Hello everyone,

New to the forums, apologies if this has been answered before but I've been searching the web for the last couple days and can't find a solution. If anyone has a similar problem or any suggestions I would be grateful if they could advise me what to do.

Basically, cut a long story short, I'm on Sky Broadband and was advised by BT that Fibre will be installed by July 2013, so I purchased the Draytek 2850n in anticipation for the change. Unfortunately, BT recently told me that it is now uneconomical for them to upgrade my place to Fibre and have now abandoned plans to do so. Therefore the only option was to go for Virgin Media which was installed a few days ago.

I have the 120Mb package and Super Hub 2, which gives me a download of 120Mb and 12Mb upload, and when connected to my PC directly in modem mode I get the following speeds:

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/2902251120
(125Mb/s download and 12Mb/s upload).

However, after configuring the Virgin Media Super Hub 2 to the WAN 2 in modem mode on the Draytek 2850n, I get the following speeds:

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/2906708913
(56Mb/s download and 12Mb/s upload).

If I set the 'Physical Type' to 100M Full Duplex I get the following speeds:

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/2906749290
(15Mb/s download and 12Mb/s upload)

When I change the 'Physical Type' to 100M Half Duplex I get the following:

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/2906755226
(51Mb/s download and 12Mb/s upload)

As it stands I have tried a hard reset numerous times and tried and few different settings such as MTU, Specify MAC Address etc. I still have the Sky Broadband connected (via the ADSl port) but that is only used as a backup if WAN 2 fails.

I found online that the 2850 supports 90Mbs/s firewall, could this be the problem? If I purchase the 2860 could this also solve the problem as it supports 200Mb/s firewall.

If anyone has any ideas or suggestions I would greatly appreciate it.


Kind Regards,

James

are you testing with a wired or wireless connection? I think wireless would put extra load on the router.

The Virgin Media is connected directly to the WAN 2 and using 'Physical Type': Auto Negotiation, and the computer is connected with a ethernet cable directly to LAN 1.

The wireless is also switched on for other devices to connect such as phones, tablets etc. If I turn the wireless off I still get the same download and upload speeds. I've tried connecting other cables including Cat 6 but still have the same problem.

Regards,

James

I had no problem achieving 75mb/s throughput with my 2850n on BT Infinity. I also used a 2920n with the BT modem in a similar fashion to yourself.
However, to use the BT modem it had to be set to PPOE on the port. I don't understand why you are setting 100mb on the port- does the Virgin modem not have gigabit output?
This could explain your restricted speeds.

HI i am with VM as well
i have VM (soon to stop :x :x moving abroad) and have some suggestions

Set the SH 2 at modem mode because at router mode over time will have double nat problem

First i have find the STD modem code of the Draytek has little better speed over wan 2
Latest firmware here
ftp://ftp.draytek.com/Vigor2850/Firmware/v3.6.4.1/Annex%20A/
Second you can go to WAN >> General Setup and set to Auto negotiation ... then
WAN >> Internet Access>>details page>>Obtain an IP address automatically>> set MTU 1500
QoS inactive
DoS set higher value (i think firmware 3.6.4.1 is already at 2000 so is ok)

If this tweaks will not help with VM line ... i have one more suggestion which should work & try from the begin ... but the tweaks are well worth to try

When all wan connections (even if is not set up yet) is on ... seems the CPU stolen some power of the draytek
Go to wan >> General setup and disable wan 1 & wan 3 ... reboot manually ... try again

VM have upgrade my line from 100 to 120 but i am in Greece right now to test & got my draytek with me here
Disabling the wan's in not use gave me the full 105 mb (at that time) while before disable wan's was getting anything from 75-85 mb
Same applied to my 2850,2830 & 2920 models i am owning so should work for you too

Try & report back (note the throughput firewall of the 2850 is up to 90mb so anything on top of that will be record)

I am down in Greece and not log in regularly as before ... so my point is ... if miss any post here and disabling other wan's works remember if you planning in the future second connection will slow down the 3 models i mentioned so the 2860 as you say may be more ideal

Thanks ever so much for the suggestions guys, and I found the culprit.

It was the USB port that was slowing the download speed. It seems the USB port is stealing CPU power.
I had connected a USB hub that was powered by the mains and had a 16Gb USB Drive for the syslog and a 3G USB Modem. When I took the USB Hub out the download speed went up to 90Mb/s (the firewall limit).
If I connect the USB drive directly the speed drops to 75Mb/s, and when the USB Hub is connected drops to 50Mb/s. Regardless whether the 3G is disabled in the settings, it is still drawing power.

As it stands I'm still losing 35Mb/s as my Virgin is capable of 125Mb/s, and its a shame I cant use the USB port.

I'm still tempted to purchase the 2860n as I'm hoping I can get the full 125Mb/s download and still connect my USB hub.

Thanks again for your help guys.


Regards,

James