Alternatives to Draytek 2860

Hi guys,

With my continuing saga, some of it may be done to the current Draytek modem/router in use.

Without going into a long winded reason, it appears the Draytek is causing a lot of resyncs by itself, and also logging a lot of errors that just are not seen on the line (according to the engineers test equipment), which it is seeing as a problem and dropping my speeds. It's almost like its performing DLM by itself, which may be a good thing as i guess this would prevent the real DLM intervening if there were problems.

He plugged his meter into the phone socket, whilst i had my laptop plugged into the Draytek.

His tester read 0 ES, and yet the Draytek was pulling in 10+ immediately after connecting.

So, i thought i would maybe try an alternative to see if it is the Draytek.

I have an HG612, and after plugging that in, i get a much lower sync, and with the phone plugged in, i get no CRC errors, but an awful lot of FECS and HEC errors. (Draytek showed a fair amount of FECS but 0 HEC??).

I am considering asking my ISP if they can speak to Openreach about changing me from the ECI cabi am currently on, to a Huawei that is a couple of meters next door to it.

Anyhoo, can anyone recommend a modem or modem/router that can be bridged and that will not be so keen to keep logging errors?

Thanks

I've had good results on an ECI cab with both a Draytek 2850 and a Netgear D7000. The D7000 can be used in modem only mode. It might be worth trying the Netgear modem - DM200, which is Openreach MCT approved.

Edited by caffn8me (Fri 08-Mar-19 23:58:36)

I've had better results with using a DrayTek instead of a HG612 or Broadcom chipset (connected to an ECI DSLAM, sadly). I'm using a 2860Vac and 2862 with no problems (bonded lines), also making sure that they are running reasonably up to date firmware.

Not all lines tend to have the same experience when it comes to using various modems.

Edited by Ixel (Sat 09-Mar-19 10:32:02)

Thanks guys.

After doing a bit more hunting around, it seems it may be the _BT firmware that can sometimes cause issues on ECI cabs.

Not convinced, but i have downloaded the 'standard' non _BT version and will give it a try tomorrow.

Edited by Alucidnation (Sun 10-Mar-19 23:32:10)

Well a bit of an update.

Threw caution to the wind and after reading some positive reviews, i grabbed a Zyxel VMG1312 B10A and plugged that in.

I know each case is different, however, still getting errors, albeit at a lightly less amount and a couple of different types.

Quick copy & paste..

Total time = 4 hours 51 min 52 sec
FEC: 0 2
CRC: 7183 0
ES: 83 0
SES: 15 0
UAS: 393 378
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 11 0
LOM: 13 0

On the Draytek, many 10's of thousands of FEC errors up and down, but no LOF or LOM or SES (from memory).

However, DS CRC on the Zyxel are quite a bit more along with the others.

Is this due to being a different chipset?

Also 'since link time'.

Is this time from when the dsl connection was made?

System time is showing nearly 5 hours and i havent rebooted.

Having said that, i did see a retrain reason of 4 when i went in via CLI.

Would that be something to do with the lower link time?

What is reason 4?

Edited by Alucidnation (Wed 13-Mar-19 15:31:16)

FEC errors are generally nothing to worry about, as they aren't service impacting. However, it may be an indicator of an underlying fault on the line. I was at an address quite a bit of time ago where I had odd results between Broadcom and Lantiq. Broadcom would shoot up in CRC errors constantly while DrayTek (Lantiq) handled it fine. The underlying fault was never fully resolved but was possibly blamed on old underground cables.

The Lantiq chipset might be better at handling errors in your case, making them FEC errors more than CRC errors. If you're on fastpath, Lantiq wil also apply FEC (R: 16) on the downstream where Broadcom won't. This is a low level form of error correction with a possible minor impact on sync rate but won't affect latency. How much it can effect sync rate depends on the distance and quality of the line itself. It doesn't surprise me that the Broadcom has SES, LOM and LOS.

At my old address, I had an odd experience too. The engineer's tester modem indicated no problems where my Broadcom device did. However, when he plugged into the master socket via the port instead of via the attaching crocodile cables from his tester to the pair of wires for the line his tester then showed a similar number of errors. Credit to him he tried his best and spent two days pretty much finding the best pairs along the route and also tried changing filters (which I did). He improved the line but the underlying problem remained in some form. Thankfully I no longer live there.

Edited by Ixel (Wed 13-Mar-19 15:41:43)

Must admit, Im not surprised.

I guess the old Openreach network is slowing starting to fall apart!

Any, complete stats..

VDSL Port Details Upstream Downstream
Line Rate: 15.677 Mbps 60.340 Mbps
Actual Net Data Rate: 15.654 Mbps 60.246 Mbps
Trellis Coding: ON ON
SNR Margin: 6.0 dB 6.3 dB
Actual Delay: 0 ms 0 ms
Transmit Power: 6.8 dBm 6.9 dBm
Receive Power: -6.4 dBm -8.3 dBm
Actual INP: 0.0 symbols 0.0 symbols
Total Attenuation: 0.0 dB 18.5 dB
Attainable Net Data Rate: 15.680 Mbps 60.341 Mbps
====================================================================================
VDSL Band Status U0 U1 U2 U3 U4 D1 D2 D3
Line Attenuation(dB): 1.9 26.5 43.7 N/A N/A 13.2 34.8 55.5
Signal Attenuation(dB): 1.9 26.3 43.6 N/A N/A 18.4 34.5 55.6
SNR Margin(dB): 6.0 6.1 6.0 N/A N/A 6.3 6.2 6.2
TX Power(dBm): -4.6 -19.0 6.5 N/A N/A 10.0 7.3 7.4
====================================================================================

VDSL Counters

Downstream Upstream
Since Link time = 9 min 29 sec
FEC: 0 2
CRC: 81 0
ES: 69 0
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Latest 15 minutes time = 3 min 26 sec
FEC: 0 0
CRC: 0 0
ES: 0 0
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Previous 15 minutes time = 15 min 0 sec
FEC: 0 0
CRC: 2 0
ES: 1 0
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Latest 1 day time = 5 hours 18 min 26 sec
FEC: 0 2
CRC: 7185 0
ES: 84 0
SES: 15 0
UAS: 393 378
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 11 0
LOM: 13 0
Previous 1 day time = 0 sec
FEC: 0 0
CRC: 0 0
ES: 0 0
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Total time = 5 hours 18 min 26 sec
FEC: 0 2
CRC: 7185 0
ES: 84 0
SES: 15 0
UAS: 393 378
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 11 0
LOM: 13 0

Hmmm, just gone into CLI (messing about really), and noticed in there that the since link time is different from the GUI log...

xdslctl: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: Showtime
Last Retrain Reason: 4
Last initialization procedure status: 0
Max: Upstream rate = 15673 Kbps, Downstream rate = 60310 Kbps
Bearer: 0, Upstream rate = 15654 Kbps, Downstream rate = 60246 Kbps

Link Power State: L0
Mode: VDSL2 Annex B
VDSL2 Profile: Profile 17a
TPS-TC: PTM Mode(0x0)
Trellis: U:ON /D:ON
Line Status: No Defect
Training Status: Showtime
Down Up
SNR (dB): 6.3 6.0
Attn(dB): 18.5 0.0
Pwr(dBm): 6.9 6.8

VDSL2 framing
Bearer 0
MSGc: 18 14
B: 239 238
M: 1 1
T: 64 57
R: 0 16
S: 0.1268 0.4859
L: 15144 4198
D: 1 1
I: 240 255
N: 240 255

Counters
Bearer 0
OHF: 9702668 431180
OHFErr: 82 0
RS: 0 3745536
RSCorr: 0 2
RSUnCorr: 0 0

Bearer 0
HEC: 98 0
OCD: 7 0
LCD: 7 0
Total Cells: 2289232223 0
Data Cells: 27031544 0
Drop Cells: 0
Bit Errors: 0 0

ES: 85 0
SES: 15 0
UAS: 393 378
AS: 19762

Bearer 0
INP: 0.00 0.00
INPRein: 0.00 0.00
delay: 0 0
PER: 2.03 6.95
OR: 94.28 23.01
AgR: 60340.29 15677.14

Bitswap: 179/180 5/5

Total time = 5 hours 38 min 18 sec
FEC: 0 2
CRC: 7186 0
ES: 85 0
SES: 15 0
UAS: 393 378
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 11 0
LOM: 13 0
Latest 15 minutes time = 8 min 18 sec
FEC: 0 0
CRC: 0 0
ES: 0 0
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Previous 15 minutes time = 15 min 0 sec
FEC: 0 0
CRC: 1 0
ES: 1 0
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Latest 1 day time = 5 hours 38 min 18 sec
FEC: 0 2
CRC: 7186 0
ES: 85 0
SES: 15 0
UAS: 393 378
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 11 0
LOM: 13 0
Previous 1 day time = 0 sec
FEC: 0 0
CRC: 0 0
ES: 0 0
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Since Link time = 5 hours 29 min 21 sec
FEC: 0 2
CRC: 82 0
ES: 70 0
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
NTR: mipsCntAtNtr=0 ncoCntAtNtr=0

Hi guys,

Running DSL stats at the moment, and i noticed a 'blip' on my connection graph at around 5pm.

Would this contribute to errors on the line?

https://thumbsnap.com/kSdTRNZU

Also, my crc error count is somewhat 'substantial' i think?

https://thumbsnap.com/Esct0QPz

Thanks

Can you post the SNRM graph from the same time.
That's a huge drop in the attainable on the graph but it has gone back to normal now.

DLM counts ES, not CRC's.
Both are low for a line running fastpath.
DLM allows up to 2880 or 1440 ES (depending on the DLM profile your ISP uses) per 24 hours of uptime before taking action to stabilise the line (interleaving). You're well short of that.