QoS Draytek Firmware Uk/US

iCe-BLaZeD · 5 Oct 2009 at 01:06

Hi there, after being really disappointed and misleaded into thinking the 2710n draytek router has QoS on all models I found out my "uk" model doesnt.. so I was wondering does anyone know if its possible to flash it with a different models firmware to get the QoS features or is it a hardware change?

thanks

not being able to manage the torrent traffics priority's is causing a huge problem with pings/latency in my 6-person shared student house

wij · 5 Oct 2009 at 07:13

Not too sure how you have been "mislead".

It is quite clear on the DrayTek UK site and also on their main home page what features this router has, so if the place that supplied the router was advertising it as something else just send it back and change it for something that will do what you want, the 2820n series certainly has QoS but then they cost a lot more.

It does have an object based firewall which I am fairly sure you can use to classify and restrict P2P traffic, you could use this together with time based rules in the firewall to make sure that during the day etc. torrent traffic won't be a problem.

Or just do what most other people do and ask their house mates not to be selfish pricks and do their downloading overnight when nobody needs to use the internet for things that will get affected by the lack of bandwidth.

Did you try sending an email to DrayTek (support [at] draytek.com)? I've generally found them to be pretty helpful with any questions I have had about their kit in the past.

iCe-BLaZeD · 5 Oct 2009 at 10:45

I feel i've been mislead simply because there are many sites listing QoS as a feature and none (including draytek's website) that specifically have a note saying the UK version lacks the feature. If every model except one version of the same model has QoS as a full feature then the manufactuer at least should make that clear because shops that sell it certainly wont, and where I got it from lists it as a feature for sure.

I realise that I can probably just get it replaced but what else can I get, and its a lot of hassle returning things to online stores.

Unfortunately restricting torrent traffic isnt really an option , and I've already asked the person in question to be respectful of other peoples latencies in games but he doesnt seem to grasp what im getting at and thinks uploading at full bandwidth is no problem.

I emailed their customer support and they simply said its unfortunate that its not a feature, not offering a way around the problem or anything. So there is most probably no way of enabling the lost feature

wij · 5 Oct 2009 at 10:59

Well if it were me I'd send it back and try something else, as you can prove that what has been supplied is not as described (get a printout of their website before making your claim) they should be liable to cover all costs involved with returning the unit - maybe a little pfSense or M0n0wall appliance style box would be a good choice as a replacement, it is what I've used for the last couple of years and whilst I was in a student house found its traffic shaping features to be well beyond what you could do with most low priced routers.

Oh, distance selling law should also still cover you if you've only had it for a few days, just cover the cost of the return postage which shouldn't be more than a few quid.

As for the house mate, well if they are being uncooperative you could just limit his upstream on the basis of his IP.

Get the MAC from his PC one way or another and use the bandwidth management to restrict his IP to a certain upload speed (and download whilst your at it) this can be done on a timed basis so during the day give him enough upstream that his web browsing etc. wont be bothered unless he is thrashing torrents in which case only that one person has to suffer.

wij · 5 Oct 2009 at 11:13

A suggestion for something else to try would be the usual WRT54GL + Tomato firmware and a standalone DSL modem e.g. DrayTek's 120 or the Netgear DM111P to do the ADSL with.

You won't get the 11n wireless but G should be good enough to get reasonable bandwidth out of most DSL connections.

iCe-BLaZeD · 5 Oct 2009 at 11:13

good ideas, thanks ill look into them later off to lectures now ^^, have sent an email to the store that sold it to us and got a printscreen of the features list,
#
limiting the upstream on basis of IP is something I did look at with the bandwidth limiting submenu but it seemed to cause problems when I turned it on. Havent really had time to check it out properly though

wij · 5 Oct 2009 at 18:19

I've generally found their rate limiting implantation to be a bit flakey but with a bit of tweaking it can work well.

Downstream tends to be pretty reliable at limiting traffic, but you need to set the rate a bit higher than desired, and visa versa with the upstream I find you need to be a bit more ruthless as it tends to burst quite high initially.