wdr7500 v2 and archerc7 v1 are, aside from the antennas, exactly the same thing. Its right in the firmware headers.
My guess about why he bought one of those, is that he probably is in some place where it is not inconvenient to buy one. Could be a lot harder for him to obtain an archer c7 v2.

In any event, he is obviously not using openwrt -- at least not with 5 GHz wifi working.

I was trying to compile the latest nightly last night and kept getting build errors. I ran a make distclean as a last resort but didn't have time to reconfigure and recompile.

I'll grab the latest source when I have a chance to try again. I did notice you have the C7 as the WDS client. I've been trying to get it working with the C7 as the WDS enabled AP which hasn't been working for me.

If I still have issues I'm going to try switching roles between my C7 and 4300 and see if I can at least replicate your results. That'd be at least a step forward on my quest.

*edit* also both devices are on barrier breaker. The 4300 is running a build from just before I aquired my C7.

(Last edited by Anamin on 17 Apr 2014, 16:10)

I ran out of time last night to test switching them around like you have them.
Also, you do know that there are nightlies now, right?
http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/trunk/ar71xx/

The mac address problem I'm seeing really does point to a driver or firmware problem. Definitely some things broken with ath10k still.

Might be something worth looking into.... http://www.candelatech.com/vsta.php

Makes sense, I guess the beta version was used may be because the Archer C7_V1_130729 bin was'nt available yet, I guess I will be trying it on my wdr7500 v2 I am tired of translating chinese on each page I go to. since compiling and testing is not really my language, I will be waiting for  a "finished" openwrt bin to load, via webgui, when it is ready.

I think you haven't been paying attention.
There will *NEVER* be a "finished" openwrt for archer c7v1 / wdr7500v2. Hardware limitation that will never be overcome.

If you don't care about 5 GHz wifi, you might as well try the *current nightly builds*.

We are *definitely* looking at firmware problems here.
I've now done a bit more testing.
I reversed the roles of the C7 and the 4300. WDS **still works**.

Now here's the thing;

I just tried out the "999.999.0.636" firmware. With that, I can create AP and client interfaces that work simultaneously, but there is definitely no WDS on that firmware. The other firmware, the "10.1.467.2-1" has working WDS, but only single interface works at a time.

Use this firmware for WDS:
https://github.com/kvalo/ath10k-firmwar … .1.467.2-1

Use this firmware for simultaneous AP/client networks:
https://github.com/kvalo/ath10k-firmwar … .999.0.636

What this means, unfortunately, is that you can't connect additional 5 GHz network devices onto the C7's 5 GHz while it is in WDS client mode. HOWEVER, with the C7 in WDS AP mode, you *can* connect additional devices, AND create additional *working* AP's, which is good for you since you are trying to use the C7 as the master.

Also, that candelatech firmware *does not work at all*. No surprises there, really.

(Last edited by definesinsanity on 17 Apr 2014, 22:43)

Good to know, now problem for me, the 5ghz is only used by the iPad I have, can surely live without it.
Any build you recommend? thanks for the time and effort.

Awesome. I'm running a build right now but with the STA/999.999 firmware. I'll stop and reconfigure for the other firmware. This is the opposite of what I was expecting when reading the documentation. I thought the 999.999 was the one that supported WDS. *facepalm*

That explains all of my troubles. Thanks so much for the help! Hopefully I'll have a success before the evenings over.

Yeah, http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/ … actory.bin

What that is, is a NIGHTLY build of openwrt trunk (barrier breaker) for c7v1.
There really is only one build available at any particular time, so no need to worry about "which build".
The only thing that you probably want that it is missing, is LuCI -- the graphical config interface.
VERY easy to install.
telnet in to it (telnet 192.168.1.1)
Type in "opkg update; opkg install luci"
Then...
"/etc/init.d/uhttpd enable"
followed by
"/etc/init.d/uhttpd start"

Now the graphical interface should be working.

The only thing you need to be aware of, is that opkg required internet to work -- it downloads and then installs the package. So if you're using a dsl modem or some other thing that requires a login to configure, leave your old router in place and just chain through all of them (make sure that the old router is set to a network OTHER than 192.168.1.0).

I.e.; plug dsl modem into old router wan port, old router lan port to c7 wan port, c7 lan port to laptop or something.

If you're using a cable modem or other network that "just works", then you can just straight up replace the old router with the c7.

You can just copy the proper firmware straight into the device and reboot it. It goes in /lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA988X/hw2.0/
Give yourself an opkg install wget or opkg install curl and you can just download it straight from github into your firmware path and call it good.

Thank you for choosing TP-LINK, This is Lydia Tang from TP-LINK Technical Support.
TL-WDR7500 and Archer C7 are not the same product. Different Model Numbers DON’T share firmware versions. Wrong firmware upgrading may damage your device and void the warranty. Therefore the firmware of Archer C7 can NOT be used for TL-WDR7500.
Interesting... now I am really reluctant to do anything....

You can use Archer C7 v1 firmware with WDR7500 v2. However, you need to flash OpenWrt in between, since the GUI of WDR7500 won't accept C7 firmware and vice versa. From OpenWrt you can then flash C7 firmware with mtd.

What you received was a generic response from a customer support rep, not a technical response from an engineer.

Thank you so much for this detailed explanation i will try my best in following those instructions ( some reading may be required)

This clears it for me, thank you.

Hi Ck,
Thanks a lot for your detailed and brilliant method! It works on my WDR7500
I am now considering to upgrade the Archer C7 firmware, after reading later post, I assume the C7 stock firmware without boot will certainly work. And echen supplement that he can flash w / wo boot via webgui.

But I still agree with you on caution of boot mod, so I want to strip the bootloader from the stock firmware myself. As I can see you are too busy to provide the lastest version of C7 w/o boot, I am more than glad to help and share the product. Could you help me on the steps? thank you!

There is wdr7500 v3 on sell in WWW. JD.COM,Anyone knows that v3=archer c7 v2?  Mine is v1 ,it can't support  5g with ath10k linux driver.

Maybe, or maybe not.
There are some very minor differences between wdr7500 v2 and c7 v1. Specifically, they source different brands of flash and ram. The 7500v2 has cFeon flash (vs Winbond on c7v1) and Hynix ram (vs Winbond on c7v1). There really is no telling what else they might source differently on foreign devices.

Though we can reasonably GUESS that the wdr7500v3 is likely to be almost the same as c7v2, there is no way to actually tell without more information about it, or someone actually buying one.

There may also be a tell in the factory firmware, the presence of which would almost guarantee that they are the same. If it is missing the tell, it does NOT mean that they are necessarily different however.

If you can find the factory firmware and look at the 4 bytes starting at address 0x40, it contains the model and hardware version of the matching device. Archer c7v2 contains the values "c7000002".

c7v1 had the value 75000001. Note the "7500" matching the wdr7500.

My gut tells me that the wdr7500v3 will *probably* have "75000003", which is, of course, inconclusive.

If you can find/provide more information about the device, it would be helpful in identifying it better. I would look myself, but I can't read Chinese.

And one Archer C7 turned into a brick... check. *face palm* Guess I didn't know how to reflash the stock firmware. Oops.

I bricked once too and it's really easy to unbrick.
As Ck-NoSFeRaTU wrote in https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php … 05#p214405,
1. set your ip to 192.168.1.66 and run tftp server like http://tftpd32.jounin.net/
2. put firmware(without bootloader) as ArcherC7v2_tp_recovery.bin
3. hold reset button and power on.

This worked for me.

(Last edited by xbsd on 23 Apr 2014, 01:24)

Why were you trying to install stock firmware?

I still was unable to get WDS successfully working on the AC card. I also ordered an Intel AC card for my laptop and was having less than stellar results sitting 6 ft from the router in the same room. I wanted to go back to baseline to see what I can expect from this unit factory to know what to mess with further and what to accept as is.

*edit* when I bought the C7 I ran the stock firmware long enough to flash openwrt on it

(Last edited by Anamin on 23 Apr 2014, 02:35)

Still? Even with the right firmware in place?
I'd like you to try again, using the nightly OpenWRT (not your own build), manually copying in the correct firmware, and configuring the WDS through LuCI. I'm telling you, mine is WDS'ing as we speak, perfect stability.

Also, I'm not sure if you realize this, but stock firmware will *DEFINITELY NOT* be WDS-compatible with *anything* running OpenWRT.

Hello,

You can see a description of the TP-Link binary images in this page:

https://firmware-mod-kit.googlecode.com … age_layout

As described above:

Firmware images which include a bootloader have an 'image within image'
structure consisting of a 'standard' kernel/rootfs image within a
larger image as shown below.

-----------------------------------------
|     |     |                           |
|     |     |    -------------------    |
|     |     |    |     |     |     |    |
|  h  |  b  |    |  h  |  k  |  r  |    |
|  e  |  o  |    |  e  |  e  |  o  |    |
|  a  |  o  |    |  a  |  r  |  o  |    |
|  d  |  t  |    |  d  |  n  |  t  |    |
|  r  |  l  |    |  e  |  e  |  f  |    |
|     |  d  |    |  r  |  l  |  s  |    |
|     |  r  |    |     |     |     |    |
|     |     |    -------------------    |
|     |     |                           |
-----------------------------------------

So is possible to strip the bootloader part from the image by simply deleting it from the binary file, resulting in a plain rootfs/kernel image that can be flashed directly through the Archer C7 web interface without changing the bootloader. I've done it several times without problems, but, as always, you have to do it at your own risk...

To strip the bootloader part of the image, you can open the binary image in an HEX editor (like HxD in Windows), and search for the second ASCII "TP-LINK Technologies" ocurrence, which will be in the header of the kernel image. Before the string, you'll see the 4 bytes version field, which should be 01 00 00 00). This is the exact point where the bootloader section ends and the kernel image starts, so you only need to strip all the data before it to obtain a binary image without bootloader. I've done this procedure with several versions, and the kernel image always starts at 0x20200, so stripping the data between 0x0 and 0x201FF will make it.

I hope this info can help you.

Best Regards,