Hope someone can offer advice or suggest a solution or is my Draytek Router Faulty!?

Workshop Equipment:

Draytek ADSL 2820n Router with the latest firmware

An Unmanaged 16 port Gigabyte Ethernet Switch

Two permanent workstations and a Network HP CP2025n Printer

The workshops main workstation is a SuSE Linux Box:

OS: Linux 2.6.31.14-0.1-desktop x86_64
System: OpenSUSE 11.2 (x86_64)
KDE: 4.3.5 (KDE 4.3.5) "release 0"
Gigabyte Ethernet interface

Switched on 24/7/365 running a Web Server, Samba Server, Ssh and Ftp Servers. This box is used for hosting a number of websites for local small businesses. The Samba Server is used for moving / recovering / backing up data from customer computers and laptops when required and is used for storing many software tools, common applications and M$ service packs.

The 2nd workstation is a Win7 Home Premium box with a Gigabyte Ethernet interface.

There are 8 other locations on a separate bench that allow for customer Laptops and Computers to be brought in for various repairs from virus and malware removal to servicing, hardware repairs and software updates etc etc. They all get local and Internet access as required.

Everything in the workshop connects to a an Unmanaged Netgear Gigabyte Ethernet Switch, this switch then connects to the Gigabyte Ethernet port on the Draytek ADSL Router.

My ISP is Demon Internet on an ADSL2+ service with an upto 20meg account with an upload speed of 1 meg. Loop Attenuation is steady at 39db and my upload speed is steady at 1023937Kbps (1 meg). Demon tell me that there's nothing wrong with my line or my service!

Symptoms:

Firstly Local Access (LAN) has no issues or problems at all whatsoever and logging into the Draytek router is never a problem either. My problem doesn't effect Local access or resources.

Suddenly I will experience extremely slow or non existent Internet access. Firefox on my Linux box will display the words “looking up www.something.com” and eventually displays part or all the webpage. My Win7 box tells me I only have local access. I can still access local resources.

Logging into my router all appears fine, I haven't been kicked off or anything. Switching off my router usually once occasionally several times resolves the problem. The length of time the problem is resolved for varies enormously from a few short minutes to hours. I have tried shutting down all computers, powering off all computers, the switch and the printer for a few minutes and turning everything back on again without touching the router. This rarely works, I always have to resort to turning the router off for a minute or two.

A bit more info:

I can get a download speed of 9.8Mbps with an SNR of 8 to 9db this is where the problem i'm getting appears the most often.

When my download speed drops (after several reboots of the router) to 7.4 to 7.8Mbps with an SNR of 10 to 14db the problem i'm experiencing occurs less often.

Today my router was kicked off the Internet displaying the message saying it was “ready” and wouldn't progress any further. After several reboots and switching it off the problem wasn't resolved until I switched it off for a full 10 mins before turning it back on then I regained Internet access. I am still experiencing the problem and the problem is becoming more frequent.

I have connected a TP-Link router onto the line which gives me an upload speed of 8???Kbps and a download speed of 8.5Mbps, the line was stable for the few hours I used it for but this router doesn't have a gigabyte Ethernet port and configuring it to give me what I want is either not possible or i'm missing something somewhere.

I'm convinced that the problem is either my ISP or the Draytek router or both.

Any ideas as to how I can find out what's causing the problem

Mark

Mark,

Have a search around here for other adsl2+ related topics. It's possible that you need to "tweak" the dsl modem settings or try another firmware version (with a different modem code).

At the moment i have a very stable connection and for just over 10hrs the longest period for weeks.

Two things though, firstly my download speed has dropped to its lowest for months at 7.2Mbps, it usually is stable at low figures and my SNR is 15db the best i've had for months.

Secondly i have forced my router to use a different Primary / Secondary DNS server on the advice of Draytek's Tech Support.

So at the mo i don't know for sure why i have such a stable line, is it a low download speed with it's increased SNR or forced DNS or both?

So i have to wait now until my download speed creeps up and my SNR value drops again, this may take a few days to achieve.

Well after nearly 24hrs i switched off my router for over 10mins maybe as long as 1/2hr and switched it back on again.

My new download bandwidth came in at 9.28Mbps with an SNR of 9db. At first (1 to 5mins) i was gutted the Internet was virtually inaccessible with simple webpages taking forever to appear on screen if at all with several attempts timing out but my LAN was unaffected as usual.

After about 5mins my access to the Internet was restored and very fast indeed.

Now after nearly 20hrs it's still nice and fast. So things are looking very good.

In the past i'm used to having a fast stable line for several weeks without problems even as much as 5 weeks without noticing that i've had my line reset / disconnected, so fingers crossed.

Does this suggest that my router is somehow incompatible with Demon Internet's DNS Servers or are the Demon Internet DNS Servers somehow slow or having problems in some way.

Demon have been trying to encourage me to sign up for a different service for weeks (Costing me more money of course).

Being suspicious, is my problem somehow related. i'll never know.

Forcing my router to use a different pair of DNS Servers does for now appear to have resolved my problems.

I'll find out as the next few days / weeks roll by.

Another noticeable and pleasant thing I've noticed is the fact that I've got BBC Radio 2 and Classicfm back too without the sound breaking up and loss of service over the Internet. Bugger i spent £80 on a new Sony DAB radio for the workshop a couple of weeks ago because i was fed up of it breaking up and stopping altogether every few minutes.

Mark