topic Re: New customer with a third party Draytek Vigor 130 modem and Asus AC5300 router in My Router

New customer with a third party Draytek Vigor 130 modem and Asus AC5300 router

mszune — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 15:22:11 GMT

Hi All,

I am joining plusnet on the 12th of March and wanted some advice prior to switching from BT.

I totally understand and know what to do once my line is switched to plusnet with regard with username, password and PPPOE within my Asus AC5300 router, although I have read some conflicting information with regard the set up of my vigor 130 modem and router.

all the advice out there states you should have a MTU of 1492 set within your router, however should this figure be replicated within you modem as nowhere does is say what should be set in an external modem as to be fair the majority of people are using old BT Huawei or ECI modems.

I guess someone will say it does not matter; just make sure the router MTU is set to 1492, however previously my vigor 130 had a MTU of 1520 and 1500 with no apparent issues, however when I replicate the MTU in both the modem and router to 1492 there was a small increase in download speed (+2mb)

Can anyone shed any light on this issue?

Thanks and by the way I am a returning customer to plusnet having only switched to BT as they were the only ISP offering fibre many years ago.

Thanks

Re: New customer with a third party Draytek Vigor 130 modem and Asus AC5300 router

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 16:56:03 GMT

Have a read of this - https://support.aa.net.uk/MTU

I use a Vigor 130 and am able to get my Plusnet FTTC broadband line to achieve the maximum 1500 MTU.

To do this, I've set the MTU in both the Vigor 130 modem and my router (pfSense) to 1508 to account for the 8 byte overhead used for PPPoE signalling between the modem and router (which is why old/useless routers that can only handle a maximum WAN interface MTU of 1500 end up only achieving 1492 line MTU).

Theoretically you should be a be able to set higher MTU values (such as the Vigor 130's maximum 1520), but when the PPPoE session is being established, the maximum achievable MTU is negotiated with the FTTC cabinet - which is typically either 1492 or 1500 - depending on your modem and router's support for "Baby Jumbo Frames"

These are my settings -

Re: New customer with a third party Draytek Vigor 130 modem and Asus AC5300 router

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 17:43:08 GMT

For testing the actual MTU that your router negotiated with the FTTC cabinet, rather than use terminal ping commands to work out the maximum unfragmented MTU, there is a handy website that automates the test -

http://www.letmecheck.it/mtu-test.php

Just be aware that this test remotely pings your WAN address and expects the appropriate ICMP response - which I understand recent Plusnet supplied routers are apparently incapable of doing 🙄 !, but otherwise should work perfectly on almost any third party routers 😀.

Re: New customer with a third party Draytek Vigor 130 modem and Asus AC5300 router

mszune — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 17:55:39 GMT

It's fair to say that's one of the best and informative answers I've received via the community and even with screenshots to boot!!
Thanks very much I'll give the MTU's a tweak over the weekend while I'm still with BT.
Roll on my switch over!!! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼😂

Re: New customer with a third party Draytek Vigor 130 modem and Asus AC5300 router

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 18:58:25 GMT

It is probably worth checking that your Vigor 130 is installed with the most up to date firmware (3.8.4.1_BT).

https://www.draytek.co.uk/support/downloads/vigor-130

Check your router firmware is also the latest and greatest, as enhanced MTU support is sometimes added as an afterthought in subsequent updates, after the initial factory installed firmware version ships.

Like you say, it would be worth optimising your MTU on your existing setup (especially with known to be current firmware), and then you can check the before and after performance of your BT to Plusnet migration.

Good luck ! 😉

Re: New customer with a third party Draytek Vigor 130 modem and Asus AC5300 router

mszune — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 19:11:05 GMT

Yeah had the upto date firmware for a while now on the vigor, including Merlin's firmware on the Asus.
Just noticed that my Asus will only support a MTU of 1500, so I'll have to stick with that I guess.
I have noted that the above screenshot has pppoa, is that correct?

Re: New customer with a third party Draytek Vigor 130 modem and Asus AC5300 router

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 19:19:24 GMT

And another thing !

I'd be interested to see your before and after migration results for the DSLReports speedtest BufferBloat test -

http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest

- as some Plusnet customers have issues with BufferBloat, and it would be useful to know whether that (not commonly checked) test result changes when migrating from BT (which theoretically should have comparable performance).

You should get a result that looks like -

Re: New customer with a third party Draytek Vigor 130 modem and Asus AC5300 router

mszune — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 19:31:51 GMT

Here are my BT results

Re: New customer with a third party Draytek Vigor 130 modem and Asus AC5300 router

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 19:40:32 GMT

@mszune wrote:
I have noted that the above screenshot has pppoa, is that correct?

That greyed out section (showing the "PPPoA") is as it says at the top, for "DSL Modem Settings (for ADSL mode only)", so those settings are not relevant when operating in FTTC mode. The point of including that screenshot was to illustrate that I have the "PPPoE/PPPoA Client" set to "Disable" when operating in "MPoA" "Bridge Mode" as shown in the second picture.

I had my Vigor 130 simultaneously loaded with settings for both ADSL (user selected PPPoA) and for FTTC (PPPoE by default), so when my line was upgraded from ADSL2+ to FTTC VDSL2, the Vigor 130 automatically switched to the new settings, and I didn't notice the transition even though I was listening to a streaming radio station at the time !

Re: New customer with a third party Draytek Vigor 130 modem and Asus AC5300 router

mszune — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 14:21:39 GMT

Just out of curiousity, I have had infinity 2 for some time and regularly achieved downloads over over 70mb, although only recently noticed that my line has been banded as what they tell me.

Having looked at my line stats and trying to work out what is going on, here seems to be a lot leading toward an issue on the far end, what is the far end the cabinet?

Re: New customer with a third party Draytek Vigor 130 modem and Asus AC5300 router

Strat — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 15:12:20 GMT

Moderators Note
This topic has been moved from Fibre Broadband to My Router.

Re: New customer with a third party Draytek Vigor 130 modem and Asus AC5300 router

mszune — Sun, 07 Mar 2021 07:37:38 GMT

Woke up this morning to find that my line stats have altered significantly for the download from 54.995mb to 73.993mb and an SNR of 15db down to 9db. I change a couple of things yesterday, one was to ensure my modem and router had an MTU of 1500 as per the advice given by @Anonymous (Thanks 👍) and the second was to relocate the vigor 130 from its existing location (resting on top of the AC5300) to approximately a metre away with a cat 8 cable.

The upload speed has not changed that is stuck at 16.994mb, although what I do find odd is while my line stats have changed the speed from the Router end have not altered, does this mean I need to reboot both the modem and router by leaving them off for 30mins to re-sync the new line stats altered by DLM?

here's a before (Friday) and after (Sunday) screenshot of my line stats.14921500

Re: New customer with a third party Draytek Vigor 130 modem and Asus AC5300 router

mszune — Sun, 07 Mar 2021 08:56:37 GMT

I'm sure I read somewhere that the vigor 130 doesn't resync with a new line stat once DLM has altered to a new and faster speed, Anyways both router and modem were switched off this morning for 30mins and my download speed now mimics my line stats.

Thanks very much@Anonymous for your help understanding what MTU settings are required within both the router and modem as this has helped significantly and will aid in the transition from BT to Plusnet on the 12th of March. 👏👍

Re: New customer with a third party Draytek Vigor 130 modem and Asus AC5300 router

mszune — Sun, 07 Mar 2021 09:03:02 GMT

Here's my new line stats with BT before I submit this thread as resloved and switch to Plusnet on the 12th of March 2021.

Cheers

Re: New customer with a third party Draytek Vigor 130 modem and Asus AC5300 router

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Mar 2021 12:05:25 GMT

@mszune wrote:

I'm sure I read somewhere that the vigor 130 doesn't resync with a new line stat once DLM has altered to a new and faster speed

Other than the few occasions when my line has got banded causing DLM to get stuck (until manually reset), my Vigor 130 does re-sync (usually around 2am) when DLM has moved the "Attainable Rate" sync speed up or down a meg or two - usually because the weather has changed for better or worse.

Here is an example of my ping graph when DLM has caused a modem re-sync around 2am, the re-sync shown as the red spike indicating packet loss -

Re: New customer with a third party Draytek Vigor 130 modem and Asus AC5300 router

mszune — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 12:56:49 GMT

Here's my day 1 Plusnet line stats, obviously downsteam is going to be interleaved over the next 14 days while my line settles in with DLM making the necessary adjustments, although I'm pretty stoked with my line compaired to BT at present.

👏👏

Re: New customer with a third party Draytek Vigor 130 modem and Asus AC5300 router

mszune — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 13:04:52 GMT

@Anonymous here you go, pretty impressive for day 1 👏

Re: New customer with a third party Draytek Vigor 130 modem and Asus AC5300 router

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 13:30:12 GMT

That's looking good.

I'm surprised that the far end error counts "FE CRC Count" and "FE ES Count" haven't been zeroed, as I would have expected that your line should have been reset for a clean start after migration, maybe that has been scheduled for the early hours of tomorrow morning.

With those line stats, your Vigor 130 should be able to reduce the "Cur SNR Margin" to 3dB, and get your downstream "DS Actual Rate" closer to 79999000 if DLM behaves favourably in the next few days.

Re: New customer with a third party Draytek Vigor 130 modem and Asus AC5300 router

mszune — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 13:59:29 GMT

Yeah I was also surprised neither "FE CRC Count" and "FE ES Count" haven't been zeroed, unsure whether a line reset can be done remotely or with OR engineer visit, I'll keep a eye on my line over the next 14 days and see what alters.

I'll play with the Vigor's SNR once everthing is settled in, although many thanks for your help and assistance over the last week or so much appreciated

Re: New customer with a third party Draytek Vigor 130 modem and Asus AC5300 router

mszune — Sat, 13 Mar 2021 08:58:37 GMT

I have by accident achieved what many people dream of with their 80/20 FTTC connection with a DS speed of 80000000 and a US speed of 20000000 and an SNR of 0, although as can be seen in the attachment my NE CRC and NE ES counts have recorded quite a few since 8pm yesterday evening.

The reason behind this significant change is that around 8pm last night the whole area around my town experienced a power cut for approximately 5 mins, you'll also note that my attainable speed has dropped significantly.

I am unsure if this part of the line testing phase where settings are altered to attain the best achievable speeds, although for now my line is running at maximum with a few NE CRC and NE ES counts.

Hopefully things will settle down over the next 14 days and the weather calms down to prevent another power cut in sunny old Wales. 😂