Hi Folks,

My first post on this forum, so treat me gently! ;-)

I have a 2820 sat on a pair of (very long line and slow) ADSL connections. The primary through the internal modem, and the secondary through a Vigor 120. Been using this setup for a while...

I have noticed that quite often after a period of use - which can be a few tens of mins, to sometimes a day or more, I start to get very slow routing on the WAN2 connection. Initially all will be fine, pinging a server on the ISPs internal network (having set a load balance policy to route all ICMP traffic through WAN2) will give nice snappy responses with no packet loss. However wait a while, do some stuff, and after a while I will notice that e.g. web browsing will suddenly slow down, DNS lookups start taking seconds or tens of seconds, and quite often get page timeouts. Doing a ping on the same internal server will now show typically 75% packet loss (upping the ping timeout reveals that the "loss" is usually actually just a very slow echo response) and indicate responses delayed by SECONDS rather than ms. Then the occasional packet will respond at normal time.

Now I have confirmed this is not an ISP issue or a DSL error rate issue. Rebooting just the external 120 and hence renegotiating the ADSL link does not fix it. Dropping and remaking just the PPPoE connection from the 2820 to the 120 also has no effect. Rebooting the whole 2820 however fixes it every time. Alas this is not an ideal solution.

I have swapped the ISP links around to check the problem stays with the WAN2 connection and not the ISP. The firewall DDoS protection is off.

I have tried various firmware versions (partly also to improve performance on my long lines), None seem to make any difference on this issue. Currently running:

Model Name : Vigor2820Vn
Firmware Version : 3.3.4.1
Build Date/Time : Sep 8 2010 15:30:41
ADSL Firmware Version : 211011_A Hardware: Annex A

Any suggestions?


Cheers,

John.

Hi John, it is the different Modem Codes which would be relevant to improving the speed and stability of your Long Line Connections. Please could you check the firmware on the Vigor 120 and post back with the details? It may also be helpful to know the ISPs on each of the lines. Thanks, Neal

I would update the firmware to 3.3.5.2 as soon as possible. Use the .rst file and re-enter your details, do NOT use the backup of your configuration.
I, and others, found that 3.3.4.1 is totally **** (chose your own 4 letter word please!) while 3.3.5.2 does still have odd problems it does seem very stable now, mine is currently at 2000 hours+ uptime.
There is a version showing on the upgrade page for long lines, nevered used it though as I am using the normal version and getting 7.99 meg on a circuit that should be 5 meg. Carefully internal BT wiring complete with a filter plate has certainly helped me with proformance.
It may not solve all your problems but it should sort many of them out.

nealuk wrote: Hi John, it is the different Modem Codes which would be relevant to improving the speed and stability of your Long Line Connections. Please could you check the firmware on the Vigor 120 and post back with the details? It may also be helpful to know the ISPs on each of the lines. Thanks, Neal

I have had a play with different modem codes on the main router's modem, and found in general it did not make much difference (having said that, which modem codes do what seems to be a fairly closely guarded secret!) So far I have left the firmware on the external alone. However I was also having a problem with a slowly failing line at the time resulting a loss of routing on WAN1 due to high CRC error rates. Its only while I was debugging that, that I realised there was also this problem with WAN2.

In the end I got the ISP to re-enable the ADSL Max training period, and that has resulted in it pegging the target SNR a couple of clicks higher. Its now working ok (but slower obviously, at 1.1Mb/sec) with a low error rate. I have swapped the lines round since then, and currently have that line on the external modem (thought might as well have the slower link on the problem port, and also email etc is on the other ISP).

ISPs are IDNet and Plusnet.

The 120 is running:

Firmware Version : 3.2.2
Build Date/Time : Feb 16 2009 10:59:38
ADSL Firmware Version : 321311_A Annex A

Cheers,
John

g6ifs wrote: I would update the firmware to 3.3.5.2 as soon as possible. Use the .rst file and re-enter your details, do NOT use the backup of your configuration.
I, and others, found that 3.3.4.1 is totally **** (chose your own 4 letter word please!) while 3.3.5.2 does still have odd problems it does seem very stable now, mine is currently at 2000 hours+ uptime.

Yup, I am aware that 3.3.4.1 is not the best in the world ;-) However I have been up to 3.3.5.2 (and the one before) and found no difference on this particular problem (as mentioned in my other reply to Neal, I was attempting to fix a high error rate problem - found v2820_v03341_211011_A did not help, and then spotted this issue with the WAN2 port. So I went back down to what it had been running to check this was not a new problem in 3.3.5.2)

I shall go and reflash to the latest again. Might also do the external as well in case there is an interaction with its software.

OK update Just reflashed everything to the latest version. Yup, its different. Alas its worse. Now when I lose routing on WAN2 its seems to be more complete - 100% packet loss on a ping even with a 20 sec timeout.

What is the concern with resetting the settings? I know migrating between some versions cause lockup and reboot cycles, but the results seemed sensible going from current to 3.3.5.2 - just trying to avoid having to reset all the load balance rules, and wireless stuff unless I have to!

g6ifs wrote: There is a version showing on the upgrade page for long lines, nevered used it though as I am using the normal version and getting 7.99 meg on a circuit that should be 5 meg. Carefully internal BT wiring complete with a filter plate has certainly helped me with proformance.
It may not solve all your problems but it should sort many of them out.

Yup, I think that is the 211011 suffix version which I tried. I may have another bash now the target SNR has been raised.

Regarding internal wiring etc, that's about as simple as it gets. Lines come in to master sockets fitted with an Austin Taylor faceplate splitters. Cable goes direct to router/modem, and into my PABX. No extensions at all (all the phones hang of the PABX).



Cheers,
John.