Anyone Using an Asus DSL-AC68U

The one selling here is AC1900 the one on the rainforest is AC1200.
I think the other TP-Link modem/routers use lantiq chipsets for the modem so it may be used again.

No the rainforest one is the AC1900 also :) And yeah it is either the same chipset as the Netgear D7000 or the new Lantiq chipset, I think it is actually broadcom.
 
The price for the rainforest one at £128 is the ac1200 device. It doesn't show the price for the ac1900 one that I could see. Only prices shown were ac1200 or N600.
 
its possible that amazon have got the price wrong as the items is not available yet and the reviews are for the TD-W9980 with is N600, there is no VDSL router that is ac1200, think amazon have just put the wrong number in as all the other info is correct for the vr900 which is AC1900.

Other sites list it as £128 or £140

The archer D9 which appears to be the same just the ADSL only version says two broadcom chips if i am reading this right https://wikidevi.com/wiki/TP-LINK_Archer_D9_v1.x
So the vr900 may have two broadcom too but who knows.
 
Just to add my $0.02 to the thread.

I've had this router for a couple of months, prior to this I had an ISP provided Thomson Modem router.

The old modem rarely dropped the connection ( once every couple of months maybe) with fairly consistent speeds of around 8 Meg on ADSL.

When I set this one away on the line I noted the CRC errors reported by so many on here appearing in the logs and after a slow ish start they started ramping up at a fairly alarming rate ultimately causing a massive drop off in performance and ultimately a disconnection. These appeared to happen fairly regularly, usually when the errors got to 100k+.

This as you can imagine started to get pretty irritating so I dug a little deeper, I had no audible noise on the line so was unsure as to where the errors were coming from. Phone line came into a master socket and then I had ran a 2pr extension to a secondary socket on the other side of the bay window into which was the cable provided with the router.

I decided to bin these off and redid it as follows.

Replaced the standard NTE5 Master socket with a Mk3 BT vDSL/ADSL Interstitial faceplate (vDSL IPlate), disconnected a couple of old extension cables that are no longer in use and ran a 5m cat5e twisted pair RJ11 cable direct from the faceplate to the modem.

I've since had zero dropouts, error count is currently at 65 with a weeks uptime and my download speed is now over 9 Meg.

Thats currently on the 1.0.2.7 firmware as I havent had a chance to update it to the new one yet.

Haven't altered any of the settings, just stuck with the basic settings provided by my ISP.

Overall after a shaky start I'm pretty happy with it now.

Rich
 
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The price for the rainforest one at £128 is the ac1200 device. It doesn't show the price for the ac1900 one that I could see. Only prices shown were ac1200 or N600.

I know it says AC1200 under the button but the VR900 is in fact only AC1900, somebody typed in something incorrectly :P
 
Just to add my $0.02 to the thread.

I've had this router for a couple of months, prior to this I had an ISP provided Thomson Modem router.

The old modem rarely dropped the connection ( once every couple of months maybe) with fairly consistent speeds of around 8 Meg on ADSL.

When I set this one away on the line I noted the CRC errors reported by so many on here appearing in the logs and after a slow ish start they started ramping up at a fairly alarming rate ultimately causing a massive drop off in performance and ultimately a disconnection. These appeared to happen fairly regularly, usually when the errors got to 100k+.

This as you can imagine started to get pretty irritating so I dug a little deeper, I had no audible noise on the line so was unsure as to where the errors were coming from. Phone line came into a master socket and then I had ran a 2pr extension to a secondary socket on the other side of the bay window into which was the cable provided with the router.

I decided to bin these off and redid it as follows.

Replaced the standard NTE5 Master socket with a Mk3 BT vDSL/ADSL Interstitial faceplate (vDSL IPlate), disconnected a couple of old extension cables that are no longer in use and ran a 5m cat5e twisted pair RJ11 cable direct from the faceplate to the modem.

I've since had zero dropouts, error count is currently at 65 with a weeks uptime and my download speed is now over 9 Meg.

Thats currently on the 1.0.2.7 firmware as I havent had a chance to update it to the new one yet.

Haven't altered any of the settings, just stuck with the basic settings provided by my ISP.

Overall after a shaky start I'm pretty happy with it now.

Rich

Yeah the Mk3 faceplate is definitely recommended, it is a pity that BT do not fit them for people any more unless they complain.
 
I have, I think, the mk 2 faceplate, but certainly not the older NTE5. The only difference between the mk2 and the mk3 is in the filter, everything else is the same...
 
Engineer installed a MK3 faceplate for me a month or so back.

On the latest firmware and after doing a proper reset this device seems to be working a lot better.
 
Just a quick post to clear up the TP-Link VR900 vs VR200 confusion on chipsets....

The Archer VR200 is as follows...

XDSL Chipset: Lantiq VR9 (Annex B, vdsl2 G.vector, adsl2+)

Wireless 5GHz AC Chipset: Mediatek MT7610E AC433

Wireless 2.4GHz Chipset: Lantiq wave 300 N300

Switch Chipset: Gigabit Lantiq



The VR900 is as follows...
XDSL Chipset: BCM63168 400MHz, Dual Core

Wireless 5Ghz AC Chipset: UNKNOWN for certain apparantely a Broadcom 4xxx or 5xxx series 1300Mbps

Wireless 2.4ghz and Switch chipset: N600 capable 2.4Ghz wireless and BCM4709 1GHz, dual-core VoIP/DECT capable chipset.


Basically the V200 is Mediatek and Lantiq based while the VR900 is all Broadcom.
 
I've been running one of these modem / routers for the past four days on a pathetic 5 Mbps ADSL connection (Sky Broadband Unlimited).

Now, whereas the aging Sagemcom modem provided by Sky barely dropped a connection over the last four years or so, this Asus has dropped the line twice in the four days since I got it (not including the many times in the first hour or so; presumably that was part of the initialisation). It's currently running the 3.0.0.4.378_6986 firmware.

I should have done my homework first; after reading so many posts regarding connection problems I am beginning to wonder if I should return the unit for a refund. I don't know much about DSL connection settings, so perhaps I have it configured incorrectly. I did get the main settings from the Sky forum, though.

I've got the next ten days to think about it. What are your opinions? Am I better ditching it? I've actually just discovered now that Sky are finally accepting orders for fibre in my area (the local cabinet has been enabled for well over a year now). With that in mind, is it worth keeping and trying with the new connection?
 
Just a quick post to clear up the TP-Link VR900 vs VR200 confusion on chipsets....

The Archer VR200 is as follows...

XDSL Chipset: Lantiq VR9 (Annex B, vdsl2 G.vector, adsl2+)

Wireless 5GHz AC Chipset: Mediatek MT7610E AC433

Wireless 2.4GHz Chipset: Lantiq wave 300 N300

Switch Chipset: Gigabit Lantiq



The VR900 is as follows...
XDSL Chipset: BCM63168 400MHz, Dual Core

Wireless 5Ghz AC Chipset: UNKNOWN for certain apparantely a Broadcom 4xxx or 5xxx series 1300Mbps

Wireless 2.4ghz and Switch chipset: N600 capable 2.4Ghz wireless and BCM4709 1GHz, dual-core VoIP/DECT capable chipset.


Basically the V200 is Mediatek and Lantiq based while the VR900 is all Broadcom.

Actually the source code for the VR900 says it is BCM63138 SoC which means dual 1Ghz like the Netgear D7000, also TP-links website says 1GHz Dual-core Processor also.

http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/cat-15_Archer-VR900.html
 
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fairly happy now with this modem, each fw update has made it better for me

7 days up time, only 110 crc errors, and max speed.
 
Actually the source code for the VR900 says it is BCM63138 SoC which means dual 1Ghz like the Netgear D7000, also TP-links website says 1GHz Dual-core Processor also.

http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/cat-15_Archer-VR900.html

Are you 100% certain on that?? The reason i ask is because I think that still needs some clarification or like some other TP-Link devices the spec varies slightly by region. If you look at the images at your link there is no dual wan or E-WAN port on the device (port 4 LAN and being able to bridge that to a WAN doesnt count, you can do that on basically any modern device) and the 63138 chipset i believe is dual WAN by nature (though i spose they could just not bothered soldering on a second port).

The VDSL spec at that link is also light. (no G.INP or G.fast mentioned or listed)

Either way both chipsets are more than good enough for many years to come, this country is not gonna see G.Fast or similar in mass for at least another 5+ years. So buying for a 63138 device for that feature right now is not worth it IMO. Even more so as BT will probably bar-steward-ise the spec of that format by the time it rolls round anyway :D

I personally got my info from here...
http://www.hwupgrade.it/forum/archive/index.php/t-2704218.html
where it seems its the LAN/WAN chip that is 1Ghz (IE BCM4709 1GHz, dual-core) not the DSL chipset.
 
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Are you 100% certain on that?? The reason i ask is because I think that still needs some clarification or like some other TP-Link devices the spec varies slightly by region. If you look at the images at your link there is no dual wan or E-WAN port on the device (port 4 LAN and being able to bridge that to a WAN doesnt count, you can do that on basically any modern device) and the 63138 chipset i believe is dual WAN by nature (though i spose they could just not bothered soldering on a second port).

The VDSL spec at that link is also light. (no G.INP or G.fast mentioned or listed)

Either way both chipsets are more than good enough for many years to come, this country is not gonna see G.Fast or similar in mass for at least another 5+ years. So buying for a 63138 device for that feature right now is not worth it IMO. Even more so as BT will probably bar-steward-ise the spec of that format by the time it rolls round anyway :D

I personally got my info from here...
http://www.hwupgrade.it/forum/archive/index.php/t-2704218.html
where it seems its the LAN/WAN chip that is 1Ghz (IE BCM4709 1GHz, dual-core) not the DSL chipset.

PhilipD on the Kitz forums downloaded the GPL and had a look in it and confirmed that yes it is the 63138, tried to download the GPL myself but TP-Links site seems to be slow atm.

Interface looks nice though, nicer than the Netgear, but that is not hard :P

Yeah, annoying that the dual WAN feature is limited to one of the LAN ports. I assume it was just purely space at the back as they fitted the 2 VoIP ports instead, still am sure they could have squeezed it in somewhere :P
 
I'm trying something different.

As I have an online UPS, I can control the voltage I send to connected devices. Previously I had been sending 230V at 50Hz, I'm seeing what may or may not happen if I change this to 240V at 50Hz. So far the results seem promising but this device has tricked me before. All I can say at the moment is that for the past few hours the CRC errors are far lower than usual. Wierd huh?
 
PhilipD on the Kitz forums downloaded the GPL and had a look in it and confirmed that yes it is the 63138, tried to download the GPL myself but TP-Links site seems to be slow atm.

Interface looks nice though, nicer than the Netgear, but that is not hard :P

Yeah, annoying that the dual WAN feature is limited to one of the LAN ports. I assume it was just purely space at the back as they fitted the 2 VoIP ports instead, still am sure they could have squeezed it in somewhere :P

The GPL code www.tp-link.com/resources/gpl/GPL_ArcherVR900V1.tar.gz

From what i make out only indicates the xDSL side is a BCM963xx family as mentioned in the GPL_ArcherVR900V1\bcm4708\dsl_remote\bcm963xx directory/folder. So it could be either a BCM63168 or a BCM63138, i dunno how he reached the conclusion its a 63138 i could see no other reference in the GPL.

The LAN/WAN is definately a BCM470x 1ghz variety (as mentioned though not a 4709 but an 08, both basically the same spec wise) and as seen in GPL_ArcherVR900V1\bcm4708

Reading the datasheet would also seem to indicate the 1ghz based chip is for routing and not the xdsl chipset...
http://www.tp-link.com/en/handlers/download.ashx?resourceid=13616
quote"1GHz Dual-core Processor – Ensures no interruption while processing
multiple wired or wireless tasks simultaneously"
Which to me reads as a chip for routing duties, which would be the BCM4708.

The BCM47xx and BCM 53xx series are used in most broadcom based devices for routing and AFAIK are both 1Ghz, so thats probably what TP-Link are using as "claims" for their marketing of the device. Same thing is in the Netgears and Billions for routing.

The interface is ok, personally looking at the emulator i do not think it is that different to the Netgear D6400/D7000 in overall look, maybe a little cleaner laid out but thats about it. Personally being old school i prefer TP-Links older interface with all the options in detail down the left rather than separate advanced, etc menus/sections. I prefer simplicity over prettiness.
 
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