Anyone Using an Asus DSL-AC68U

Mmm, not sure I should go single box just yet then. Good to see people and jim of asus are still in there. I trust that Asus are listening to what bitsnbobs is saying cos it seems to make sense to me.
 
powerline adapters are useless for gaming , well the ones i had were. The asus is really good though at the minute of course was rubbish for a while but im very glad i stuck with it. it performs better than the h612 and dgn3700 i was using.
 
powerline adapters are useless for gaming , well the ones i had were. The asus is really good though at the minute of course was rubbish for a while but im very glad i stuck with it. it performs better than the h612 and dgn3700 i was using.

You must have had rubbish powerline adapters then because normally they provide far better latency (which is the important thing for gaming) than wifi does. Unless your home wiring is rubbish. Then again if you are a hard core gamer you wouldnt be using wifi or powerline but would be hardwired anyway. I personally hate wifi, any time i have to use it i find the lag be it 2.4ghz or 5ghz almost unbearable.
 
I too had gaming issues using powerline adapters. To be fair, I had endless issues with them all round to be honest. I'm back on trusty wireless but really want to pull in some cables to hardwire at least some rooms. I had the Solwise 1200+ piggy versions, Maybe they were faulty so who knows.
 
bitsnbobs, sorry to be off topic but which make of powerlines do you use as mine drop the connection every so often and I have to switch them off then back on again to re-establish it...
 
bitsnbobs, sorry to be off topic but which make of powerlines do you use as mine drop the connection every so often and I have to switch them off then back on again to re-establish it...

I've been told to stick to the likes of Devolo for powerline adapters. I was tempted to try them again but needed my line to recover first.
 
Last edited:
bitsnbobs, sorry to be off topic but which make of powerlines do you use as mine drop the connection every so often and I have to switch them off then back on again to re-establish it...

I do not use them, my whole house is hardwired, basically downstairs is where my main modem/router is plugged into the phone socket. Off that is a switch running off port number 4 of my rubbish homehub 3 see everything is gigabit. (ultimately at some point that will go and hopefully be narrowed to a single box solution).

From there patch wires feed to an 8 way and 4 way wall sockets, from them the wires go up to each level of the house (3 floors as im in a town house). To wall plates in the appropriate rooms.

On the second floor in addition is a further switch for any future expansion (never know when i might want another NAS for example) and on the top floor i currently have an old router plugged in with DHCP disabled see that, basically just acts as a switch if needed and an additional wireless point to ensure the house on all levels front and back get good coverage for when i have to use my mobile or tablet online. The top floor with just the homehub the wireless gets flakey (50% signal or less).

There is nothing better than hardwiring your home if you plan it properly (draw a diagram of what you want and add at least one additional RJ45 outlet to each room you plan to hardwire).

Its a single day job, a couple of hundred metres of cable along with some RJ45 wall plates, it will perform better and more reliably than any wireless and cost you a hell of a lot less than looking for some £!50+ holy grail device that does good wifi.

If you file share between machines, backup between them, media serve or have any type of NAS things suddenly become a joy to use rather than slow frustration which wifi brings. Copying files several gigs in size between machines on a gigabit network is a joy compared to a nightmare on wireless.

Latency half of what wifi has for gaming ultimately just a bonus as i do not game regularly anyway.


HOMEPLUGS if you must use them will perform (and i do just mean performance not reliability) better than wifi, you only have to look on smallnetbuilder to see that. There only issue is if wiring is old or you have lots of stuff constantly on drawing power speeds will often reduce or connection occasional play up.

As to what ones i would use if i had to id take a look at Solwise they seem to have reliable devices, a whole bunch of good FAQ and general info on their site and also appear to be a good company to deal with. Its important you match the homeplug with the rest of your network and where possible do not mix and match homeplug devices that just causes more issues. Oh and forget about the ones that also have wifi built in/act as access points as that will only be as good (at best) as what is coming out the homeplug end.
 
Last edited:
Bitsnbobs, What is the easiest way to pull in cables to locations you want a hardwired path? Ideally I would like one a downstairs room, One in the upstairs hallway and one in a bedroom but I'm just not sure how to start getting them to locations I want. I'm guessing cutting holes in the walls to feed a cable snake down?
 
Bitsnbobs, What is the easiest way to pull in cables to locations you want a hardwired path? Ideally I would like one a downstairs room, One in the upstairs hallway and one in a bedroom but I'm just not sure how to start getting them to locations I want. I'm guessing cutting holes in the walls to feed a cable snake down?

Depends on your house, if its a modern home with all plasterboard type walls and ceilings just drill through them. Fit coving or similar over the wires (run them along skirting or corners of the room) and it will be wife friendly/approved also and out of sight.

If its an older house, then IMO buy external CAT6 or CAT6A cable and run it externally and clip it neatly in place outside (under window ledges hindes it pretty well). then run it into each room, if you are lucky you can sometimes squeeze it past the end of window frames with minimal work. Drilling thick walls is not fun, my house is mainly breeze block based walls and a couple of them were a PITA so brick or stone walls will be a bigger pain unless you have a large (IE NOT hand held) impact drill. Its often easier to drill external than internal walls on old homes (the types with stone walls internally).

THE BIGGEST THING IS... Plan first, the job will go smoother rather than just making it up as you go and you will also know how much cable you need first. Buy decent cable also, DO NOT be tempted by CCA (copper clad aluminium) CAT5/6/7 based stuff, its crap.
 
Hmm not too sure if she indoors would approve of the running along the walls. After thinking about it again I may do upstairs when the floor comes up as the floor has become creaky and could do with being renewed. Its a modern plasterboard house, with crap finishing so needs re-done at some point. This may be my easiest safest option and just pull in a few runs while its up.

As for the Asus dsl-ac68u, I tried to bid for one on an auction site. I got outbid and it finally went for £144.50 inc delivery! I don't understand why you would pay that for a second hand device when you can buy new for about £25 more with the option of returns and a full warranty. Baffled!
 
Hmm not too sure if she indoors would approve of the running along the walls. After thinking about it again I may do upstairs when the floor comes up as the floor has become creaky and could do with being renewed. Its a modern plasterboard house, with crap finishing so needs re-done at some point. This may be my easiest safest option and just pull in a few runs while its up.

As for the Asus dsl-ac68u, I tried to bid for one on an auction site. I got outbid and it finally went for £144.50 inc delivery! I don't understand why you would pay that for a second hand device when you can buy new for about £25 more with the option of returns and a full warranty. Baffled!

If you are going to lift floorboards at some point definitely install cable then, it will be totally out of sight :) DO NOT drill holes though any structural beams or joists though. Any which you have to run along the room use something like this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zdjn4BSdDI8
or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDqIwZ6x3Ag
give the skirting and the trunking a flesh lick on paint when done and that should be good enough for the other half :)

Some other tips...

If running under floor cables make sure it all works before you put the floorboards back (trust me you will swear if you nail them all back and you forget a wire or one does not work).

For any of the adhesive coving clean the skirting board before you apply it, use something like isopropyl alcohol or methylated spirits if you can, (soapy water will do but is more work) that will get rid of all the grim easily and allow the coving to stick much better.

Some coving is very smooth/shiny and if you plan on painting it the paint will not apply properly (think of it like trying to paint glass) you can get around that by gently scuffing it first with very fine wire wool and the paint will then apply evenly and leave a smooth finish.

Have fun, PS around now till around august is the best time to do things, especially if running any cable outside, far better to be up a ladder, drilling holes in dry half decent weather than it is in the middle of January with hale lashing down on you.

PPS if you are going to run cable in your loft also use external grade cable for that, mainly because up in a loft it can get hot and the outer sleeve on the very cheap cable can warp.
 
Wow! Thanks for all the tips. I'll check out the videos when I get a chance as the work blocks them.

I'm hoping to get some of the floor lifted in the next few months. A fair amount of it needs done anyway so should be a fairly simple task to do. All the cables run down inner of the stairs already for an uninstalled alarm system so they will be my fishing tools.
 
well i waited 21 days and no change to my dlm.

bloody annoying.

---

turned my router off for over 40 minutes then reconnected and still syncing
@69999
@19999

not my nomral
79999
19999

think im going to call talktalk and get them to send a engineer to do a dlm reset.
 
Wow! Thanks for all the tips. I'll check out the videos when I get a chance as the work blocks them.

I'm hoping to get some of the floor lifted in the next few months. A fair amount of it needs done anyway so should be a fairly simple task to do. All the cables run down inner of the stairs already for an uninstalled alarm system so they will be my fishing tools.

Just be aware if running the new CAT5/6 cables anywhere near existing cabling to make sure you do not cut or drill through any current cables, the same goes for plumbing in your house. Getting a cable/PVC etc detection tool from somewhere like wicks or homebase may be a worthy investment (depends on how confident you are of where other house wiring and plumbing runs).

For your under the stairs situation, if you plan on running multiple cables and if you have the room you can buy some PVC tubing or what i used a squared piece of drainpipe down pipe. Measure and cut it it to length, run all the cables inside the drain pipe/PVC tube FIRST and then fit it to the wall (if you have one) under and next to the stairs with a couple of angle brackets. Saves serious time over fiddling with individual cables and total extra cost will only be around £10.

PS with regards to running cables in tricky places use either a string with a weight on the end (throw weighted end down hole, tie cable to other end) or in even narrower spaces if you have one or can borrow one get fibre glass pole fishing rod from someone, or any other type of similar fibre glass rod you can think off. Again tie string to one end of the pole and the other end to the cable. The benefit is the pole can bend and flex to exactly where you want it, before pulling it through the other end and dragging the string and cable through with it.

I imagine you will be fine, none of it is rocket science anyone could probably hardwire their house, although (as the ideas above show ;) ) it can help to have a creative mind to overcome problems.

well i waited 21 days and no change to my dlm.

bloody annoying.

---

turned my router off for over 40 minutes then reconnected and still syncing
@69999
@19999

not my nomral
79999
19999

think im going to call talktalk and get them to send a engineer to do a dlm reset.

That sounds more like G.INP has been applied to your line. If it was just interleaving the rate will change (ever so slightly) normally for the better or worse even on a single disconnect and re-connect. If the rate is exactly the same that could be G.INP. I suspect i have been G.INP'ed this week have lost about 6Mb and am down down to 67Mb. No matter how many times i disconnect the rate its connected at does not change :( There is no way for me to currently check for sure though as im stuck with a rubbish BT ECI modem at the moment. I really need to make up my mind and decide on either a new Billion, Zyxel or Asus, though with G.INP the Billion or Zyxel with broadcom chipsets are having more appeal right now.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom