Draytek? Cos I need to try something new!

keogh

keogh

keogh

Soldato
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22 Jun 2004
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Bangkok, Thailand (formally London)
Howdy all,

I'm having a right nightmare of a time trying to find a BT/ADSL router that actually works fully, so I need to try someone new, and wondering if Draytek are any good? I'm not to up on networking, and I have never heard of Draytek tbh, so hence the reason I m asking you.

So far I've had the below enjoyment:

  1. Netgear DG834N - This would constantly just drop all my ethernet connections and I could not access the internet nor anything on my network until I shut the thing down. It would do it 5 times in 1 hour sometimes. I RMA'd 5 (yes 5) of these and they all did the same.
  2. Netgear DGN2000 - This beauty had horrific wireless range, and the LAN ip setup would do all kinds of bizarre things, including lobbing my devices on the most random IP that it was unusable for me. I went thru 2 of these, same issue with both
  3. BT Home Hub v2.0 - Not a bad router from what I could tell, but it had one MAJOR flaw that made it impossible for me to use. If I would connect to a VPN connection (which I have to everyday for my work) it would drop the connection after 5 minutes of idlement. Windows/OS X would say the VPN is still connected, but I would have no connection to it, so would have to reconnect... so this router is a no no
  4. Linksys WAG160N - This is the router I am using now, this is driving me insane as if I start downloading something quite large it would randomly drop my internet connection. Then sometimes I might simply be loading a new page on a website, and BLAM the internet connection would drop. Can do it 20 times a day when its in a bad mood!

All the above I have used the latest firmware available, and the Netgear routers I have also tried the DGTeam firmwares, the problems never went away.

Also, it worth me pointing out I am using BT as my ISP.

So as you can see from above, I've not had much fun with routers so far, and I am desperate to find a router that actually works. Before all the above I use to use a Netgear DG834 (non-wireless) and I had no problems at all with this!

So I was looking at the Draytek Vigor 2710N 300Mbps Wireless-N ADSL2+ Router can you recommend this? I know OCUK don't have most of the Drayteks in stock, so I'll have to look elsewhere... but any opinions on Draytek are welcome!

Thanking you!
 
My WAG160N works fine, are you certain it's not your line causing issues?
Try connecting direct to the master socket.

You could also try putting one of your old routers in bridged mode, and having an ipcop machine to do all the heavy lifting.
 
surprised you've had so many issues

have you tried replacing all your microfilters?

Draytek are renowned for being awesome, not the nicest GUI, but they're rock solid



personally, I can't fault Linksys or Netgear, install latest firmware, do hard reset, setup router..
 
used a draytek with virgin for over 5 years, it didnt crash once. The best router I have ever had, all the features and more you could need.

Would deffo recomend a draytek
 
Draytek are THE best you can get, ignoring professional stuff like cisco's.

Superb, had a 2600 I think, maybe a 2100 before that. Only reason I can't use it now is the adsl2+ one, well it worked exactly to spec but was limited at 8mb on Bethere due to some abnormal setting they used :(

Maybe 1 crash in 6-7 years over those routers, truly superb, and best/stable options for limiting other peoples speed when needed.

if you can afford one, get it, you can't go wrong as long as theres no compatibility problems like I had.
 
Yeah it would make sense that my line is at fault I suppose, but the faults are quite different. I'll try my old dg834 for a while, if that works fine I'm deffo gonna get the 2710n as u certainly seem to recommend it!

Ta
 
to the OP, it seems you have a mixture of issues going on, first of all, the netgear, its a common issue that they overheat, where is it located and is it mounted on its feet standing up?

A common issue is power source, a bad power source will cause routers to lockup, reboot, loose their settings etc..

And already suggested, try connecting it to the BT test socket, do you have any extension sockets in the house, if so how many and do they also have a filter?

Things to check before shelling out £150 on a draytek (unless you get a used one)

Drunkenmaster you need a Draytek 2820 then, this is mine on the latest firmware

draytek2820bethere.jpg
 
I have used and specified Draytek (Vigor) modems (on regular ADSL) for years and have always found them to be absolutely fantastic, very reliable devices with good support on the few occasions that I needed it.

Having recently moved to ADSL2+ and needing to support other people who already had Netgear DG834 modems, I bought one of them - it is absolutely awful.

As others have said, if you can afford it, go for a Draytek / Vigor.

However, also as others have said, are you confident that you don't have some sort of line problem?


ps - I used various flavours of 2600 & a 2800.

One other very useful feature is that some of the Draytek / Vigor ADSL Modems will allow you to onnect and share a printer connected via a USB port.
 
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Highly likely your line is at fault here, bin errors won't cause problems until you try to use bandwidth in the errored bins, this may cause instability and cause the line to drop, if you don't game or don't care about ping, get your ISP to turn on interleaving.
 
But surelly if my old DG834 runs flawlessly, then it can't be the line can it? I've got my old DG834 (wired) in now and I'm using that, I want to keep that running for a week or so and see how it compares to the other modems... then if this doesn't go down hardly at all then surely it would be the modems/routers at fault right?

Also, I don't just lose internet, sometimes it might just be internet, but most of the time (especially the Netgear) I would lose all my network, I couldn't access the netgear admin area, nor could I access any of my servers on the network... however, the wireless connection would still work on there.

I'll see how the DG834 goes, and if it stays up I'll prob get a Vigor anyway, as they sound like a popular choice here!

Thanks so far guys!
 
Sometimes routers crash just because of the huge amount of error correction it's having to do.
 
keogh said:
But surelly if my old DG834 runs flawlessly, then it can't be the line can it? I've got my old DG834 (wired) in now and I'm using that, I want to keep that running for a week or so and see how it compares to the other modems... then if this doesn't go down hardly at all then surely it would be the modems/routers at fault right?

Also, I don't just lose internet, sometimes it might just be internet, but most of the time (especially the Netgear) I would lose all my network, I couldn't access the netgear admin area, nor could I access any of my servers on the network... however, the wireless connection would still work on there.

I'll see how the DG834 goes, and if it stays up I'll prob get a Vigor anyway, as they sound like a popular choice here!

Thanks so far guys!
Click to expand...

May be the different chipset allows for a more stable connection on a poorer line than the other models in the Netgear range and different the brands. There's that DMT tool some of the Netgears support to allow you to alter settings to improve line stability.

As for the losing LAN connection while internet is not affected, I have that issue with a DG834Gv2 that drops LAN for a minute or two while wireless still works. So I bought a second hand Sky DG834GT to unlock that worked fine except it will fail to accept wired and wireless connection if you keep shutting down the connected computers and leaving router on - although it could be a duff unit as second hand, and it certainly runs hotter.

If you can afford to not use the internet for a day, BT support department should provide settings to connect to a test page that you enter into router. You can't browse the internet at all. So using the BT Home Hub 2 router leave that on for a day so BT can monitor connection before they deem it worthy to send someone out to inspect the line.

Will be interesting to know if the Draytek does remedy your situation though.
 
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