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Author Topic: Draytek Vigor 166 G.fast Modem / Router Review  (Read 57041 times)

AStalUK

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Re: Draytek Vigor 166 G.fast Modem / Router Review
« Reply #270 on: February 15, 2021, 07:54:23 PM »

I've also been in contact with Draytek and provided with the 423RC2 firmware, so far no change for me.  Also the CLI still locks up.
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smallal

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Re: Draytek Vigor 166 G.fast Modem / Router Review
« Reply #271 on: February 17, 2021, 11:35:22 AM »

I was asked to try tweaking the VDSL target SNR via the CLI by a friend who's running stock firmware on a VDSL line, as it killed P1 & P2 when he tried it.
He knew I'm using RC2 (but on G.Fast) so he thought he'd get me to try it before flashing his, but I got the same result, it bricks the modem!
It says command successful & reboots, but it crashes, a power cycle kills ports 1 & 2, no green lights on P1 & P2 & no connections available.
The reset button brings it back to life luckily.
« Last Edit: February 23, 2021, 12:56:23 PM by smallal »
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smallal

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Re: Draytek Vigor 166 G.fast Modem / Router Review
« Reply #272 on: February 18, 2021, 12:13:10 PM »

For anyone thinking of buying the new V166-A GEN 2 (EU) version, Amazon in Germany have just got stock.
They're one of the few EU traders who will actually sell to the UK at the moment!
€122 + shipping to the UK & taxes = approx. €128 (as of 12:00hrs 18/02)
Update: A friend has just ordered one & it's due on Monday
He's going to loan it to me for a couple of days to look it over.
Update: It arrived early & I've given it the once over on my G.FAST line.
It comes with the same current firmware as EU GEN1 (4.1.1_STD)
Different IP address (192.168.1.1) to the UK model (192.168.2.1)
MTU max=1500 as per EU GEN1, needs VLAN=101 to be set manually for UK use.
The Q.S.Manual is in German only & no RJ11 - RJ11 cable supplied (as required for UK use).
Instead RJ11 to RJ45 & RJ11 to a large plastic plug of some kind are supplied.
Any attempt to upgrade firmware with UK version gets an incompatible hardware message & upgrade button greyed out
Same bugs as the EU GEN1 & UK models regarding the stats readouts, performance seems to be about the same too.
Last update: Tried tweaking the target SNR as per my previous post & again it doesn't work, bricks the unit & reset button required
Returned to the owner
« Last Edit: February 23, 2021, 12:58:46 PM by smallal »
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dune2010

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Re: Draytek Vigor 166 G.fast Modem / Router Review
« Reply #273 on: February 19, 2021, 10:21:55 AM »

Hi everyone,

I got this to swop out an Openreach modem for no reason really other than to see line stats etc.

I am still on the original firmware anybody had any other firmware apart form the RC1 and RC2.

Can anybody on the RC2 give any more info other than it hasn't made a difference.  Like what is it showing now that it didn't before? Has it made any difference to line stats good or bad?

Unfortunately i have nothing to compare my stats with but i was getting 47 down and 15 up but me being me messed about with it a few times and have managed to knock it down to 32 down :D But leaving it in and trying to stop messing with it.  Which for me is impossible.  ::)

My power brick and modem don't actually get hot and is on par with me ECI Openreach modem.

So basically is it worth me putting RC2 or any other newer one that might be available.

Also what VDSL faceplate have people got i am still on the MK1 will i see improvement with a Mk3/ NTE5C/MK4.  Would be interesting to see what other people have, well for me anyway.

Cheers



« Last Edit: February 19, 2021, 10:31:03 AM by dune2010 »
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j0hn

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Re: Draytek Vigor 166 G.fast Modem / Router Review
« Reply #274 on: February 19, 2021, 02:36:56 PM »

For anyone thinking of buying the new V166-A GEN 2 (EU) version, Amazon in Germany have just got stock.
They're one of the few EU traders who will actually sell to the UK at the moment!
€122 + shipping to the UK & taxes = approx. €128 (as of 12:00hrs 18/02)
Update: A friend has just ordered one & it's due on Monday
He's going to loan it to me for a couple of days to look it over.

We have someone who has an EU version of Gen1 above and can't install the UK firmware on it  so I'll add that warning to anyone thinking of buying it.
Though I don't know if they will even release a UK version of Gen2 so might never come across that issue.
« Last Edit: February 19, 2021, 02:39:05 PM by j0hn »
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j0hn

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Re: Draytek Vigor 166 G.fast Modem / Router Review
« Reply #275 on: February 19, 2021, 02:40:55 PM »

Hi everyone,

I got this to swop out an Openreach modem for no reason really other than to see line stats etc.

Aren't you disappointed

Quote
Can anybody on the RC2 give any more info other than it hasn't made a difference.  Like what is it showing now that it didn't before? Has it made any difference to line stats good or bad?

Still no error counters. Retx still shows incorrectly, etc etc.

In my opinion the best socket and faceplate combo is the NTE5A and MK3.

The NTE5C is junk
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dune2010

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Re: Draytek Vigor 166 G.fast Modem / Router Review
« Reply #276 on: February 19, 2021, 03:49:28 PM »

Disappointed not really.  It should in theory perform better, new tech and all that.  In this day and age its company's getting lazy and cutting corners we could also blame the pandemic etc.  I have seen it many times in the IT industry over 20 years.  Unifi for me must be one of the worst at the moment as they release firmware that seems to fix one thing then break something else constant pain, people will swear by it but they are the ones that have probably invested heavily. 

That's a shame but I will continue with it.  The speed lost doesn't really bother me at the moment.  I do think initially it was a better connection than the ECI modem but me being me i did a few too many reboots etc and got put on interleaving which is my fault rather than the modem at this point.  Time will tell I suppose if I can leave it alone or leave it for over 30mins before turning it back on.

I did read/think the MK3 was better again you would think it would have some advantage of the MK1 or else it wouldn't get to MK4.  But i have read about the build quality of the NTE5C MK4.

Thanks







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Alex Atkin UK

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Re: Draytek Vigor 166 G.fast Modem / Router Review
« Reply #277 on: February 19, 2021, 07:41:47 PM »

I can't remember where I read it, but someone said Ubiquiti also use very cheap hardware compared to other manufacturers, even in a similar price bracket.  With the likes of Zyxel (I think) adding a lot more filtering with just generally better build quality in their APs.

Sounds about right, as Ubiquiti seem to basically use consumer-grade hardware and graft their mod of OpenWRT on top of it.

The icing on the cake for me was the Unifi 6 Lite, WiFi 6 on 5Ghz but they seem to use WiFi 4 on 2.4Ghz.  Its basically being sold as an upgrade form the nanoHD but its only 2x2 MIMO so in many ways is actually a downgrade.  They just rushed it out so they could say they have a WiFi 6 AP on the market.

Its not even clear if it supports 160Mhz channel width, another thing they like to omit from their launch firmware and tack on later.  The only reason I started using Unifi Controller was because they didn't let you enable 160Mhz on the nanoHD from the web UI.  Seems they forgot that feature when they added 160Mhz support to the firmware.
« Last Edit: February 19, 2021, 07:43:54 PM by Alex Atkin UK »
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Newfie

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Re: Draytek Vigor 166 G.fast Modem / Router Review
« Reply #278 on: February 19, 2021, 08:36:23 PM »

It’s the same no matter what router you have, nothing is bug free nowadays or simply works but what some hate others love. Routers are ten to the dozen, they don’t qualify like a lovely valve amp or an old Musical Fidelity A370 where craftsmanship is involved with electronics so with routers it’s plastic technology that’s here today and gone tomorrow.
Mind you routers are a damn sight cheaper than the A370 I have and a lot cheaper to run  :lol:

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Alex Atkin UK

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Re: Draytek Vigor 166 G.fast Modem / Router Review
« Reply #279 on: February 19, 2021, 09:29:33 PM »

There's certainly a blurred line now with high-end consumer routers cost as much as the low-end Ubiquiti kit.

Honestly its all this ambiguity about the quality and speed of routers that pushed me to x86 in the first place.  Its not without its problems, but I can be sure CPU power and RAM isn't one of them.

When it comes to WiFi though you're still at the mercy of the manufacturer as the good drivers are closed source, despite the main software components being open source.  There's also all the regulation regarding WiFi certification that makes throwing together your own solution a none-starter.  I've dabbled with hostapd before, its not worth the effort.
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Broadband: Zen Full Fibre 900 + Three 5G Routers: pfSense (Intel N100) + Huawei CPE Pro 2 H122-373 WiFi: Zyxel NWA210AX
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Newfie

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Re: Draytek Vigor 166 G.fast Modem / Router Review
« Reply #280 on: February 20, 2021, 05:01:54 PM »

I was running one of those high end routers, a RAX120 when I had the vigor 166. I was suffering the increase latency and packet drops and hoped to combat it with some QoS but it’s broken on the 120 and was a true pain if you liked your online gaming. It’s been broken for a while sadly and has some rather interesting choices under its menu for services long gone.
I had the monitor up and running from Thinkbroadband and PingPlotter to see what was going on. There was a distinctive saw pattern from the vigor so if any one wants to check the monitors free to use.
If the pic works you can see the issue I was having. From around midnight shows the vigor saw pattern and you can see the dropped packets on the top left side during my daily use.
« Last Edit: February 20, 2021, 05:21:02 PM by Newfie »
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Newfie

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Re: Draytek Vigor 166 G.fast Modem / Router Review
« Reply #281 on: February 20, 2021, 06:00:19 PM »

Just to compare with the HG612 I’ve included a pic but I’m using a different router to control those dropped packets and latency.
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Wasabi

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Re: Draytek Vigor 166 G.fast Modem / Router Review
« Reply #282 on: February 21, 2021, 02:22:00 PM »

Hello all, good review, great thread, some very interesting posts and points of view.

Like many on the board I am having difficulty with the Vigor 166, more specifically the speed at which the modem syncs to the VDSL2 equipment within the cabinet we are hooked up to.

My connection loses 4-5 Mbps (17 down from 21/22Mbps) using the 166, as opposed to either my Openreach ECI modem (B-Focus model) or my ISP supplied FRITZ!Box 7530 Router / VDSL modem combo which sync at a rate up to 5Mbps higher. Our home is a decent way from the broadband cabinet (850M - 900M), typically we enjoy a "stable" but low speed FTTC connection in the 21 Mbps range for downloads and upload speeds of around 4-5 Mbps.

Historically I have used the ECI and more recently the 7530 and sync at around 21-22 Mbps download with a consistent 4.5Mbps upload and a typical 22ms - 28ms ping to UK servers.

This DL speed is instantly reduced when the 166 is connected to the line, upstream remains extant as does the "typical" ping but with large, intermittent latency spikes that can easily be recreated using DSL reports Speed-test where buffer-bloat is off the charts, this does not occur with the ECI modem when using QOS via a UniFi Dream Machine router.

The same router and QOS settings exhibit huge latency spikes when connected to the 166 leading me to believe that the 166 is most certainly the issue.

It's worth noting that the second VDSL Modem code (not default) on the 166 provides marginally higher sync speeds than the factory default setup. Changing the MTU setting for a lower value makes little difference in my case.

The cabinet is the ECI M41 type (FRITZ!box 7530 reports Infinium based hardware and the cabinet type when I checked on Google Maps is commensurate with this)

In addition, like many others I am unable monitor stats to even see if the modem is damaging my line profile as many here have reported, so in the interim I have switched back to the Openreach modem until Draytek fixes whatever is causing the issues or I return the product.

It's a shame as the hardware is clearly well made and has potential longevity that far outweighs my ageing ECI and ISP supplied 7530, but without the ability to monitor the line I simply cannot tell if the modem is performing as it should, couple this with a sync speed that’s 20-25% worse than the ancient hardware that I already use and the 166 is a hard purchase to justify :/
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smallal

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Re: Draytek Vigor 166 G.fast Modem / Router Review
« Reply #283 on: February 27, 2021, 02:43:57 PM »

I see the EU version has another BETA firmware out - 423RC4
No idea what (if anything) they've fixed
Anyone know if there's a UK version?
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hushcoden

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Re: Draytek Vigor 166 G.fast Modem / Router Review
« Reply #284 on: February 27, 2021, 06:13:02 PM »

I see the EU version has another BETA firmware out - 423RC4
Do you have a web link?
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