Hugely frustrated with Draytek Vigor 120 & Airport Express

Hello,

I'm still using an old Linksys wireless modem/router but it's getting temperamental and seems to need rebooting more and more often. I thought i'd replace it with a Draytek Vigor 120 as ADSL modem and an Apple Airport Express (2nd Gen) as wireless router. However I'm having a bit of a nightmare with the new kit and hope someone here can point me in the right direction.

Connecting the Draytek to the ADSL line and powering up gives all the right lights but when I then connect the Express it usually claims it has no internet connection and can find no PPPoE server. My ISP username and password are set in the PPPoE section ("Internet") of the Airport Express' settings though. Sometimes it will connect to the net briefly but it's flakey and drops out after a minute or two. The few times i've managed to get to speedtest.net and run a test it is averaging about 0.6mbps download. If I connect a laptop directly into the Draytek via ethernet and make a PPPoE connection it is a little more stable and I can achieve downloads of around 6mbps, but this is still someway off the speeds my old Linksys box manages (usually 10-12mbps).

I've read a couple of things on the Draytek site (http://www.draytek.co.uk/archive/kb_vigor100_setup.html and http://www.draytek.co.uk/archive/kb/kb_vigor120_Airp... but they basically tell you that nothing needs to be done to the Vigor 120 when using with a normal ADSL connection. I chose the Draytek because I found lots of people online saying it worked well with their Airport kit. So i'm now wondering what i've got wrong...?

I've tried disabling the DHCP that the Draytek has in case that was causing a problem but it appears to make no difference either way.

The Express seems to work fine in all other modes i've tried (extending existing wifi network, etc).

Does anyone here have a similar setup? Any thoughts on what I can try? I'm guessing there is a setting in the Airport Express that needs altering but I don't know what. I was fairly confident with home networking stuff before I started with this 2 days ago but now i realise I don't know very much at all. All this PPPoE and PPPoA and NATs and Bridges and DHCP Relay stuff that I don't fully understand is hurting my head!

I'm also confused as to why the Draytek modem can only seem to manage 6mbps when I know my line is good enough to provide upto about 12mbps. (I think I read somewhere - maybe even these forums - that the brand of chipset inside the modem makes a difference to speeds - ie. the connection is better when the modem chipset and exchange kit chipset are from same manufacturer - but surely that can't be correct?!)

Keeping my fingers crossed that someone can help me out!

(And I hope i've posted this to the correct board! Apologies if not.)

Before getting into it are you sure you mean Airport Express?

The Express is, as far as I know, a WiFi base station. The Extreme is a full Ethernet router.

Thanks for replying, Ian.

I definitely mean the Apple Airport Express, current model: http://www.apple.com/uk/airport-express/

And i'm fairly sure it is a router. The original "wall wart" Express, I'm not sure about, but the current model I think is. It's sort of like a mini Airport Extreme now. http://www.pocket-lint.com/review/72933-airport-expr...

Sorry, you are correct. I have the older version which doesn't have any router capabilities but the new one does have NAT firewall, DHCP, etc. Hadn't realised they had built it all into the device as that kind of erodes some of the reason to go for the much more expensive extreme.

Unfortunately I don't have experience of the new version so I am afraid I can't help with your problem - sorry.

Sorry, replying to myself after another thought.

I wouldn't expect DHCP to be needing to be disabled if the modem was running in bridge mode so have you checked it is rather than running in it's own router mode? I don't know about the draktek but a lot of these devices can run as a router in their own right and need to be set to bridge mode if an external router is being used.

EDIT: Don't know for sure but this might be a similar issue that the guy seems to have solved around a third of the way down the page

Edited by ian72 (Thu 20-Nov-14 14:39:25)

Most UK ISPs are happiest on PPPoA.

Have you enabled PPPoE to PPPoA bridging on the Vigor 120?

I think so (well, i think that is the default mode) but I will check later.

Cheers.

I think the Draytek is in bridge mode by default but I'll check later.

And thanks for the link - I'll check it out tonight.

So i'm now wondering what i've got wrong...?

Probably nothing.

I was using a adsl modem in bridge mode and early one morning the pppoe connection dropped (I did discover there was planned engineering works).

Since that date (3/10/14) I have not been able to use a modem in bridge mode and have had to switch to a pppoa connection.

There are a couple of long threads on another forum http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php?topic=14509.0

The OP there also lost his pppoe connection at 2am on 3/10/14.

and http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php?topic=14627.0

Ian

Thanks Ian. Could be, I suppose. My old Linksys uses PPPoA and is fine. The PPPoE not so much.

I might give the suggestion from the other forum you linked to a go... setting encapsulation to LLC instead of VC-MUX. Nothing to lose.