Anyone Using an Asus DSL-AC68U

[Avalon]

Thanks both. I'll leave everything as it is for now, fingers cross it stays stable at 8Mbps.

Another question though, previously I've switched on QoS features including apps analysis, network monitor and also firewall features. These are all left off by default for now. Will turning these on affect stability (i.e cause disconnects?)

Are you on a mission to destroy your line profile? You've said you're regularly rebooting despite knowing you're in the line training period and being repeatedly advised not to, even after that you've had another go and now swapped over to a modem/router with numerous documented issues that can cause your profile to lower. This is page 100 of the thread, it's only *just* starting to show signs it may improve since 2014.

 

[michty_me]

Thanks both. I'll leave everything as it is for now, fingers cross it stays stable at 8Mbps.

Another question though, previously I've switched on QoS features including apps analysis, network monitor and also firewall features. These are all left off by default for now. Will turning these on affect stability (i.e cause disconnects?)

QoS won't affect the modem side i THINK. Just leave it be for now to allow some stability on your line for a while. Constant fiddling will leave you with something that will resemble dial up.

The Asus device certainly favours short clean lines. With both tested at 12 days, The asus racked up 1,500 CRC (Which is good now for this device) and 5,188,102 FEC. With a Broadcom based device on my line I have 3 CRC errors, 3 ES and 964,086 FEC's. Broadcom just seems to be favoured by my line. I would prefer a device with the functionality of the Asus though.

My FEC's have nearly doubled so I think I'm picking up noise from somewhere. Possibly more people being enabled on my cab.

 

[jonny8888]

Are you on a mission to destroy your line profile? You've said you're regularly rebooting despite knowing you're in the line training period and being repeatedly advised not to, even after that you've had another go and now swapped over to a modem/router with numerous documented issues that can cause your profile to lower. This is page 100 of the thread, it's only *just* starting to show signs it may improve since 2014.

I've only rebooted once since swapping the ASUS over and will avoid future reboots. As I've said I keep getting disconnections on HH4 so just trying ASUS to see if it's better.

At the moment it seems more stable compared to HH4 but time will tell.

On cabinet DLM will it go both ways (i.e increase speed if line is stable) or does it just reduce and cap speeds after detecting potential issues?

 

[Elevon]

I've only rebooted once since swapping the ASUS over and will avoid future reboots. As I've said I keep getting disconnections on HH4 so just trying ASUS to see if it's better.

At the moment it seems more stable compared to HH4 but time will tell.

On cabinet DLM will it go both ways (i.e increase speed if line is stable) or does it just reduce and cap speeds after detecting potential issues?

It'll will give you the fastest stable speed so can go up or down depending on your line, but that takes time with new line/ISP, so that's why to avoid rebooting since it'll take longer for it to normalise again for maximum performance and line stability.

Plusnet have info on DLM here, https://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,129100.msg1122855.html and here


http://community.plus.net/library/browsing/fttc-dlm-what-it-is-how-it-works/


Probably most important thing to remember is this tip from Plusnet(same for any ISP),

2. Leave your router switched on

Leaving your router on will make sure you get the best speed and performance from your service.

Don't switch it off at night! Regularly switching off your router can make it look like your service is disconnecting. If this happens, your broadband speed will be reduced because the exchange thinks your line is unstable and can't cope with higher speeds. Speed reductions are never permanent, but it can take up to 3 days before your speeds return to normal.

http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/speed_tips.shtml#router

 

[jonny8888]

Thanks. I will leave it as it is.
Just had my first disconnection and when reconnected I get same speed as on HH4. Perhaps 5Mb is the speed that I should be expecting to get...
Probably more connections active on my cabinet and speeds reduced?

 

[michty_me]

It's hard to tell really. You need to post detailed stats. Could be wiring in the house, a faulty line. Anything. Leave it as is and see if it reduces further.

At least it seems not to be Asus related as its happening with the HH4.

 

[RedBull2k]

on adsl the best time to connect is the evening at peak time but at a lower sync, compared to connecting in the morning, if you connect in morning you will get a higher sync but it will disconnect later on in the evening and sync lower.

 

[jonny8888]

It's hard to tell really. You need to post detailed stats. Could be wiring in the house, a faulty line. Anything. Leave it as is and see if it reduces further.

At least it seems not to be Asus related as its happening with the HH4.

Yes, definitely leaving it alone for now. Suppose on the bright side my upload speed was higher than before...

on adsl the best time to connect is the evening at peak time but at a lower sync, compared to connecting in the morning, if you connect in morning you will get a higher sync but it will disconnect later on in the evening and sync lower.

That makes sense as my previous reboots were early in the morning.

 

[Avalon]

What was the speed range estimate when you placed the order? I've normally attained at least the average of the max and min figures quoted and usually towards the top end of the maximum, sometimes that's taken a bit of work from replacing face plates/removing extensions, to using decent filters or choosing the best hardware for the line. Personally I choose to use an older BTO modem, not only does it give stats if required, but it also doesn't drop the connection and potentially have DLM kick in if I want to mess with the router.

 

[jonny8888]

What was the speed range estimate when you placed the order? I've normally attained at least the average of the max and min figures quoted and usually towards the top end of the maximum, sometimes that's taken a bit of work from replacing face plates/removing extensions, to using decent filters or choosing the best hardware for the line. Personally I choose to use an older BTO modem, not only does it give stats if required, but it also doesn't drop the connection and potentially have DLM kick in if I want to mess with the router.

The recent speed range estimate on BT website is saying 5.5Mb which is the speed I sync at mostly although I can only get around 4.8Mb in Speedtest. According to some calculators with my line attenuation and 6db SNR I should be getting around 6Mb+ which was the speeds I was getting up until 2 months back.

I've honestly give up now will just let it be. A bit disappointed but guess until I move to a house with better broadband or by miracle my cabinet gets fibre I'll just have to live with it.

 

[Elevon]

Update:Finally moved my Asus DSL-AC68U from phone extension socket upstairs to the master socket downstairs.

I also fitted a BT mk3 VDSL face plate adaptor so no longer need my ADSL microfilters, speed is up a little and stability seems fine as usual but will be monitoring it over the next few weeks, don't expect any issues however.

I'm two floors up and the wifi signal is full bar so excellent range even on my cheap USB wireless N adaptor.

I'm thinking of getting a PCI-E AC wireless adaptor soon, just got to decide on model up to 100 quid to go with the DSL-AC68 and Win10.

 

[plaistowpaul]

Update:Finally moved my Asus DSL-AC68U from phone extension socket upstairs to the master socket downstairs.

I also fitted a BT mk3 VDSL face plate adaptor so no longer need my ADSL microfilters, speed is up a little and stability seems fine as usual but will be monitoring it over the next few weeks, don't expect any issues however.

I'm two floors up and the wifi signal is full bar so excellent range even on my cheap USB wireless N adaptor.

I'm thinking of getting a PCI-E AC wireless adaptor soon, just got to decide on model up to 100 quid to go with the DSL-AC68 and Win10.

Desktop or laptop? If its a laptop I've been using the Intel AC7620 for a good while (with the DSLA-AC68U and then with the RT-AC87U) - works great with both. Its under £22 at Amazon

 

[michty_me]

I'm thinking of getting a PCI-E AC wireless adaptor soon, just got to decide on model up to 100 quid to go with the DSL-AC68 and Win10.

I ended up getting the Asus PCE-AC68 mainly because it was on offer last year for £55 delivered. It has been a great bit of kit.

 

[Elevon]

I ended up getting the Asus PCE-AC68 mainly because it was on offer last year for £55 delivered. It has been a great bit of kit.

I was thinking of that one, would go well with the Asus DSL-AC68.

 

[Elevon]

Desktop or laptop? If its a laptop I've been using the Intel AC7620 for a good while (with the DSLA-AC68U and then with the RT-AC87U) - works great with both. Its under £22 at Amazon

Desktop gaming PC, 2500k OC to 4.4Ghz, old ASUS Z68 V-Gen3 board but has been solid and not let me down so far( probably upgrade end of this year, curse of being a gamer lol having to upgrade all the time).

I do have a laptop, but will use the internal Intel wireless for that one.

 

[Elevon]

I ordered the Asus PCE AC68 for £64.95 free delivery so fair price.

Side Note : My CRC errors have dropped a lot from the phone extension to master socket, getting about 3500 CRC errors downstream over two days(still solid connection since I fitted the VDSL BT MK3 plate), Asus on the phone extension for same period of time the CRC downstream errors were around 135407, so massive drop to 3500, on master socket CRC errors upstream it's only 53.

My phone line has always had some noise on every modem I had ie Ralink,Broadcom etc ..even when BT change the external line did not make much difference, guess should be happy with solid stable connection .

 

[Elevon]

I had fun not installing my Asus PCE-AC68 card, to be fair user error by me.

I installed latest drivers from Asus website and had no issues until I tried to connect to my modem/router network, kept stating incorrect key details, I checked it various times and did a few reboots and kept trying ,even turned modem/router off for 20 seconds but still had same issue.

You are going to laugh when I tell you the problem, well I checked my wireless key in the Asus DSL-AC68U GUI and it was correct for 2.4GHz, however the 5GHz had same key in full caps lol, so I corrected it to lower caps and my PCE-AC68 worked right away.

It switches now between 5GHz and 2.4Ghz depending on the signal, I can't complain because 2.4GHz shows full signal two floors up,5GHz comes on now and then.
I'm only on ADSL so AC is a bit overkill at the moment just like 5GHz, but handy for the future.

I'm still laughing now about my previous error but hey only human lol.

Anyway impressed with the PCE-AC68 wireless adaptor now I've got it working .

 

[michty_me]

I had fun not installing my Asus PCE-AC68 card, to be fair user error by me.

I installed latest drivers from Asus website and had no issues until I tried to connect to my modem/router network, kept stating incorrect key details, I checked it various times and did a few reboots and kept trying ,even turned modem/router off for 20 seconds but still had same issue.

You are going to laugh when I tell you the problem, well I checked my wireless key in the Asus DSL-AC68U GUI and it was correct for 2.4GHz, however the 5GHz had same key in full caps lol, so I corrected it to lower caps and my PCE-AC68 worked right away.

It switches now between 5GHz and 2.4Ghz depending on the signal, I can't complain because 2.4GHz shows full signal two floors up,5GHz comes on now and then.
I'm only on ADSL so AC is a bit overkill at the moment just like 5GHz, but handy for the future.

I'm still laughing now about my previous error but hey only human lol.

Anyway impressed with the PCE-AC68 wireless adaptor now I've got it working .

Pretty sure I done something similar to be honest. I couldn't get it to connect anyway. Think I even downgraded the firmware for some other reason. Think I should check for an update now you mentioned it.

 

[Elevon]

Pretty sure I done something similar to be honest. I couldn't get it to connect anyway. Think I even downgraded the firmware for some other reason. Think I should check for an update now you mentioned it.

I download the EU one, think it was right one, ASUS PCE-AC68 Utility 2.1.1.5
It is only for EU sku.

Mine is on 5Ghz now all the time, seems to have stabilised on that bandwidth .

 

[Elevon]

Bad news my cat jumped on the router table and knocked it over, it's within 28 days so will return it tomorrow, also I did notice in the logs earlier it decided to reboot during the night like this with "ethernet link down", https://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20160130040951051&board_id=11&model=DSL-AC68U&page=1&SLanguage=en-us , maybe firmware bug or hardware issue?... Regardless cat did me a favour so I'll see how good the TP Link VR900 is tomorrow when it arrives.

I've some velcro tape so will stick that to the base of VR900 to make it cat secure.