Draytek Vigor 120 disconnecting every hour

[#1]

Hope somebody can help me because this is beginning to drive me crazy!!! 
I replaced my freebee Thomson 585 v7 modem/router as supplied by PN with a Draytek Vigor 120 modem hooked up to a PC running Smoothwall 3.0.
Problem is that I, without fail, I get a disconnect after approx. 1hr.
I'd had previous problems with my internal phone extension (fitted by BT), so I connected the 120 directly to the master socket's test connection.
I couldn't tell if the problem was the modem or Smoothwall, so I connected the modem WAN direct to a PC running Windows Vista and setup the PPPoE connection.
Once again, after almost exactly one hour, I was disconnected.
PN can see the disconnects but cannot see why this would be happening.
Problem is that the connection is perfectly fine when using the Thomson router. Unfortunately, the Thomson router port forwarding stinks and does not allow me to use my email server or web server I have based on my Synology NAS. On top of which my two boys can't use their Xbox 360's!!!
Everyone says that the Draytek Vigor 120 is the best modem ever and no body seems to have a ny problem with them.
Unfortunately, I've had other problems with Draytek in the past with their 2130n router which constantly lost it's settings _ very much like a Thomson 585 in fact!
I've also tried a Belkin N600 Play router and that also disconnects, though generally less frequently than the Vigor.
How come the Thomson works and nothing else does????
Has anyone else seen this problem? particularly with Draytek 120?
I run my own small business and these problems are causing me severe grief.
I'm now going to get a very large brandy and drown my sorrows 

[#2]

I've now connected my old trusty Linksys WAG160N router direct to the master socket and it works perfectly, no disconnects at all  
Also, unlike the Thomson 585 it allows me to port-forward to my NAS.  
However, this left me thinking why the Draytek Vigor 120 modem was disconnecting every hour.
The settings on the Linksys router were exactly as I'd set them over a year ago and I saw no need to change them as it was working fine.
On looking at the settings the Linksys uses LLC whereas the Draytek was set to VCMux.
The PN settings suggest that VCMux should be used, but looks like LLC works better.
When the rest of the family are still asleep in the early hours I may try the Draytek again set to LLC and see if it can stay up for over 1hr.
Has anyone else seen this issue with LLC/VCMux?

[#3]

Well not here what are you using PPPOE or PPPOA? they both should work btw.

[#4]

I'm using a Vigor 120.
I had some problems recently and thought it might have been to do with the modem but it turned out to be unrelated.
What firmware are you running? The early firmwares were said to be very flaky. The most recent firmware, 3.2.4.4, I found to stable but slightly slower.
Also are you aware that there are ~8 different 'flavours' of each firmware corresponding to different 'modem codes' supposedly tuned for different regions but I could find no decent info.
You can telnet into the modem and look at it's logs (not available from the web gui), that might show disconnects.
I'm running pppoa vc-mux and using a pppoe client on lan.
Steve

[#5]

I was using PPPoE Epyon.
Thanks fro the advice on the firmware versions stephenw10, I'll hook the 120 up to my PC, take a look and let you know.
Thanks guys 

[#6]

Just checked and I had it set to PPPoA actually, sorry Epyon 
I have the latest firmware, i.e 3.2.4.4
Hardware is Annex A V2.
Other settings are:
        VPI:  0
        VCI:  38
        Protocol: PPPoA
        Modulation: Multimode
        DHCP server enabled
I'll probably stick with the Linksys router but would like to get the 120 working as a backup.
Any ideas guys? 

[#7]

Ah, Ok well I have the V1 modem it looks like.
Anyway it might be worth trying some other firmware versions. As you can see from my status page I'm running 3.2.4.1, a4, modem code 332201.
Seems stable and, as I said, slightly faster than 3.2.4.4.
You can try the V2 firmwares from here:
ftp://ftp.draytek.com/Vigor120%20V2/Firmware/V3.2.4.4/
Also you'll see each firmware has two files xxx.rst and xxx.all. The .rst resets the modem to factory defaults .all does not.
Unlike in the instructions the modem (the V1 at least) defaults to 192.168.2.1.
You might want to use the .rst file to ensure that some odd config flag hasn't been set in your modem.
Steve
Edit: You could check the system uptime to see if the modem is restarting or just disconnecting.

[#8]

Steve,
Thanks again for the advice.
I think I may have found the problem. My modem code is currently 321311 (see attached screen shot), but looking at the Draytek site and various posts on other forums it should be 332201 (the same as yours).
One detail I forgot to mention was that I updated the firmware when I first got it about 2 months ago.
Am I correct in assuming that the modem code should be 332201 for the UK? If so, looks like I went and flashed the wrong firmware  
V2 Annex A modem firmware only goes back one version 3.2.4.3, so I'll probably just use the latest 3.3.4.4 but this time the correct version!!
Thanks in advance
Ian

[#9]

Steve,
Just flashed the .rst all .all files.
I have no idea where I got the 321311 version from as I can't see it on the Draytek ftp site at all 
This time with the right version. Now just have to wait until I can kick my family off the internet to try it for a couple of hours - will probably have to be 5am in the morning again 
Fingers crossed.
Ian

[#10]

If you can find a list of what modem codes do what you're a better Googler than me! 
I did read some posts on a forum where someone was suggesting that one code was tuned for a better connection on a long line.
There's loads of stuff you can do through the telnet interface but again it's almost completely undocumented.
Good Luck,
Steve

[#11]

I had a response on the Draytek forum.
From  Draytek support (not directly to me):

Quote

The modem codes are not specifically for any country / ADSL type, however the different modem codes will behave differently depending on line conditions. The 332201 modem code is recommended in the UK because it achieves a higher speed than other modem codes when using ADSL2+ connections. The 321311 modem code is what we would recommend when the UK recommended modem code causes disconnections or other issues.

Not sure what this means for you.
Steve

[#12]

Hi Steve,
I'm not sure what it means either.
I tried with the 332201 modem code firmware this morning but it still disconnected after one hour almost exactly  
Have gone back to the Linksys router and it's steady as a rock.
I'm totally confused as to what's happening with the Draytek modem now  
Only thing I can think of trying now is the Draytek in LLC mode.
The Linksys is still set to LLC and seems to work fine.
Will have to wait until next weekend now to try anything else.
Ian

[#13]

Quote

but it still disconnected after one hour almost exactly

Have you got an 'idle timeout' set somewhere ?

[#14]

Hi MisterW,
Been there! That's exactly what I thought the problem was originally.
Smoothwall has a default setting of 15mins which I spotted and set to zero (disabled), but still disconnected after 1 hr'ish.
I've also tried with the modem connected direct to a PC and still disconnects after roughly 1 hr.
I also set my wife's internet radio going (around 150kB/s) and still disconnects after an hour.
As for the Draytek Vigor 120, these isn't a timeout setting (that I'm aware of).
Steve - I'd be interested to know what your exact settings are for the 120. There aren't exactly many to change!
BTW I tried installing pfSense on the PC I had Smoothwall installed on and it fails to install. Don't recall the error message.
Target system is an ASUS Pundit with following spec:
       Processor: Intel Celeron R 2.8GHz
       RAM: 1G DDR1
       HDD: 40GB
       Three ethernet ports (2xPCI and 1xbuilt-in)  configured as follows:
               RED (built-in - Broadcom 440x)
               ORANGE (VIA Rhine PCI Fast Ethernet)
               GREEN (Realtek RTL8129 PCI card)
For Smoothwall ORANGE is DMZ network - I use it for my NAS with email server and Apache installed.
Ian

[#15]

Quote

As for the Draytek Vigor 120, these isn't a timeout setting (that I'm aware of).

Not according to the manual from the Draytek UK site BUT if you download the manual from here http://www.draytek.de/downloads/dokumente.html
( dont worry its in English ) then there are 2 levels of access , one without a username/password and one using admin/admin. The latter seems to show an 'idle timeout' setting in the PPPoA config.
Hope that helps.