Anyone Using an Asus DSL-AC68U

[Evil Shubunkin]

Do you know what cabinet type you are connected to - ECI or Huawei? Whilst I wouldn't mind getting the HG612, given that both the HH5 and DSL-AC68U consistently sync at a lower downstream rate than the ECI modem, I'm wondering whether the ECI cabinets are picky about what's connecting to them. Although I believe the HH5 uses the same modem chipset as the ECI modem, so was surprised that it syncs lower.

 

[bulldog147]

BT Openreach HG612 Modem use BCM chipset. The Asus DSL-AC68U use MediaTek chipset. As for BT Home Hub 5 use Lantiq chipset.

 

[IronRod]

I'm away from my router at the moment so I can't post any exact stats but my last attempt to stabilise the modem seems to have worked.

I'm connected to a Huawei cabinet which is physically about 350m from my house....so a longish line.

With the BT OR modem I was speed testing (no access to connection stats) at about 37Mbps down, 6.5Mbps up. Initially the ASUS modem connected at 39Mbps down and 9Mbps up....however this was when I started seeing stability issues. After several iterations of fiddling with the modem settings, I settled on limiting the modem Tx power so that the upload connection speed was about the same as the old OR modem. This seems to have fixed the stability problem since the modem has remained connected for 4 days at the last count.

My download speed is still lower than it was with the OR modem, but I'm putting that down to all my titting about with the settings. I figure I must have kicked off some kind of DLM in the cabinet with my previous settings....Before I settled on adjusting the Tx power, I was changing the modem RX SNR margin, which massively slowed the download rate but had no impact at all on stability.

My line is currently synced at 29Mbps down 6.5Mbps up. I've disabled the RX SNR margin control so I'm hoping the next reconnect will see my download speed restored. The TX power is currently set to -4dB.

Assuming my download speed goes back up, I'll be satisfied that the modem is doing a decent job....It appears to just be a bit optimistic about what TX power is achievable. I’ll force a reconnect tonight to see if my download speed improves and I’ll let you guys know.

Edit: Just remembered the other thing that I changed was the VDSL profile...ASUS defaults to 30a which I belive is not supported by BT, I changed this to 17a....can't say if this made any difference, but I did leave this change when I started tweaking the TX power.

 

[Evil Shubunkin]

In the interest of testing, I've plugged this back in to see what happens over the next couple of days.

Downstream reduced around 3Mbps and upstream increased around 2Mbps - same as previous times.

Maybe having the ECI modem means ignorance is bliss as you can't see any stats, but my CRC error rate was over 1000 in just over 2 hours. Seemed to have a few large bursts, so I'm not taking any risks with DLM and moved back over to OR modem. If it had been stable at a couple of CRC errors an hour I'd have left it, but not knowing what DLM looks at I don't want interleaving enabled again so soon after getting rid of it a couple of weeks ago.

 

[Evil Shubunkin]

And there goes DLM again. 8ms latency and a drop of around 10% - so that'll be that for a couple of weeks. Putting the DSL-AC68U back in its box and it can stay there for a long while.

 

[bulldog147]

Blimey that's not a good hardware. Also DLM is annoying too. Fibre should be DLM-Free but that BT way to do this. BT always recommend to use openreach modem with third party fibre wifi router.

 

[PlumpMonkey]

I too have pulled mine out this morning from being the VDSL modem. I never really had a totally stable connection with the HH5, but at least it synced at the maximum rates of 79/20 but over the last few weeks the Asus connection has been bouncing around and now Im down to 49/20.

Im still going to use it for wifi as that is way better than the HH5, but the VDSL modem leaves something to be desired.....

 

[Evil Shubunkin]

Typical - there's a new firmware today.
http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&p=11&m=DSL-AC68U&hashedid=a1hV6dbr0aJWiWD9
Amongst the updates - 2.DSL firmware updated - v1.0.1.7.

Anyone feel brave enough?

 

[bulldog147]

Typical - there's a new firmware today.
http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&p=11&m=DSL-AC68U&hashedid=a1hV6dbr0aJWiWD9
Amongst the updates - 2.DSL firmware updated - v1.0.1.7.

Anyone feel brave enough?

You can try it and see if it improvement on your VDSL stable?

 

[Evil Shubunkin]

I'm sulking with it

I might think about swapping over this evening, after all DLM's already intervened what could possibly go wrong?!

 

[bulldog147]

There is lot of fixes on new firmware:

ASUS DSL-AC68U Firmware version 3.0.0.4.376_2072 (This product supports both Annex A and Annex B)
1.Fixed ADSL Annex M mode related issues(specifically with some ISP in Australia).
2.DSL firmware updated - v1.0.1.7.
3.Fixed various UI related issues.
4.Fixed QIS VDSL WAN (PTM) Quick Manual Setting, Static IP & Automatic IP setup issue.
5.Add PPP username & password field for QIS VDSL WAN (PTM) Quick Manual Setting specifically for UK ISP, Sky - Fibre Broadband DHCP option 61 requirement.
6.Add predefined QIS ADSL WAN (ATM) Quick Manual Setting DNS server address for France ISP, Free Degroupe.
7.Fixed Disk Utility displays invalid “Errors have been detected on your hard drive” warning issue.
8.Fixed live notification related issues.
9.Fixed Dual WAN related issues.
10.Fixed Ethernet WAN mode Multicast Route failed to work issue.
11.Fine tune Feedback feature.
12.Fixed disk format Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) compatibility issue.

Not sure if this fixes will solve the VDSL CRC errors with stable?

 

[IronRod]

Checked my connection last night and found that it had already disconnected and reconnected at a higher download speed. I'm now back up to the maximum download speed supported by my line (39Mbit) but my upload speed has taken a small hit down to 5.8Mb/s. Line had been connected for 14 hours when I last checked and there were about 200 CRC errors.

I found this useful post about how FTTC DLM works:
http://community.plus.net/library/browsing/fttc-dlm-what-it-is-how-it-works/

....so it looks like my early morning disconnections are actually the DLM trying to get the line stable. At least I can discount those disconnections as an actual stability connection drop.

Unfortunately the post wasn't clear on the circumstances that cause interleaving to be set and more importantly whether DLM can automatically remove interleaving.

Since there's a new firmware release, I'll update to the new firmware tonight and maybe up my TX power to -3dB. I don't want to mess about with it too much so I'll try to leave it for the next week to see if the new firmware and DLM settle to something better than the OR modem could do.

Has anyone got any ideas of what is an acceptable number of CRC errors? Should I be looking for 0 or is a couple of hundred a day acceptable? Also how can I tell if my line has been interleaved?

 

[BillK]

Also how can I tell if my line has been interleaved?

Hi,

If you do a tracert to bbc.co.uk for example the first hop where you get an IP address (some kit wont respond) should give you a good indication, for example:-

C:\Users\Bill>tracert bbc.co.uk

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.103]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms router.asus.com [192.168.1.1]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 12 ms 83 ms 12 ms 217.41.216.109

There are three levels of Interleaving – off, low and high, If Interleaving is applied on low your latency will be increased by around 8ms and 16ms on high.

When my line was on fastpath, hop 4 reported 4ms delay. Now that a low level of interleaving been applied its now reporting 12ms. Hope that helps

I have just downloaded the latest Asus firmware (DSL-AC68U_3.0.0.4_376_2072-gf4a1e74_DSL_1.0.1.7) and will try it over the next few days. My line had a DLM reset last Friday and the OpenReach ECI modem has been connected on fastpath for 7 days without disconnect. Today it did a re-sync and applied low level interleaving and dropped the speeds slightly.

As suggested in another thread (User IronRod) I have set the Asus router to Tx Power Control (VDSL): -3dB,
Rx AGC GAIN Adjustment (VDSL): stable, and VDSL profile 17a Multi Mode.

Anyone else tested the new firmware and had any success? Best Regards

Bill.

 

[foxyloxy]

I've been on 2072 firmware since midday on 23/9/14 with these changes over default:
dsl modulation: vdsl2
Rx AGC GAIN Adjustment (VDSL): High Performance
the vdsl seemed to have stayed up for 3 days 6 hours before a retrain yesterday evening
(a lot longer than on earlier firmwares) but looking at the general log I can see another
WAN restored at 9:33pm on 24/9/14

 

[Jetinder]

I'm connected to a Huawei unit about 20 metres (verified by the fella who installed the Openreach cabling when the house was built - he lives on the same estate) away. The HH5 stabilised at 70/18, so I pulled the trigger and bought one of the Asus units. It's been almost a month now and things are much better - solidly 80/20. Very happy with the wireless performance too, it was always patchy before with whatever kit I used.

My stats are:

DSL Firmware Version 1.0.1.7
DSL Driver Version FwVer:5.5.1.124_B_A60901 HwVer:T14.F7_0.1
DSL Link Status up
DSL Uptime 0 days 23 hours 11 minutes 16 seconds
DSL modulation ITU G.993.2(VDSL2)
Annex mode ANNEX_B
SNR Down 10.0 dB
SNR Up 23.7 dB
Line Attenuation Down 4.4 dB
Line Attenuation Up 0.1 dB
Data Rate Down 79999 kbps
Data Rate Up 19999 kbps
MAX Rate Down 98824
MAX Rate Up 39810
POWER Down 13.4 dbm
POWER Up -7.5 dbm
CRC Down 0
CRC Up 5

 

[bulldog147]

Do remember when swapping over VDSL2 modem. Make sure u do power down the VDSL2 modem then wait for a few minutes and then remove modem cable (DSL) and leave it unplugged for at least 30 minutes because DLM check interval twices in every 15 minutes otherwise DLM will be apply if swapping modem under 30 minutes.

 

[BillK]

I have just downloaded the latest Asus firmware (DSL-AC68U_3.0.0.4_376_2072-gf4a1e74_DSL_1.0.1.7) and will try it over the next few days. My line had a DLM reset last Friday and the OpenReach ECI modem has been connected on fastpath for 7 days without disconnect. Today it did a re-sync and applied low level interleaving and dropped the speeds slightly.

As suggested in another thread (User IronRod) I have set the Asus router to Tx Power Control (VDSL): -3dB,
Rx AGC GAIN Adjustment (VDSL): stable, and VDSL profile 17a Multi Mode.

Anyone else tested the new firmware and had any success? Best Regards

Bill.

Update - I have had no joy with this new firmware either
Over the weekend test there were a total of 15 DSL re-syncs causing the DLM to kick in and reduce the line speed by a third and applying a high level of interleaving.
As previously stated, the routing side of the product is fine. The modem side is flaky to say the least.

***** 5 Stars go to Overclockers for sorting out an RMA for refund! Respect

Laters..

 

[plaistowpaul]

Hello all - signed up a few days ago after finding this thread (googling for problems with the router).

Same experience as many. On the 2050 firmware I used the feedback facility to report issues, uploading the dsl log, and went through several changes of settings as per the advice, but still kept getting dsl disconnects several times per day. Went bak to the Openreach modem (using this as router only) and everything was rock solid for a week. The speeds (Infinity 1) which had dropped during all the disruption got back to about 37/7 (as good as I'd ever had).

Tried this latest firmware and got disconnects within 2 hours. With default settings the speeds jumped up to about 40/7.5, too high probably. There may be some magic set of settings, but finding/trying them messes everything up so much its just not worth it. Have gone back to the OpenReach modem and will sit tight for a bit.

As posted above the routing side is fine, WiFi strength is improved, but the modem.....oh dear. I've reported to Asus, and llooked on their forum but not expecting too much. The "n" version seems to have the same issues, maybe using the same hardware/firmware.

Got a very expensive router (minus one ethernet port) at the moment. Would send it back if I could face going through all the aggro again but I can't!

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Keep the device and wait for a stable firmware, or go for a refund.

 

[bulldog147]

BTO Engineer told me last time that it always best go with BT Openreach Modem as it one of the best stable for DLM. But u can choose any wifi router that will work with openreach modem. But, I know peoples want all in one VDSL2 with wifi without openreach modem but DLM could kicked in for some reason.