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Archer VR1600v Firmware

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BasilDV
Moderator

Hi @gman,

 

The firmware of your modem is now updated.

 

Should you require further assistance, please let us know.

 

Kind regards,

BasilDV

rthring
Level 2

I would like a link to upgrade my current firmware as I believe the one currently installed on my modem is out of date.

Firmware Version: 0.1.0 0.9.1 v5006.0 Build 180828 Rel.56416n

Hardware Version: Archer VR1600v v1 00000000

BasilDV
Moderator

Hi @rthring,

 

The modem currently has the latest firmware.

 

Should you require further assistance, please let us know.

 

Regards,

BasilDV

bmxiitgeek
Level 2

I am also wondering about our Archer modem. Installed in January and our internet flew (as well as our intranet). 

Now our intranet is slow as a slug.

When I wireshark the lan I see that there are lengthy delays between packets being sent to the modem and being even acknowledged.

Current version : 0.1.0.9.1 V5006.0 Build 180828 Rel 46416n

 

Could you please confirm the latest version of the firmware and provide me a link to download if it is newer than this version.

 

Will
Moderator

Hi @bmxiitgeek,

 

Welcome to the Community.

 

For starters, your modem's firmware version is currently up to date. Can you clarify what you meant by the intranet being slow, so we can have a better idea on how to assist you further?

 

Regards,

bmxiitgeek
Level 2

Hi and ty for welcome.

In essence I have found the problem. The following is the full tale but the summary is that I have proven (as far as I am concerned) that the router gets noisier (creates more internal network traffic) the longer it is in operation until it virtually stops all attached devices. Simple solution is regular rebooting. Best solution is fixing it so it does not require frequent rebooting. 

 

We went to NBN on FTTC in January. NBN installed an NBN device and the TP-Link Arverh VR1600v Router to handle our NBN connection.

We are receiving 6 phone lines through the router and into two ATA-4 devices and then into our PABX system as if they were POTS circuits.

There were some configuration changes that I had to make that iiNet/TPG were unware of to make the Port Forwarding work correctly (I advised iiNet/TPG at the time what I had to do so they could help other new FTTC business connections who would have the same issues.

All was then well, very good in fact.

Our typical speeds achieved over the connections were around 80MBps down and 23MBps up which I was very happy with (we are on the NBN 100 plan).

Recently speeds had dropped to below 40Mbps down and 4Mbs up which was a concern.

At first I thought it simply a matter of the entire network being busy (it was just after ATO EOY) so I put off further testing until last Friday.

Speeds were still around the 40Mbps and 4Mbs respectively.

All our internal equipment was running slow on in house applications (mail, spreadsheets etc.).

At first I suspected virus and tested every piece of hardware in the intranet. All clean.

I rebooted our three servers (SBS2011 and Server 2012 x 2) and all PCs.

The sytems were still running like pigs and the NBN speeds had not changed.

I installed WireShark and monitored traffic flows for two hours. The Router was making a lot (almost 20% of all traffic) of tcp/ip packets on the network (mainly dns/dhcp/browser announcements), almost producing a DenialOfService situation.

This seemed extraordinarily high to me so I rebooted the router.

Immediately my speeds returned to 77.8 and 9.7 respectively and my entire intranet is faster, not just my NBN speeds.

Wireshark now shows the Router creating minimal announcement packages (less than 1% of all traffic) and the amount of intranet traffic has reduced overal by nearly 70% (because the servers/pcs are responding to less packets from the Router), so I surmise that the traffic on our intranet was the cause of our slow downs and that the router was creating all the un-necessary traffic congestion on the lan.

I have put the Router onto my Weekly reboot tasks until such time as someone agrees with me that the router is being uneccessarily noisy and fixes it :-)

 

Will
Moderator

Hi @bmxiitgeek,

 

Glad to hear that you're able to find a workaround. Should the issue persists, I would suggest a reset as a last resort. Although that would mean you'll have to reconfigure the settings back to how you need it to be.

bmxiitgeek
Level 2

Thanks for your response.

However, I am sure you will agree that workarounds should be temporary.

As I said in my previous post "Best solution is fixing it so it does not require frequent rebooting."

 

Perhaps this should be referred back to the TPG team who are resonsible for the firmware in the Archer.

TPLink have confirmed that this is entirely under the control of TPG - all firmware changes are made/managed and implemented by TPG (or a contractor of TPG) which is why we cant download firmware upgrades from TPLink.

 

I have also found that EVEN IF I TURN IPV6 off in the router the router STILL does IPV6 announcing traffic. This is not really a good thing

Also, even though the telephony portion of the router is disabled by firmware, the system logs show that it is still 'reacting' to what it considers to be incoming calls, including trying to find the number it ints address book. This is also not good because the router is doing actions that it should not which will be taking 'time' out of its busy schedule doing what it should be doing.

 

Additionally, the manual for this router covers a lot of things which are disabled by the firmware (telephony for example) and not able to be accessed by users. Simultaneously it does not cover very important information which users can only work out by trial and error. Perhaps the manual team need to revisit their documentation and produce a more user suitable document.

 

Note: I am not trying to be negative here. I believe these are things which can be leveraged by TPG to

a) make the Archer a better solution

b) satisfy user issues with the Archer and (by inference) TPG as a vendor

c) provide customers a better solution

 

Regards

Shane
Moderator

Hi @bmxiitgeek,

 

we appreciate for providing us your feedback with our supplied modem/router. The Firmware for our supplied modem/router is customised for TPG network and some of the features found on those equipment with the default firmware may not be available.

 

TPG loads it's custom firmware on our NBN modem/router so that it can match with the system we use to provide you with TPG NBN internet and homephone. This is also done for added security and privacy of the connection.

 

Some customers who do not use the home phone component of our bundle sometimes prefer to use their own NBN compatible modem. If this is the case, then we can provide you the settings required to configure your 3rd party modem with the settings required to access the internet.

 

Let us know should you require further assistance.

 

Cheers!

 

bmxiitgeek
Level 2

Hi Shane and thanks for your response.

 

The Archer IS (in my opinion) a good modem/router.

The wireless component of it is very good, even withoput exterior antenna.

 

 I have no doubt that TPG customise the Firmware to make the modem setup/management easier for customers and applaud this as good customer service (as well as probably reducing the help desk activity somewhat).

 

The point of my last post was to point out that there were both firmware and documentation aspects that could be improved and to suggest that my points (if deemed relevant) might make their way to the relevant teams to consider.

 

To Summarise, the points were/are

a) With no Telephony component the system (and system logging) should disable the activities that are part of the Telephony component. Currently, even though there is no Telephony configuration options, the modem is attemting to lookup incoming phone calls in the modem address book. These actions both take time and fill the system log with errors.

b) If IPV6 is turned off in the configuration then NO IPV6 actions/logging should occur - currently the modem still generates IPV6 traffic for announcements/requests such as dns/dhcp/who is/multicast etc. even though IPV6 is not enabled disabled.

c) When installing the modem if attaching to an NBN Network Connection Device for FTTC, to utilise Port Forwarding/triggers correctly you must delete the ADSL profiles, not just mark them inactive. Even when they are inactive they override the ewan port forwarding rules (likely only relevant in commercial environment).

 

There is a lot more I raised when we were having our original installation issues but I never received an acknowledgement that the teams involved would even be shown my comments/suggestions and I certainly never received any follow ups. I guess I am too technical for some folks and its easier just to hope I will go away :-)

 

Regards