ASUS DSL-N55U connection timeout problem (Serial link disconnected) [Need advice from experts]

neoroify · Nov 18, 2013

Greetings,

Two days ago I bought an ASUS DSL-N55U Annex A router that costed me around $215 and I set it up through WAN settings as follows:

PVC Setting:
Connection Type: PPPoE
VPI: 0
VCI: 35
Encapsulation mode: LLC
Service: UBR without PCR
UPnP: Off
NAT: On
MTU: 1492

First off, let me begin by saying that I live in Egypt and my internet provider is TE Data, these settings were copied from my old 3Com router and I made no changes to it, my connection to the internet is fine; my bandwidth is 1 Mbps (120 KB/s download | 30 KB/s upload) I am planning on upgrading my subscription but I'll do so once I am sure that this router wont do me trouble later on..

Second; The problems I am facing are as follows:
- at around 11 PM the internet status goes to Disconnected but the ADSL is still constant, few seconds to 1 minute later Internet Status goes back to Connected and I connect back to the internet [bold][I disabled the Firewall from Windows 8 and disabled UPnP through router settings][/bold]

- at random intervals when I ping to google or other servers; it shows Request Timed Out at random moments (once, twice or triple after 9 packets, after 20, after 50, etc..) [bold]I think this has something to do with MTU?[/bold] since it affects my brother on his laptop when he is connected through WiFi, it also affects me as I feel the connection has dropped out or I am having some kind of lag (during 'Request Time outs', they happen in split seconds but it can be annyoing..

Third; The router performance is tremendous and it puts your connection limits to the maximum but the problem is not within the performance or the potential of the router.. it is about the quality of it as it concerns me the most since I really paid a LOT into it.

Fourth; There are some configurations that I don't understand/need help with/need to know how/when to setup them:
- DSL Modulation:
[Tl.413 - G.lite - G.Dmt - ADSL2 - ADSL2+ - Multiple Mode]
Currently selected(default): Multiple Mode
ISP suggestion: keep the default settings

- Annex Mode:
[Annex A - Annex I - Annex A/L - Annex M - Annex A/I/J/L/M]
Currently selected(default): Annex A/I/J/L/M
ISP suggestion: keep the default settings

- Stability Adjustment:
[Selection from +5 dB to -10 dB or Disabled]
Currently selected(default): Disabled [[NOTE: I think this might have to do with the 'Request Timed Out' thing that occurs very randomly]]
ISP suggestion: keep the default settings

- SRA:
[Enabled - Disabled]
Currently selected(default): Enabled
ISP suggestion: keep the default settings

- Bitswap:
[Enabled - Disabled]
Currently selected(default): Enabled
ISP suggestion: keep the default settings

Here are my wireless settings:
- Channel Bandwidth: 20/40 MHz
- Control Channel: Auto
- Extension Channel: Auto
Authentication Method: WPA-Auto-Personal
WPA Encryption: TKIP+AES
Network Key Rotation Interval: 3600 [[I honestly don't know what this is, but maybe it might be useful somehow?]]

As I mentioned earlier, I plan on upgrading to 2 Mbps subscription but I am afraid the router would let me down half way through because it become unstable or something; so I need you to be truthful and guide me to the right way; is the router good enough and high quality to keep for the next 5 years to come? is it a router full of problems that appear later on? I want to make it as stable as possible yet giving the best performance it can do without timeouts or random connection drops

If you did not understand a part about my question please clarify and I'll gladly explain more.

Awaiting your response!

P.S.: If this router is really unreliable in performance/quality please suggest something better which should fit the following: (Multiplayer gaming; including BF3, BF4, Rift and WoW) Multimedia streaming (sounds, videos, etc) and maximum bandwidth

P.P.S.: The router has the latest firmware installed

P.P.P.S.: I'll say this one more time; if this router is known of having common issues then please inform me since I bought it last Friday, it is still in the return-policy thingy; I can return it.

bill001g · Nov 18, 2013

In general a lot of people like this router. I have a couple of Asus routers and have had no issues but they are not DSL routers.

The router should easily support 2m dsl. When you look at the parts in the router it is the same as the n55u that does not have the DSL and people run that one way over even 50m connected to cable modems.

You will never see a issue related to MTU when you ping with default ping packets they are generally 100 bytes which is well under the 1492. A MTU issue generally is seen as a packet fragmentation issue and if things are working correctly the devices on both end adjust the packet sizes dynamically so this never happens.

I would run a traceroute to some location say google.com. Then open multiple cmd windows and ping the first couple of hop continuously.

What I suspect you will see is not loss to the first hop which is your router. You will then see loss in the second hop and further. The point you START to see issues is the one causing the problem. When it is in the second hop it is almost always the connection between your house and the ISP that has the issue (ie the DSL line in your case). pretty much they need to come and test the line again and determine if there is a problem on the line or in the central office...don't believe them if they try to blame you modem since it is brand new.

When it is in hops past this point it is in the provider network or worse between the provider network and other ISP. Things past this point are hard to get a ISP to fix mostly because you have to get past the first level support guys so you can talk to someone that actually understands how ping/trace work. They could very well have a capacity issue in their network where too many people are trying to use it...they either have a plan to upgrade or they do not and they will do nothing different because you complain.

The DSL settings you want to leave alone or set exactly as the ISP told you. Generally if you mess with these it does not cause random loss it just not work at all.

neoroify · Nov 18, 2013

Thanks for your response,

I think by traceroute you mean pinging a server? I pinged 4 random IPs (google, yahoo, 2 other random game servers) and here is what I got:

Total Timeouts over a 5 minutes period: 8 (4 timeouts yahoo, 2 timeouts google, 1 timeout a random game server, 1 timeout on another game server)

Should I worry about it? according to what you're saying this is not a problem on my end or the router, but the ISP.. should I call them and complain/ask for help onto fixing it?

I am testing the router stability/connection/performance until next Friday, because if it kept on doing this I think I'll return it back, unless it is an ISP problem then I'll keep the router and solve this issue with TE Data..

EDIT: Just right now all 4 pings gave the same amount of timeouts (4 timeouts) with loss of connection each timeout

bill001g · Nov 19, 2013

Nope that just show you have some kind of random network loss and it affects multiple sites which you knew already

You want to run tracert to one of these sites. it will show you the path to the site. Now the first address in the path are closer to your house so you ping each of those. It does not do a lot of good to ping too far away from your house.

You could also try a tool called winmtr that does this for you but if you leave it run for long times the averages hide the problems.

neoroify · Nov 20, 2013

Traceroute to Google:

Traceroute to TE-Data:

I don't understand anything of it but I put it here for analysis.

UPDATE: I made a traceroute on the first 3 IPs that appeared after the "Traceroute to www.google.com" text and the results were between 8.232 and 11.761 on each IP.
UPDATE: I made a ping on the first 3 IPs that appeared after the "Traceroute to www.google.com" and the results were 11ms for the first IP, 14ms for the 2nd IP, variable ping from 11ms to 50ms averagely for the 3rd IP and finally I pinged a 4th IP and the results were 44ms (constant) there were no time outs whatsoever.

Also something worth mentioning, when I am playing Battlefield 4 and run a performance test it shows the following:
(Uploading and will post once done)

bill001g · Nov 20, 2013

At this point you are showing no network issues at all. As it always seems to happen when you are running the monitoring tools it does not happen. It is partially a matter of luck to get data when you see a problem.
Unfortunately if the problem appears to be in the ISP network when you call them they will have the same problem detecting the error. It is much easier to find things that are broken all the time.

neoroify · Nov 20, 2013

bill001g :

I've been monitoring the time outs of the connection and here is the log and what it says when the connection goes down:

Can you please explain what is the cause of the disconnection? is it the router that is not stable or is it my land phone/ISP?

I got until tomorrow to decide either to send back the router or keep it; after your confirmation of the main problem I'll start solving it.. if it is an ISP problem then I'll complain to them, if it is a router problem I will return it back, thanks.

EDIT: I also think this might help you with something

bill001g · Nov 21, 2013

It show a failure in the actual ADSL circuit. This is almost always something related to the wire itself. They generally must go and check each cross connect in your phone line to make sure there is nothing loose or wire damaged. Not much you can do other than call the phone company.

skidkid87 · Nov 24, 2013

Hi, I'm from Egypt too and I have that router also, I got phone line issues currently and I'm running the 2Mbit/s connection while the 1 Mbit/s was stable, and I mean stable as in no hickups nothing, used to leave games on (need for speed world) overnight and it wouldn't disconnect, after almost 6 months now I got problems with the phone line

I'm not sure about this but a friend of mine told me that after some time the wire quality degrades and starts to show problems, needless to say I wanted to upgrade to 4 Mbit/s but my phone line couldn't take it (I live in mohandessin)

I'm so frustrated right now that I'm thinking of passing a full 220 V through the phone line and see what happens

so they would change the line with something more stable and can do more speeds but I dunno

anyways the router is good and always make sure u'r using 1Gbit connection when gaming (specially with games like bf3 and bf4) and using an old linksys router I had on the 2Mbit connection used to have me running 480p on utube barely without buffering, but now I get some buffer time ahead, but I'm thinking this puts a toll on our countries degraded and old phone lines unless u'r in one of the new areas like tagamo3 or 6th of October city

neoroify · Nov 30, 2013

skidkid87 :

Well, I am in one of the new areas, specifically 6th of October city but I think the issues I am having are because of the landlines that my building is using, I can pretty much assure you that the lines are in a bad status and I noticed the reason for connection dropouts is the SNR rate; to verify it I dialed "1" on my phone and I heard an unbearable noise, at that time my SNR Down rate was around 6 and 3, when I dial that number it gives me the noise but the SNR rate goes up to 15~20, when the SNR is around that rate my connection is stable; I am going to upgrade to 2 Mbps since I can't go more than that because my Attenuation rate is 50, so I wont make use of any higher connection.

I owned a 3Com before and my speeds wont go above 50kBps for download and videos on youtube wouldn't buffer even on 144p, but the Asus does wonders, I am downloading way above 100 kB/s!

I guess I'll have to contact a technician to come and fix/replace the line because it is totally screwed up..

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