateUp=20000 kbps
WanListMode=1
FECDown=68700
FECUp=3635
CRCDown=3769
CRCUp=290
HECDown=0
HECUp=0
ADSLUpTime=1 day, 22:26, 9 secs
ADSLActiveTime=0 min, 19 secs
PowerDown=13.4 dbm
PowerUp=4.4 dbm
ATURID=26005443434e0000
ATUCID=b5004946544eb204
AttainUp=20472
AttainDown=86656
ShowtimeStart=19
TotalStart=58
ATURANSIRev=0
ATUCANSIRev=0
ATURANSIStd=0
ATUCANSIStd=0
InterleaveDepth=1
AdslStandard=VDSL2
AdslType=ANNEX_B
mtenStandard=G.dmt.bisplus (Annex L)

bitsNbobs · 31 Mar 2015 at 18:48

Ixel said:
I'll give it a week from now, if DLM for some reason doesn't perform a positive change in that time then I might force fastpath. However, with the ECI G.INP rollout supposedly coming up in a few days (which will probably take a few months), I'm reluctant to force fastpath incase someone at the DCoE notices this and doesn't like what they see (when G.INP is applied to the connection).

However, a fair test is to leave it connected for a week on interleaved. If FEC starts to rise suddenly and rapidly then it should indicate what you believe ASUS may have done. I hope however it doesn't happen.

I've further tweaked my transmit power and have now set target stability to 6dB. However, it appears with a high INP and delay that the modem won't sync much beyond a certain sync rate/SNRM even though the upper limit is actually 67Mbps.

Settings: http://i.imgur.com/Ha6Uxoi.png
Stats: http://i.imgur.com/ykJesQf.png

@mjgr33n: What's your cabinet, I presume it's a Huawei and not ECI?

Hopefully it is properly fixed, extended testing/connection time should confirm or deny it as you point out. Ill look forware to your detailed analysis in the coming weeks

mjgr33n said:
Looks like G.INP has been enabled on my cabinet now as not getting any CRC up or down errors any more.

Does not mean anything, the way to check i detailed a few pages back.

babis3g said:
to check the dslam vendor chipset (even if if huawei, juniper, eci etc) type at telnet

cat /tmp/adsl/info_adsl.txt

then you will see something like this (from previous posters up)
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=27844409&postcount=1725
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=27844745&postcount=1726

note the ATUCID and the middle highlighted numbers
ATURID=26005443434e0000
ATUCID=b5004946544eb204

Now using this convertor
http://ascii.cl/

49=I 46=F 54=T 4e=N which stands for IFTN = INFINEON

hope you can spot them in the convertor ... usually is the down ones & middle column

I have asked Asus & they said will add the vendor id sometime in dsl stats page

That is a superb bit of information and post babis3g very useful indeed.

Evil Shubunkin · 31 Mar 2015 at 18:52

sumowesley said:
Stats still making me nervous given a limit of 2000 CRC per day. Should just scrape in below that. Hugely different position from a weeks ago (many thousand in a few minutes) so big thanks to the folks at Asus. Not putting the HH5 into mothballs just yet though.

CRCs aren't the issue per-se - CRCs may generate Errored Seconds (ES) and/or Severely Errored Seconds (SES) and it's the ES & SES that are the main factor in DLM deciding whether or not to do anything with the line, not CRC.

My line can generate 10,000+ CRC a day and DLM leaves it alone but there's less than 250 ES/SES combined. I believe the threshold for most FTTC services is 2880 ES/SES per 24-hour period before DLM intervention.

Unfortunately with the GUI / text file on the DSL-AC68U you don't see the ES/SES count so you don't know how close, or otherwise, you are to breaching this limit.

liamcrane · 31 Mar 2015 at 20:20

Would one of these be a good upgrade from a Billion 7800N? The wireless on my Billion seems to not be very strong these days so thinking of treating myself

plaistowpaul · 31 Mar 2015 at 20:43

liamcrane said:
Would one of these be a good upgrade from a Billion 7800N? The wireless on my Billion seems to not be very strong these days so thinking of treating myself

I'd sit tight for a bit. Lots changing firmware-wise. I had that Billion router and probably the most stable router I've ever owned. I used it on ADSL and then via the EWAN port and an OpenReach modem when I got upgraded to Infinity. That combination was way, way better than the BT Homehub 3, Homehub 5 or the DSL-AC68U (although that was a great many firmware revisions ago)

If you are VDSL now, you presumably have a VDSL modem so could always patch that in if the DSL-AC68U gave stability problems on the WAN side. If you are on ADSL I'd definitely wait it out.

Either way in your boots I'd be inclined to keep your powder dry for a while.

Evil Shubunkin · 31 Mar 2015 at 20:47

liamcrane said:
Would one of these be a good upgrade from a Billion 7800N? The wireless on my Billion seems to not be very strong these days so thinking of treating myself

You'd be taking a gamble - it may well work fine on your line or you may experience problems like others have.

Are you on an ADSL or VDSL connection?

Edit: Beaten to it....

liamcrane · 31 Mar 2015 at 21:51

plaistowpaul said:
I'd sit tight for a bit. Lots changing firmware-wise. I had that Billion router and probably the most stable router I've ever owned. I used it on ADSL and then via the EWAN port and an OpenReach modem when I got upgraded to Infinity. That combination was way, way better than the BT Homehub 3, Homehub 5 or the DSL-AC68U (although that was a great many firmware revisions ago)

If you are VDSL now, you presumably have a VDSL modem so could always patch that in if the DSL-AC68U gave stability problems on the WAN side. If you are on ADSL I'd definitely wait it out.

Either way in your boots I'd be inclined to keep your powder dry for a while.

Evil Shubunkin said:
You'd be taking a gamble - it may well work fine on your line or you may experience problems like others have.

Are you on an ADSL or VDSL connection?

Edit: Beaten to it....

Thanks for the info guys, im on VDSL now. The Billion really has been spot on for the 3 years i have had it. Wired it syncs at the full 73mb down and 19mb up but when i run wireless it only hits 20mb down and 10mb up. Not sure whats going on with the wireless which is why i was looking at possible alternates if the wireless is starting to die on the Billion

Evil Shubunkin · 31 Mar 2015 at 22:09

liamcrane said:
Thanks for the info guys, im on VDSL now. The Billion really has been spot on for the 3 years i have had it. Wired it syncs at the full 73mb down and 19mb up but when i run wireless it only hits 20mb down and 10mb up. Not sure whats going on with the wireless which is why i was looking at possible alternates if the wireless is starting to die on the Billion

Dying wifi seems to be a common issue on the 7800N - happened to mine after 12 months or so and Billion replaced it under warranty.

You could buy the DSL-AC68U and connect it to the Openreach modem (which you must be using since the 7800N doesn't have a VDSL modem). That way you would be using the ASUS's wifi & routing functions which are pretty solid.

Then if ASUS resolve the issues that some people have with the device's VDSL modem - and it looks like they're making steps in the right direction, you can reconfigure it and use that as the router/modem all in one and remove the Openreach modem.

However, if you don't have any issues with keeping the separate modem, the RT-AC68U may be a better bet as the firmware is updated more frequently and has started seeing some new changes (like Adaptive QoS for example) which are still to come to the DSL-AC68U.

Also third party firmware such as Merlin is only for the RT-AC68U (and other RT- devices) but not the DSL versions.

michty_me · 31 Mar 2015 at 22:52

Or just wait for billions release of VDSL modem combos due out at the end of Q2.

bitsNbobs · 1 Apr 2015 at 02:44

liamcrane said:
Thanks for the info guys, im on VDSL now. The Billion really has been spot on for the 3 years i have had it. Wired it syncs at the full 73mb down and 19mb up but when i run wireless it only hits 20mb down and 10mb up. Not sure whats going on with the wireless which is why i was looking at possible alternates if the wireless is starting to die on the Billion

That sounds more like the wifi is only running in 144/150Mbps mode rather than 300Mbps. Which typically in real life on a device will give you 20-35(ish)Mbps (depending on device, distance, signal strength etc etc).

Typically this happens if....
A) you have any other devices not in 300N mode on your network (many routers do not like running in mixed mode and will often just go with whatever all devices can handle, that normally equates to slow as a snail wireless)
B) too many wifi points around you (once you start to see 10+ is when things start to seriously channel overlap and turn to poop, dual channels becoming single etc)
C) Wireless dongle/card/device is not N rated.

Not much you can do normally about it without spending money. With summer on the way in a few months, i would suggest a nice warm day project of hardwiring your network and be done with useless wifi forever. IMO its all a pile of crap including AC, nothing beats wired especially latency wise and once done that is the end of it. You can tinker with wifi, buy extenders, new routers and never improve speed but only signal strength, so unless that is weak i would not bother.

With ANY 300N device you are unlikely to ever get that full 73Mb out of it on wifi. If you go here...
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/charts/wireless/view
in class click N300 and then click filter you will see typically a 300N device will only give 20-50ishMb over 300N wifi regardless.

You will get more with an AC capable device and 5ghz, but to be honest although the speed will be better and the coverage you will still have that ever so detectable lag compared to wired. Theres no way around it if you want something to run as good as wired... Wired is what you need to do, once done you will never look back to wifi. The only thing that uses wifi in my house is my mobile phone, anything that has an ethernet port gets used wired, i couldnt go back to slow, laggy wifi EVER.

mjgr33n · 1 Apr 2015 at 09:10

bitsNbobs said:
Does not mean anything, the way to check i detailed a few pages back.

And I already posted my stats before, Opmode says nothing now, previously it said something like ITU G.993.2(VDSL2) and had over 100 CRC per day now it says nothing and has no CRC per day and has had no reduction in speed or latency, either way I am very happy with line and router.

Code:

outDiscards=405554
inDiscards=9903
outBytes=1198268413
inBytes=2539837080
outPkts=390056340
inPkts=384996665
fwVer= FwVer:5.5.1.127_B_A60901 HwVer:T14.F7_0.1

lineState=up
Opmode=
SNRMarginDown=6.5 dB
AttenDown=5.3 dB
SNRMarginUp=17.4 dB
AttenUp=0.4 dB
DataRateDown=79998 kbps
DataRateUp=19999 kbps
WanListMode=1
FECDown=375
FECUp=2553
CRCDown=0
CRCUp=0
HECDown=0
HECUp=0
ADSLUpTime=3 days,  8:03, 42 secs
ADSLActiveTime=0 min, 17 secs
PowerDown=12.0 dbm
PowerUp=-4.5 dbm
ATURID=26005443434e0000
ATUCID=b5004244434da485
AttainUp=38226
AttainDown=100848
ShowtimeStart=17
TotalStart=68
ATURANSIRev=0
ATUCANSIRev=0
ATURANSIStd=0
ATUCANSIStd=0
InterleaveDepth=1
AdslStandard=VDSL2
AdslType=ANNEX_B
mtenStandard=G.dmt.bisplus

michty_me · 1 Apr 2015 at 10:07

Before I've even managed to try any other router/modem combo it appears I've been put back onto interleaving as pings have increased to around 42ms. There is a lot of work going on around my house and also I noticed generators being run in the neighbours garden due to them getting extensions. I'm wondering if this has caused an issue somewhere. Looks like I'll be holding off longer than expected to take the plunge on the DSL-AC68U

ViRuS2k · 1 Apr 2015 at 14:43

Well i just enabled : G.INP as well as VECTORING.
---

and now am im getting no errors what so ever ? does that mean G.INP is enabled for me now. ?

-------------------------------------

as you can see, just waiting now until i get booted up to 79999 sync speeds.

dlm has killed me the past few weeks with me faffing around with settings lol

but anyway no errors and no crcs anymore

Ixel · 1 Apr 2015 at 14:49

As DSL modulation is blank then there's a high probability you're on G.INP. Your upload attainable and power seem high, is UPBO auto/on?

ViRuS2k · 1 Apr 2015 at 14:58

yeah i disabled UPBO

i know you can get into trouble from BT ect but i dont care lol...

EDIT:

just checked my settings and UPBO is on auto i thought i disabled that must not have lol
though i do have : SRA (Seamless Rate Adaptation)

isabled.

everything else is default apart from vectoring enabled and G.INP.

mjgr33n · 1 Apr 2015 at 16:29

ViRuS2k said:
yeah i disabled UPBO
i know you can get into trouble from BT ect but i dont care lol...

EDIT:

just checked my settings and UPBO is on auto i thought i disabled that must not have lol
though i do have : SRA (Seamless Rate Adaptation) isabled.

everything else is default apart from vectoring enabled and G.INP.

Given how high your Power Up setting is it looks like UPBO is in fact disabled even though it might in fact be set to Auto.

I would suggest switching it manually to Enabled, then see if in fact the Power Up setting does drop down.

If it does it should theoretically help your download speeds get back up to normal quicker as you should get less crosstalk.

mjgr33n · 1 Apr 2015 at 16:33

Ixel said:
Yeah, you're on a Huawei cabinet. BT have been rolling out G.INP to that type of cabinet for the past few months. They're supposedly starting on ECI cabinets in the next few days (which will probably take a few months to finish).

Checked my cabinet finally it was a different box than I thought it was, I was looking on the wrong side of the road, mine is in fact Huawei FTTC cab - 288 max.