TP-Link TD-8817/Asus RT-N66U & Chipset Question

[Dealz]

Hello,

Q: Is anyone currently using or have used one or both of these? What your experience with them? reliability/performance?

http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/?categoryid=220&model=TD-8817
http://uk.asus.com/Networks/Wireless_Routers/RTN66U/

Also i have read that...
A. The chipset used on the DSLAM at the exchange doesn't really matter, (Doesn't need to match router) the type of chipset used in the router vs the quality of the line/line length is more important  and
B. A Trendchip has a higher sync speed than a Broadcom on lines that are noise free/short-medium (less than 2.5km) vs a Broadcom which will sync higher on a longer line (more than 2.5km) and is also much more stable on a longer line and can hold the sync much better.

Q: How true is this?

[Steve]

The latter has no modem as opposed to the former, the RT N66U is a highly specified router with good dual band WiFi performance. Just purchased one yesterday and it's working well on FTTC, WiFi strength is stronger than the 7800 N (istumbler), IPv6 via IDNet is working ( thanks Bill) Not tried the optional firmwares yet ie Tomato or OpenWrt.

[Dealz]

Thanks for your feedback and that's good you are so far having a positive experience with the Asus RT-N66U, I'm planning to order one tomorrow along with the TP-Link TD-8817 Modem so hopefully they work well together and with IDNet when i have migrated

I'm thinking about using a 3rd party software (I remember DGTeam's firmware that i used on my DG834N and the extra features were good) I've not heard of OpenWrt and i have read that the wireless performance when using Tomato isn't as good as the Asus firmware and the DD-WRT firmware can be complicated to flash so i think i'll try the Asuswrt-merlin firmware 1st as it's based off the Asus firmware so i think should be much easier to flash.

[Steve]

I have used the Draytek 120 with IDNet and that performed well on adslmax. I think your correct about OpenWRT not being supported and thanks for the Merlin mention I saw that kept cropping up in discussions.

ASUSWRT-merlin as you says seems an easier option , review here - http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-reviews/31963-asuswrt-merlin-reviewed

[Gary]

Hello,

Q: Is anyone currently using or have used one or both of these? What your experience with them? reliability/performance?

http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/?categoryid=220&model=TD-8817
http://uk.asus.com/Networks/Wireless_Routers/RTN66U/

Also i have read that...
A. The chipset used on the DSLAM at the exchange doesn't really matter, (Doesn't need to match router) the type of chipset used in the router vs the quality of the line/line length is more important  and
B. A Trendchip has a higher sync speed than a Broadcom on lines that are noise free/short-medium (less than 2.5km) vs a Broadcom which will sync higher on a longer line (more than 2.5km) and is also much more stable on a longer line and can hold the sync much better.

Q: How true is this?

I fell victim to Broadcoms great stability, my line is very noisey with a continuing issue and the Broadcom chipset holds on down to 0.1db when there is really no data passing instead of retraining. Then again I would not risk a Trendchip on my line till it gets stable and that might be never at this rate, but what you say is basically the perceived behaviour of those chipsets.

[Dealz]

I have used the Draytek 120 with IDNet and that performed well on adslmax. I think your correct about OpenWRT not being supported and thanks for the Merlin mention I saw that kept cropping up in discussions.

ASUSWRT-merlin as you says seems an easier option , review here - http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-reviews/31963-asuswrt-merlin-reviewed

No Problem, Merlin does indeed look like the easier option. I don't need any features that are too advanced so merlin should be just fine plus i don't want to risk lowering performance or bricking my router trying to flash Tomato/DD-WRT.

I fell victim to Broadcoms great stability, my line is very noisey with a continuing issue and the Broadcom chipset holds on down to 0.1db when there is really no data passing instead of retraining. Then again I would not risk a Trendchip on my line till it gets stable and that might be never at this rate, but what you say is basically the perceived behaviour of those chipsets.

Thanks Gary for your post and hope your noise issues get resolved.

My line is noise free and i'm quite close to the exchange so i'm hoping the Trendchip will work well on my line with no dropouts etc. The TP-Link TD-8817 has mostly good user feedback from what i've read so i'm feeling quite confident it will be fine, If not i'll have to get a Broadcom based Modem.

[Gary]

Thanks Gary for your post and hope your noise issues get resolved.

My line is noise free and i'm quite close to the exchange so i'm hoping the Trendchip will work well on my line with no dropouts etc. The TP-Link TD-8817 has mostly good user feedback from what i've read so i'm feeling quite confident it will be fine, If not i'll have to get a Broadcom based Modem.

That combo gets good reviews, Netgear gave me a D6300 for a cockup as a freebe swap, so I have a DGND4000 working well and this huge iPad sized 802.11.ac router which tbh I may well sell it as id prefer to use the Asus RT-AC66U with the TP link than have the D6300 anyway. Looks like feabay here I come to see. Till then I'll stick with what I know works for the sake of my frayed OCD 

[Dealz]

That's good to know the combo gets good reviews, How is the DGND4000? i have read not so good things about the current crop of netgear routers with hardware issues and software bugs? I was planning to get a netgear after i had a mostly good experience with the DG834N but decided against it after reading around.

[Gary]

That's good to know the combo gets good reviews, How is the DGND4000? i have read not so good things about the current crop of netgear routers with hardware issues and software bugs? I was planning to get a netgear after i had a mostly good experience with the DG834N but decided against it after reading around.

The DGND4000 is good Netgear seems to have polished the 3700v2 and kept the 4000 working well but with 128mb Flash and 128mb ram rather than the 32/64mb of the 3700v2 while keeping same dual core 400Mhz broadcom 6361 processor. A firmware update just sorted out a UPnP Flow issue. I get 95% signal on my ps3 sat on the floor though two brick walls on 2.4Ghz and with the skyworks aerials and amplifier boosting 5Ghz range I get good coverage on that spectrum and speedtest.net gives me my full download using the iPad and iPhone.

All in all its a good router with a very full and mature feature set. The  D6300 which is the ugliest router I have seen, is huge the literal size of a iPad! It has a 3x3 aerial setup and the link speeds are astounding and 5Ghz goes across the road! I'm going to put that on ebay as even though 802.11.ac is coming this year as I think those routers need to mature more and the D6300 appears to have some bugs to iron out and I bet Netgear will release a v2 of it rather than firmware updates. Most of the issues relate to people not turning off IGMP proxy though, from what I can see. It is a strange beast though with some odd quirks.

[Dealz]

Sounds like this Netgear is pretty good there has been so many Netgear modems/routers since i brought my last one so i've lost track and to a certain extent it doesn't help that Netgear release newer versions of the same model but i guess on the most part this might be because of hardware defects that firmware updates can't fix.

I have read very good things about that chipset (BCM6361).

I've seen better designed routers but I've seen much worse.

I agree, I was thinking about getting the RT-AC66U but then i figured that 802.11.ac can wait as i think there are currently no devices that use it plus i have read that there are bad bugs in the firmware that the RT-AC66U uses.

[Steve]

The  RT N66U seems well sorted, easy setup, good firmware options,IPV6 support although it doesn't work with IDNet on the latest Asus and Merlin beta firmwares. N wireless is strong on both the 2.5 and 5 Ghz bands. The traffic monitoring of individual IPs is useful for apportioning blame to an individual's over zealous use! I like the inclusion of two USB ports,I've stuck a hard drive on one which I can access via VPN.

[Dealz]

The  RT N66U seems well sorted, easy setup, good firmware options,IPV6 support although it doesn't work with IDNet on the latest Asus and Merlin beta firmwares. N wireless is strong on both the 2.5 and 5 Ghz bands. The traffic monitoring of individual IPs is useful for apportioning blame to an individual's over zealous use! I like the inclusion of two USB ports,I've stuck a hard drive on one which I can access via VPN.

I got my TP-Link TD-8817 and ASUS RT-N66U...

so far the ASUS has been great using asuswrt-merlin (latest version) and i agree with what you said about it, as for the TP-Link it seem to be running well so far although my Noise Margin is now very low around 0.1db, but can be as high as 2.4db. I asked my current ISP and they said my profile is set to 3db so my Noise Margin being that low is fine. I hope such a low Noise Margin is okay when i migrate to IDNet.

Q: When i bridged the ISP's modem and then connected it to the ASUS, The ASUS took the IP 192.168.1.1, However with the TP-Link in bridged mode the ASUS give me an message saying that there is an IP conflict and offers to change the ASUS IP to 192.168.2.1 is this right? Is there any way to change the TP-Link IP and keep the ASUS as 192.168.1.1?

ISP Modem/router is 192.168.1.254
TP-Link is 192.168.1.1
ASUS is 192.168.1.1

[Steve]

I thought the modem in a PPPOE setup was invisible to the LAN network? It's function being to pass the WAN IP address to the router. I've not used this modem so not sure on set up certainly I can't access my FTTC modem whether hacked or not via my router. Also I could not access the Draytek 120 either without some fiddling around which involved disconnecting the router setting a static IP address on the laptop to and then accessing the modems menu.

[Dealz]

I thought that also and I think you are right, that the modem is meant to be invisible when in bridged mode and there is no access to it. I had a chat with my current isp and they said that there shouldn't be an IP conflict between router and modem because once modem is in bridged mode there isn't suppose to be an local IP attached to it.

I think I might have to wait till I'm on IDNET as my current is doesn't use PPPoE and that might be needed for it to work.

[Steve]

The modem when bridged correctly should convert the PPPoE request from the router to the PPPoA connection protocol if required by your ISP. This the same for IDNet. As your probably aware not all ISPs use PPPoA ie Be use MPoA

[Dealz]

I can't get this to work the asus just isn't picking up the connection from the bridged TP-Link modem and I'm quite confident I have bridged it right as i followed the instructions which is simple.

The Asus is telling me that the dynamic or static IP on the router is wrong  Also it's not picking up the WAN IP or Gateway IP from modem. Also it says that the lease is expired but and for lease time it says renewing.

The Internet light on the router is on.

Maybe I'm going to have to wait till I migrate to IDNet to try again with pppoe and pppoa but have to wait a while as my migration has been delayed

[Steve]

I get lease renewing and lease expired so I think ignore those, regarding the modem just try a PPPoE connection direct from one of your machines (if geography permits) it should confirm whether or not your modem in bridged PPPoE/PPPoA is working correctly.

[Dealz]

I get lease renewing and lease expired so I think ignore those, regarding the modem just try a PPPoE connection direct from one of your machines (if geography permits) it should confirm whether or not your modem in bridged PPPoE/PPPoA is working correctly.

I got it to work  .... I did another Google search and i came across a post on a forum where someone was having a similar issue, along with turning on bridge mode they also turned off DHCP in the TP-Link, I didn't turn this off but once i did i ran the internet connection setup again on the Asus and it worked. No more local IP address conflict either, I was just about to give up as well.

I don't know why the TP-Link doesn't automatically turn off DHCP when the modem is setup up in bridge mode, The Tech support at TP-Link didn't even advise me to check that i'd turned off DHCP he just blamed it on the Router/ISP.

[Steve]

I should have said something earlier I thought you were in someways double NAT ing,  it did cross my mind that the DHCP server was still functioning. Hindsight is a marvellous thing!

[Dealz]

Indeed! I'm aware of double NAT ing, I just didn't think that was the problem and if it was i was expecting the Asus would have made it clear as double NAT ing i think is a easy/common mistake for people who aren't familiar with this type of setup. But i do think the IP conflict error was the Asus trying to tell me there is a double NAT ing conflict i just didn't realize because even after agreeing/allowing the Asus to change its IP to 192.168.2.1 the connection still didn't work.

[Steve]

Seriously I think one expects when you place the DLink in bridge mode to transfer the WAN IP to LAN  that it's not trying to be a router as well.

[Dealz]

Yep, I thought the whole point of a Bridged mode is so the router 'jobs' are turned off on the modem/router... so the 'standalone' router the modem is connected to can do those jobs.

Q: Do you know if there is anyway to view connection stats like SNR, sync speed/rate, Errors etc when in bridged mode?

[Steve]

I only managed it on the Draytek 120 by disconnecting the router from the LAN port  , set a static IP for the connected machine ie 192.168.1.2 and accessing the menu pages at 192.168.1.1 whether that will work for you no idea. The OR FTTC modem when hacked has a similar facility but that has 2 LAN ports so you can collect data without interrupting the Internet in a similar fashion without interrupting the Internet connection.

[Steve]

The alternative method describe here may work with Asus Merlin

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Access_To_Modem_Configuration


More here - http://m.geekzone.co.nz/Forums/66/Topic/57953

[Dealz]

Thanks for the info, I'll have a good look at those soon. Had a brief look and it looks to me that at the very minimum the modem needs to have a different Local IP address to the router?