I have been a brief user of Vigor products for many years. The one thing which has always let them down in my opinion is the rate they train at if you live a long way from the BT Exchange.

BT say I should be able to get 512k, maybe 1 Mbit at a push. Imagine my delight when some years ago I went Sky and my router now trains at 3776 download/768 upload. This was with the Sky supplied Netgear DG834GT router but it had other difficulties. So, I tried many other routers by Netgear, Belkin, Cisco, Linksys, Billion, Vigor and even separate modems with 'cable' routers and on every occasion the Vigor would always come out worst, losing in some instances up to 1 Mbit/s in download rate including their 100/110/120 modems. In this instance 1Mbit is significant! BTW, I know Sky's T's and C's!

Anyway, to cut a long story short I was recently using a Billion 7800N which simply died on me, first router to ever do so. As a bit of nostalgia I got out an old Vigor2800vg and flashed it with some newer firmware from this site. E.67.2.52 to be precise. Imagine my surprise when I saw the router train at 3552/768 - the closest I have ever seen any Vigor get near the likes of the Netgear/Billions of this world. And it wasn't a fluke - I've rebooted it just to check!

I threw out a 2820n some time ago in exasperation at the low speeds and am now wondering if Vigor have simply started to get the firmware right or whether you still have to wade through the many alternate firmwares they offer until you get the best one for your particular situation.

If someone could tell me that there is an equivalent firmware to the above for the 2820n and that I would get the speeds of the 2800 above I would go out and buy another one tomorrow - I love their features but simply through the speed issue have been forced down other routes - Billion probably comes closest, although Netgears with DGTeam firmware are also excellent.

This is all personal experience of course and may not be representative but it is my experience. I am still using the 2800VG at the moment and am absolutely delighted with the speed and robustness of the connection. It just 'feels' right!

So, can I buy another 2820 with confidence and with what firmware, or would I lose out from my current scenario (could do with 802.11N)!

Regards to all,

Stewart

I recognize part of what your writing.

My old modem/router (SMC 7908VoWBRA) achieved an upload of 1024kbit/s. With the Draytek 2820Vn, it stops at 850kbit/s. Latest firmware 3.3 used.

This is with *exactly* the same ADSL provider, connection, wiring - the only thing changed is the modem/router. Of course I find this a bit disappointing - you would expect a newer product to perform at least as good as the old product.

As for 802.11n: unfortunately my Intel 4965AGN wireless card doesn't play well in 'n' mode with this router. Will hopefully also get fixed in a future version.

Hopefully I find some time this weekend to complain about these issues to Draytek.

Just download the same firmware but ith a different ADSL modem code... you can find the different codes for the same firmware under the internatonal FTP section.

The standard firmware for me givees me speeds of around 19mbs, but if I download the version with modem code 211801 my speed goes back to an acceptable 21mbs

All depends on the type of DSLAM your ISP uses..

So try all the different ones and see which ones does best for you (there are at least 4 modem codes per firmware).

@groov:
Thanks for the advice. I've tried all 5 different modem codes and it *does* make a difference. My upload is now 906Kb/s. An improvement, but not as good as with my old modem/router.

@groov - I did try all modem codes before I gave up on my 2820. The closest any of them got was within 512k of the Netgear; i.e. the download training at just over 3MBits. By the way, the 120 modem was just over 2MBits download (upload has always been my maximum, 768 kbits/s)

What I don't understand is this. If a manufacturer offers five different firmwares for the same device one would expect that there is some kind of optimisation being programmed in for specific line/exchange configurations, and one would therefore expect one of the firmwares to perform better than the standard one. However, my experience with the 2820 was that all of them were significantly poorer than the Netgear 111 modem/Linksys AM200 modem and several others. So somehow, a 'one size fits all' firmware from some manufacturers performs better than 5 different 'customised' firmwares from another. This actually sounds to me like hardware limitations being circumvented with software fixes.

This is why I posted in the first place because in all my experience with Vigor products (I have bought every one they have produced since the 2600 for ADSL) the only firmware/hardware which has performed as well as I would expect is the old 2800 with the new firmware as mentioned above. This is not a dig at Vigor - I love Vigor kit, I have a misplaced loyalty which I find hard to justify, but I will keep buying their new products as they come out in the hope that one will eventually perform in my line setup as well as some others (I am 3km away from the Exchange as the crow flies, so probably a lot more in reality).

So, to those of you who experience expected download/uploads speeds from your Vigor kit I have a little envy but in my case, and I emphasise in my case, the 2800 with E.67.2.52 firmware is the only combination which has ever worked well for me, which I stumbled on per chance the other day. If I new one of the newer firmwares would work as well with a 2820 I would buy one tomorrow (I did literally bin one some time ago), but once bitten, twice bitten, thrice bitten? Loyalty can only be stretched so far!

Regards to all!

Stewart

I've experienced the same - a straight swap between linksys's/solwise etc with the 2820 meant a noticeable drop in performance. However, the other modems would run very fast but also drop the connection more often. For me, a slightly slower but better quality connection is important so I'm still happy.