Anyone Using an Asus DSL-AC68U

I'm not even using mine at the moment. I'm not able to return it as I bought it used (grade B I think) from another retailer. So my choices are to either wait for ASUS to fix it (not looking likely based on lack of feedback lately) or to just accept it as a loss and store it away for a very long time (or indefinitely).

Still stuck on 49/20 from an original banded profile of 74/20. Could achieve 80/20 easily but DLM isn't being kind.
 
I have had mine connected to the Openreach Modem for 22 days without interruption and until Asus issue some stable firmware that's where it will stay.
 
Guys I've just had an email from Asus in relation to my submitted feedback via the router giving me a link to a new firmware - quote below

There is a new firmware available that might be able to address the
interruption issue with your ISP. Any other issue please feel free to let us
know. Thanks.

DSL-AC68U_3.0.0.4_376_2139-g06fedd3_DSL_1.0.1.9.rar
https://www.asuswebstorage.com/navigate/s/75FF2D0BB7494B5BAB7235698A63DE58Y

Best regards,
Paul Lee
Click to expand...

Seems to be a different version then the previous test release?

I'm not home atm so can't confirm.
 
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StarmanUK said:
Guys I've just had an email from Asus in relation to my submitted feedback via the router giving me a link to a new firmware - quote below

Seems to be a different version then the previous test release?

I'm not home arm so can't confirm.
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing. I will update mine and see whether the CRC situation improves with this updated firmware.

EDIT: CRC situation is worse than the HG612 still, but no drop connection yet.

Code: 
>uptime;wan vdsl2 show mgcnt
 01:48:26 up  1:48, load average: 1.08, 1.07, 1.07
near-end path0 fec:     0(0)
near-end path0 crc:     133(133)
near-end fec sec:       0(0)
near-end err sec:       66(66)
near-end ses sec:       0(0)
near-end los sec:       0(0)
near-end ua  sec:       0(0)
far-end path0 fec:      23(17253)
far-end path0 crc:      1(981)
far-end fec sec:        7(2092)
far-end err sec:        1(913)
far-end ses sec:        0(0)
far-end los sec:        0(106)
far-end ua  sec:        0(8302)
tc>

Default settings other than modulation being set to VDSL2 and annex being set to A (B doesn't sync DSL at all when I set that).
 
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Ixel said:
I'm not even using mine at the moment. I'm not able to return it as I bought it used (grade B I think) from another retailer. So my choices are to either wait for ASUS to fix it (not looking likely based on lack of feedback lately) or to just accept it as a loss and store it away for a very long time (or indefinitely).
Click to expand...

I'm using mine as a wireless AP elsewhere in the house currently. I have a copy of the brand new firmware but I'm not prepared to try it until some positive news comes from it.

I thought I'd found just the right settings last weekend but for some strange reason I kept losing internet routing late evening and was reporting a huge amount of FEC errors. The box indicated everything was ok but there was no net connectivity plus SNR/ATTENUATION UP were stuck on 0db. I decided to pull the plug again and stick my ZyXel back in place.
 
Default settings other than modulation being set to VDSL2 and annex being set to A (B doesn't sync DSL at all when I set that).
Click to expand...

Thats because the wording in DSL settings is wrong and I've tried to tell ASUS this..

Annex Mode in DSL Settings should really say Annex Bandplan not Annex Mode.

BT use Annex Mode B with Annex Bandplan A
 
New beta firmware...

Not so good for me sadly. Was getting around 4 or 5 CRC per hour on the old test firmware, but am getting about 60 an hour so far on the new one.

Two steps foreword, three steps back :-(
 
New Firmware

I just received an unprompted email from ASUS with a link to the new firmware....I guess they must think that it sorts out the problems if they're mailing it to everyone that's contacted them.

Not so good for me sadly. Was getting around 4 or 5 CRC per hour on the old test firmware, but am getting about 60 an hour so far on the new one.

Two steps foreword, three steps back :-(
Click to expand...

My experience of the current release firmware doesn't show any correlation between CRCs and connection stability. Even when I've had settings that get the CRC errors down to a handful per day, I've still had regular connection drops. Did you perform a full factory reset after updating the firmware? A few of us have seen improvements after a reset.
 
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My experience of the current release firmware doesn't show any correlation between CRCs and connection stability. Even when I've had settings that get the CRC errors down to a handful per day, I've still had regular connection drops. Did you perform a full factory reset after updating the firmware? A few of us have seen improvements after a reset.
Click to expand...

Not sure about yourself but when using the Asus my Max Attainable Rate was always an average of 10-20 mbps higher than when using a Broadcomm or Lantiq (ECI) Modem. I'm wondering if its this that is causing the instability for most people as the line is trying to sync far higher than is what's stable, thus causing re-trains when the line becomes unstable.
 
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I have just got that e-mail from Paul Lee at Asus but will wait till his changes are proved stable if ever that day comes.
 
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ASUS DSL-AC68U

simoncraddock said:
Not sure about yourself but when using the Asus my Max Attainable Rate was always an average of 10-20 mbps higher than when using a Broadcomm or Lantiq (ECI) Modem. I'm wondering if its this that is causing the instability for most people as the line is trying to sync far higher than is what's stable, thus causing re-trains when the line becomes unstable.
Click to expand...

I never bothered to put the unlocked firmware on my BT OR modem, so I don't have much idea of the connection stats. I did regularly speed test my connection and it was a solid 37M/6.5M for years. My ping times were always quite high though (around 40ms), which I now know is indicative of a high level of interleaving.

I'm on the old infinity 1 plan so my speed is limited to 39M/10M anyway. The ASUS is currently giving me a significantly higher upload speed than the BT OR modem (around 8 to 9M), but my download speed has been hammered by DLM :( so it's only 22M at the mo.

I did experiment with turning down the TX power to try to get the upload speed near to the speed achieved by the BT OR modem. Initially this did seem to work, but after DLM increased my download speeds back to normal again, my line stability went bad and speeds were reduced to where they are now.

One weird thing I did notice when experimenting with the TX power was interplay between the UPBO setting and the TX power. With UPBO disabled, turning down the TX power had very little impact on the connection speed (speed stayed near my max rate of 9M)...but when I reduced the TX power to -5dB, it refused to connect at all.

With UPBO enabled, reducing the TX power did actually change my upload connection speed....a setting of -4dB reduced my TX connection down to less than 6M. I guess it could be that TX power reduction just doesn't work with UPBO disabled, but that seems to be a bit counter to the purpose of those controls? Also that wouldn't explain why I couldn't connect when I reduced the TX power by 5dBs....it must have been doing something to the TX signal??

I have started to wonder if the main problem with the ASUS modem is that it's not controlling the TX power and connection speeds properly or it's not dealing with UPBO commands correctly. In my case it could explain why there is such a big disparity between the speed that the ASUS connects at and the speed that the BT OR modem connected at. Having said that, it could also be explained by the BT OR modem being crap at upstream connections....it's just the BT OR modem is stable and the ASUS Mediatek Modem is a POS.

I guess my real worry is that the Mediatek chip is just fundamentally rubbish and no amount of firmware tweaking will fix it. I have no technical basis for that supposition, I just have a bit of bad history with Mediatek so I don't really trust them.

Anyway, I'll give the new firmware a go this evening....I guess the worst that can happen is that the update bricks it. At least then I'd be on solid ground asking for a refund :rolleyes:
 
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Being a curious SOB (haha) I decided as I was off work today to give the new firmware a quick trial and if necessary put my ZyXel back on if the Asus was no better.

Initally on default settings I was getting a hell of a lot of CRC errors from the start. A quick look in settings and a few little adjustments to the following and 'touchwood' all is running sweet so far after 30 mins with zero CRC errors. Maybe I'm just lucky so far or is this the fixed firmware we craved?

settings.jpg


Just downloaded 2Gb video, not a CRC error either up no down.
 
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Mine would be fine on the old beta firmware for 12-18 hours with 0 CRCs and then suddenly a disconnect. Good luck to you guys but Im going nowhere near this until DLM puts me back to a reasonable level.

I'm currently on 41/20 due to the last round of testing and the HH5 was on 71/20 before that so its a hell of a drop. I've been back on the HH5 for nearly 7 days without a resync so I refute Asus's claim that my line is noisey. The last time I think it took 12 days before DLM put me back up to where it should be.
 
PlumpMonkey said:
Mine would be fine on the old beta firmware for 12-18 hours with 0 CRCs and then suddenly a disconnect. Good luck to you guys but Im going nowhere near this until DLM puts me back to a reasonable level.

I'm currently on 41/20 due to the last round of testing and the HH5 was on 71/20 before that so its a hell of a drop. I've been back on the HH5 for nearly 7 days without a resync so I refute Asus's claim that my line is noisey. The last time I think it took 12 days before DLM put me back up to where it should be.
Click to expand...

I can understand, I've got until morning to decide whether to leave it connected or not. My current line status albeit currently 'interleaved' is at 58/20 due to a test phase on Sunday. If I get knocked down its usually by just 2mbps DS, putting my ZyXel back online for 48hrs reverses this.
 
I've been sent this f/w by Asus as well, however I think I'll let you guys be the testers before I try it. Seeing as mine hasn't been too bad.
 
Not too bad here at the moment, still pretty much on defaults though. I might try setting Rx AGC to Stable later this evening when internet usage here has quietened down.

Exploring some of the settings via TC, I noticed I could enforce interleaving and as a result seemed to get a higher sync than the max data rate I'm on right now, 49M downstream (perhaps due to interleaving however?).

3903522760.png


Hypothesis, can setting the PMS settings manually then override the downstream DSLAM parameters? For example you could perhaps force interleaving to remain off, force your sync downstream to be lower or higher than the max downstream sync rate, etc. For the latter, I doubt you can, for interleaving though it may be possible. When I'm having a quiet time on the internet I will do some more brief testing on this and see what I can achieve.

aAUOVFI.png
 
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