Anyone Using an Asus DSL-AC68U

andyfitter2 · 10 Mar 2015 at 08:27

sumowesley said:
Hi Jim,

Thank you for coming back to us. I have a few questions:

How long does the device need to run to provide useful data? You know that there are line penalties for running this device over extended periods of time so I want to know what a minimum usable time period would be.

What version of firmware should we be running to provide the best possible information to you?

What are the best settings to provide the stats submission you need? What needs to be changed?

Good questions. I've switched back to the Asus modem so am keen to hear what exactly is required.

Jim99 · 10 Mar 2015 at 09:06

sumowesley said:
Hi Jim,

Thank you for coming back to us. I have a few questions:

How long does the device need to run to provide useful data? You know that there are line penalties for running this device over extended periods of time so I want to know what a minimum usable time period would be.

What version of firmware should we be running to provide the best possible information to you?

What are the best settings to provide the stats submission you need? What needs to be changed?

It does strike me that you must surely need some form of baseline with which to compare data received from people who are having issues. Would data from working lines be useful?

The other point is one of getting the right number of samples. Many people must have submitted data through the device already as it prompts you to do so when line problems are encountered. Email addresses are requested as part of that submission. Perhaps emailing those users would provide access to a much larger pool of users than just those of us on this forum?

If you're seeing the symptoms of your particular problems - i.e. interleaving starting to kick in, etc, that should be fine. I don't think there's a minimum time as such, but obviously if it's working perfectly for the first hour and you send in that log I imagine that won't achieve much.

It will need to be the latest firmware as they've been introducing fixes where issues have been identified, so if you're not on the latest it could be an already fixed issue that's causing the problem.

And default settings are probably the best approach as far as the modem goes, especially if you've tried some unusual settings in an attempt to remedy the problems seen. In terms of the router you can use whatever you're comfortable with, as that shouldn't affect it.

In terms of working lines, I think that will just confuse matters at the moment as the team are expecting to see reports of faults and would likely treat a baseline report as a fault report. Contacting further users may be something the technical team decide to do at some point, but for the moment my focus is on helping the people at OCUK that are encountering issues.

andyfitter2 said:
I've temporarily switched back to that Asus modem to give Jim some stats. DLM seemed to recover in a few days when I switched to the Openreach modem, so I'm happy to give the Asus another try, at least for a few days anyway knowing that if/when I have to disconnect it again then I wont have to wait too long.

Thanks Andy, I appreciate the help. Make sure to send through your report when and if you encounter any issues, and keep me posted on what happens.

freebil · 10 Mar 2015 at 10:05

Jim - ASUS, one off-topic question. Can I setup dsl-ac68u with rt-ac68u or other custom firmware and handle it as router only? Is it possible?

Evil Shubunkin · 10 Mar 2015 at 10:11

freebil said:
Jim - ASUS, one off-topic question. Can I setup dsl-ac68u with rt-ac68u or other custom firmware and handle it as router only? Is it possible?

Merlin's firmware does not support the DSL-AC68U, he has stated that on smallnetbuilder forums.

As for the original RT firmwares, doubt it would apply if it checks the model numbers correctly before flashing the firmware. You'd probably end up with a bricked unit.

freebil · 10 Mar 2015 at 10:20

Yes, merlin does not support it because it is modem router and he only support routers. For someone who does not care about modem functionality, it would be interesting if he can setup it with custom firmware for only router capabilities.

andyfitter2 · 10 Mar 2015 at 10:46

Jim - ASUS said:
Thanks Andy, I appreciate the help. Make sure to send through your report when and if you encounter any issues, and keep me posted on what happens.

Hi Jim,

I submitted a set of baseline figures having had the Asus plugged in for 12 hours - With no DLM applied as my line has recovered (As mentioned before)

I received a response from Paul Lee saying that if I was concerned about DLM kicking in I should set the modem to 9dB and to 'stable' even though no other modem has needed this.

I presume it would make more sense to leave it exactly as is, on default settings, as if I apply the settings he has suggested all I'll achieve is losing a bunch of up/down speed, which is what DLM would do anyway? The default settings should then give you feedback, on how it ought to be performing, not with the ultra conservative settings he suggested?

Andy

sumowesley · 10 Mar 2015 at 12:25

So I applied firmware 2187 and did a factory reset on the device.

The quick setup mechanism did not detect a DSL cable and just sat there. I went back to the main settings and added the line manually. Once that had been done, the quick setup works to I was prompted for my provider etc.

Once all was stable I resolved to record the stats at 20 minute intervals:
20 mins - 7 CRC down, 0 up
40 mins - 11 CRC down, 3 up
59 mins - 13 CRC down, 5 up (based on a quick glance, alarm had not gone off at this stage)
60 mins - 15,000 CRC down and the device had just reset the DSL line.

Sorry Jim, but the hit on the line is likely to be severe overnight and I have no wish to connect it again to make the submission. The last time I connected for two hours and had 2k/3k CRC errors showing and I lost 10Mb/s of speed. If you want to tell me the files you want from the device I will connect to it and copy them off so I can email them somewhere.

cuke2u · 10 Mar 2015 at 12:46

andyfitter2 said:
I've temporarily switched back to that Asus modem to give Jim some stats. DLM seemed to recover in a few days when I switched to the Openreach modem, so I'm happy to give the Asus another try, at least for a few days anyway knowing that if/when I have to disconnect it again then I wont have to wait too long.

Not going to risk it, for now I am happy with my stable and fastpath connection...

spoonbard · 10 Mar 2015 at 19:01

Welp, my line has been up for about 6 days now with no dropouts, but it's still on Interleaved. I'm achieving speeds of around 38 up (out of 40) and 7 down (out of 10).

At this point I'm inclined to just leave it on - it's not impeding my regular internet use in any way, and although I'm not on FastPath, I seem to be getting respectable enough speeds.

I tried submitting a log to ASUS, and got a reply basically saying that if there aren't any recorded dropouts, there's nothing wrong for them to analyze.

ViRuS2k · 11 Mar 2015 at 10:44

Jim Asus :

Can you speak to the correct people and also get a fix time on when VPN will be fixed within the router.

no one can use VPN client mode on the router with VYPRVPN server / username/ password
its annoying as hell, and was one feature i wanted to work with this router.
can you please fix this.....

2 of the modes wont work either be it L2TP or OPENVPN or none of them work , though PPTP works but it is the most unsecure mode they must have fixed PPTP in the previous firmwares or the latest one, but the other 2 do not work yet...

so the fix needs to be done by asus instead.

PLEASE FIX THIS.

cuke2u · 11 Mar 2015 at 10:53

spoonbard said:
Welp, my line has been up for about 6 days now with no dropouts, but it's still on Interleaved. I'm achieving speeds of around 38 up (out of 40) and 7 down (out of 10).

At this point I'm inclined to just leave it on - it's not impeding my regular internet use in any way, and although I'm not on FastPath, I seem to be getting respectable enough speeds.

I tried submitting a log to ASUS, and got a reply basically saying that if there aren't any recorded dropouts, there's nothing wrong for them to analyze.

What are your pings to www.bbc.co.uk like and where are you getting your up/download figures from? Just take into account this modem's stats don't reflect what's happening in reality.

spoonbard · 11 Mar 2015 at 13:45

chriscatt said:
What are your pings to www.bbc.co.uk like and where are you getting your up/download figures from? Just take into account this modem's stats don't reflect what's happening in reality.

I used speedtest.net (tried again just now).

From inside my Zen account management area, I get the following data:
upstream = 9246
downstream = 38717 (as of 7th March)
Those are very close to the max speeds that Zen estimated I could get on my line when I switched ISPs a few months ago (confirmed with BT).

I just tried pinging the BBC using http://who.is/tools/ping/bbc.co.uk

64 bytes from fmt-vip132.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk (212.58.246.103): icmp_seq=1 ttl=53 time=81.2 ms

Also noticed that my connection dropped out again last night. Paul @ ASUS wants me to capture a dropout using the DSL logs that you can submit, but how on earth can I do that if you can only start them running AFTER you notice a dropout? I could just keep submitting till I capture one by sheer luck I guess!

Binx · 11 Mar 2015 at 14:02

Jim - ASUS said:
Yes, I understand that Andy - it was a point I anticipated and made myself to the technical team but they've said there's very little they can do without further data. I do appreciate their point as well, because we have many people using it with Infinity without issue, but then also all of the people like yourself who are having issues, so without knowing exactly what's causing it, it's difficult to introduce improvements.

Hi Jim. Are you saying that it does work on Infinity, or are there people who just haven't noticed that there are problems?

I'm asking because I want to buy one - and for once I actually have done some research and found these problems with it.

I think I'll just keep watching this thread to see if the problems get resolved before buying one...

John40 · 11 Mar 2015 at 15:16

Binx said:
Hi Jim. Are you saying that it does work on Infinity, or are there people who just haven't noticed that there are problems?

I'm asking because I want to buy one - and for once I actually have done some research and found these problems with it.

I think I'll just keep watching this thread to see if the problems get resolved before buying one...

Don't buy one, I did and regretted it ever since.

Ixel · 11 Mar 2015 at 15:57

What would probably be more useful would be if a debug log was constantly running and capturing the last 12-24 hours of data, then submits to the team automatically if a loss of sync occurs or if a significant spike of CRC errors/error seconds/SES occurs (once sync is restored). I've done various debug tests some time ago, I've even offered to help by overriding the downstream DSLAM max sync rate, INP and delay via TC so as to simulate conditions I'd have stable on other modems I've used on my line - no luck however. The DSL-AC68U works fine on a heavily error corrected and banded line such as mine currently is, but obviously isn't acceptable considering plenty of other alternative products seem to be fine on my line when I had used them.

cuke2u · 11 Mar 2015 at 17:16

Why don't asus either setup a test in the uk with their modem or request a user who has issues be used as a test for some return in kind?

spoonbard · 11 Mar 2015 at 17:22

Binx said:
Hi Jim. Are you saying that it does work on Infinity, or are there people who just haven't noticed that there are problems? I'm asking because I want to buy one - and for once I actually have done some research and found these problems with it.

Weirdly enough, if I'd bought one and never read this forum thread I wouldn't have known anything was wrong.

To sum up the "problems" I'm having, I'm getting ~90% of advertised speed, and the modem will randomly reset itself every 1-3 days.

The dropouts usually happen while I'm in bed or at work, so I don't notice (unless I look for them on the logs).

The speed is enough that again, I don't notice on a day to day basis unless I actually perform tests.

So whether it'll work for you boils down to exactly how many dropouts you get and how much speed you loose, which can vary quite drastically from user to user based on this forum.

It would be useful to have more data from a wider range of users (which seems to be what ASUS is lacking too) - maybe most people using this device with a VDSL connection get put on interleaved and stay there, but once they're there it's stable and fast enough that they can't tell the difference if they don't know to look?

cuke2u · 11 Mar 2015 at 17:23

spoonbard said:
I used speedtest.net (tried again just now).

From inside my Zen account management area, I get the following data:
upstream = 9246
downstream = 38717 (as of 7th March)
Those are very close to the max speeds that Zen estimated I could get on my line when I switched ISPs a few months ago (confirmed with BT).

I just tried pinging the BBC using http://who.is/tools/ping/bbc.co.uk

64 bytes from fmt-vip132.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk (212.58.246.103): icmp_seq=1 ttl=53 time=81.2 ms

Also noticed that my connection dropped out again last night. Paul @ ASUS wants me to capture a dropout using the DSL logs that you can submit, but how on earth can I do that if you can only start them running AFTER you notice a dropout? I could just keep submitting till I capture one by sheer luck I guess!

Ping through the command prompt, and I am not sure how accurate speedtest really is when it was telling me my ping was 10ms when it was nearer 24. But if your pings were actually as high as 81.2ms you'd be on a high interleave. If your connection is dropping then you've the same issues as anyone else.

Randell Floyd · 11 Mar 2015 at 19:30

spoonbard said:
Weirdly enough, if I'd bought one and never read this forum thread I wouldn't have known anything was wrong.

To sum up the "problems" I'm having, I'm getting ~90% of advertised speed, and the modem will randomly reset itself every 1-3 days.

The dropouts usually happen while I'm in bed or at work, so I don't notice (unless I look for them on the logs).

The speed is enough that again, I don't notice on a day to day basis unless I actually perform tests.

So whether it'll work for you boils down to exactly how many dropouts you get and how much speed you loose, which can vary quite drastically from user to user based on this forum.

It would be useful to have more data from a wider range of users (which seems to be what ASUS is lacking too) - maybe most people using this device with a VDSL connection get put on interleaved and stay there, but once they're there it's stable and fast enough that they can't tell the difference if they don't know to look?

To be honest, that doesn't sound like an Asus issue, that just sounds like DLM doing it's thing.

Normal DLM reset is early morning 2am-4am.

cuke2u · 11 Mar 2015 at 19:32

I did my tracert again today:
Tracing route to www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.246.93]
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 13 ms 13 ms 15 ms ip-84-38-37-34.easynet.co.uk [84.38.37.34]
4 11 ms 9 ms 9 ms ntl-ge2-9.prt0.rbsov.bbc.co.uk [212.58.238.189]

5 * * * Request timed out.
6 13 ms 16 ms 13 ms ae0.er01.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.93]
7 11 ms 11 ms 12 ms 132.185.255.165
8 12 ms 9 ms 9 ms bbc-vip014.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.93]

Trace complete.
Far lower now than anything the Asus managed because it had me interleaved all of the time so I reckon I am definitely on fastpath now...