Automatic firmware upgrade?

Another unfortunate thing is I also happened to have the simulator page open in the browser:
http://www.tp-link.com/resources/simulator/Archer_C7/index.htm
It has the same build in the status page.
Makes be wonder, if I had mistook the simulator page, for the real thing !!!

But then, I also remember issuing the URL http://192.168.0.1 for the first time & going straight in to the Status page & getting baffled, about the hardware version.

Then, this is what Twisted Pair-Link support had to say:

So nobody knows how to configure thus router as an access point with OpenWRT?

I have some troubles with wdr7500 v3 (cinese version with 6 six antennas),
firmware does not accept openwrt arch V1 with error 18005, so i install uart header, but semms that tp-link forgot
a resistor between vcc and rx so only debug tx working (i addedd 1K resistor between vcc and RX) and tpl sequence works.

Now i would like to substitude tplink uboot with generic menu driven uboot (like rt35xx uboot), i ordered
16 Mb flash but i don't now procedure to copy firmware and upgrade flash.

So those you running OpenWrt on your Archer C7 v2, how is the WAN<->LAN throughput? I'm wondering if there is some HW accelerated NAT feature required to reach the  ~900-950 Mbit/s throughput speed mentioned on smallnetbuilder.com and if so, if OpenWrt supports that?

I'm currently looking for a router with OpenWrt support that won't severely bottleneck my Gbit internet connection. There seems to be very few consumer routers with good throughput that also have OpenWrt support.

Most likely uses HW NAT, which is not supported under OpenWrt on any platform that I'm aware of. Maybe in the future?

So there are no consumer routers that can handle close to 1 Gbit/s WAN<->LAN throughput with OpenWrt?

What is needed to support HW NAT support? Some kind of driver from Qualcomm/Atheros?

EDIT: According to this ticket, it seems hopeless. I guess I'll have to give up on OpenWrt if I want good routing performance. Too bad. It's been rock solid and I really like being able to have this much control over it.

https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/11779

(Last edited by blunden on 1 Sep 2014, 23:31)

You might be able to do 400-500 Mbps with the WDR4900, but it's only half of your bandwidth. First world problems... Joking aside, yes it sucks not being able to do hardware NAT in OpenWRT and no hope on the horizon.

One option would be to build your own mini-itx x86 router or something like that.

(Last edited by arokh on 1 Sep 2014, 23:38)

Are there any small, good, fanless and relatively cheap (a few hundred bucks) router hardware I can get and then just use my current router as an AP? I assume there isn't or I'd have heard about it. The 337 day (current) uptime on my WNDR3700v2 running your build has spoiled me.

(Last edited by blunden on 2 Sep 2014, 00:15)

Something x86-based should be able to do it just fine. Here's one possible option, although I have no idea what sort of routing performance it can really achieve or if there are any other issues with it. Has mini-PCIe slots if you want to integrate wireless in that way:  http://www.pcengines.ch/apu1c.htm

There are a lot of Bay Trail systems out there these days that might work too. Maybe some ARM systems.

One of the developers did say in a talk once that they would be looking into the possibility of HW NAT in the future, but who knows when/if that might happen.

I think the upcoming generation of routers with dual core ARM chips may get us there without HW NAT.

How about one of those MikroTek routers? I'm guessing they should at least be more stable than consumer routers. Having had some experience with Juniper routers in the past I would hopefully be able to handle it for my simple configuration.

That's a decent uptime right there. Unfortunately my firmware OCD requires me to flash at least once a day

Nothing wrong with MicroTek, but they use the same SoCs as everyone else, so I wouldn't anticipate any huge performance gains. The Ubiquiti Edgerouter Lite is at least a dual core MIPS CPU, but I'm not sure how much that will help in this case.

It would've been higher if I hadn't tried to debug network issues on new years eve while quite drunk. I ended up rebooting the router needlessly before realizing that one of the cables were not completely inserted.

Fair enough. My reasoning now is basically that I have to suck it up and accept running the stock firmware on the router. For that reason, I'm now looking for the most stable device that can deliver good throughput. My experience with consumer routers says that that is usually not the consumer products. The EdgeRouter Lite scored less than 800 Mbit/s of throughput in one direction and the 5 port version is quite a bit more expensive than the Mikrotik considering you seemingly get less throughput from it. Maybe newer firmware versions have upped those values though. Also, it probably delivers in the stability department.

(Last edited by blunden on 2 Sep 2014, 22:21)

This (http://right.com.cn/FORUM/thread-147240-1-1.html) says that WDR7500 v3 firmware uses "RSA signature" and therefore must be flashed via TTL.

Any idea?

Anyhow, the ath10k codes may not be mature enough for everyday use? And the Atheros hardware NAT codes are a long way, if ever, to be implemented in mainline Linux kernel or OpenWrt.

Cheers.

Edit:

Some reference links...

http://nosferatu.g0x.ru/pub/wdr7500/firmwares/official/readme.txt
http://forum.ixbt.com/topic.cgi?id=14:59217-23#689
http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/ath10k/

(Last edited by loyukfai on 10 Sep 2014, 16:10)

I need help recovering an Archer C7 v2. I was flashing the router back to firmware using the "generic instructions." http://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/generic.uninstall

According to Archer C7 wiki entry, the generic was an option vs. modifying the firmware file and using sysupgrade. (I did not modify the file even though it had "boot" in the name because I was following the generic option.)

mtd copied the firmware. Everything seem to go okay till it rebooted. Now when I turn on the router, the system and 5Ghz LEDs are solid. The ethernet and WAN LEDs blink at the same time.

Any idea the direction to take to recover? I'm running an Ubuntu workstation.

UPDATE:

I figured it out using this post as guidance (https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?pid=231054#p231054).

The steps I followed, for anyone who may find this post in the future, are as follows:
1. Downloaded firmware from TP Link, http://www.tplink.com/resources/software/Archer_C7_V2_131217.zip
2. Removed bootloader portion according to OpenWrt wiki, http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wdr7500
3. Named the new .bin file ArcherC7v2_tp_recovery.bin.
4. Downloaded, ran, and configured push directory with this TFTP Server, https://code.google.com/p/tftpgui/
5. Held down reset and powered router on. Router queried server for file and transferred and installed it.
6. After an auto reboot, stock was back.

Only reason going back to firmware for now is because the router will be a dumb wireless access point, so I won't need all the features of OpenWrt and I want to make sure I'm getting maximum speed. I am assuming factory is fastest on all bands, especially 5Ghz. Haven't seen iperf tests, so I could be wrong.

Final note: That portion of the wiki page explaining how to restore factory is confusing.

(Last edited by kamiller42 on 4 Sep 2014, 16:50)

feel free to update the wiki to be more clear now that you've been through it.

PS - stock may or may not be faster as a dumb AP. it also may or may not be as stable as openwrt. good luck!

I have read thru this forum and am totally lost.  I am kind of a noob when it comes to OpenWRT.  I have loaded up a few routers, know my way around the command line, but installation I am not too sure about.

I purchased a WDR7500 v3, tried to load up the software via TP-LINK WebUI but thats not working.  From reading thru this forum, I think I need to load the software thru tftp? 

Is there a guide that goes about explaining how to run this process?  I am aware 5 Ghz may not work, but I can live with that as I am more interested in running a proxy server on the router. 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks!

What file are you attempting to use? There is no nightly or rc3 build that I see and I'm not sure the Archer C7 v2 file will work

I've extracted stock chineese firmware from wdr7500v3:

Original image: https://yadi.sk/d/d1pxtdL_bHp64 (WDR7500v3_cn_3_13_34_(140210).bin)

Image without root password: https://yadi.sk/d/uRksPSl1bHsmh (WDR7500v3_cn_3_13_34_(140210)_root.bin)

Just received 7500 v3 today.
Trying to connect serial console, but it is read-only. Should I solder a resistor or a jumper to get it working?
R251 is missing on the PCB
R86 and R96 are missing as well.

Edit: problem solved with an external pullup resistor.

(Last edited by sz22 on 15 Sep 2014, 07:46)

I'll probably be back to OpenWrt.  I find the latest and only factory firmware for v2 causes my laptops and Android devices to lose connectivity on the edges of its range. It doesn't disconnect. Devices still show a bar, but the network connection is dead. I don't remember that happening with my last OpenWrt install.

I'm not sure if OpenWrt will really help with that problem, but it won't cost you anything to try.

If anyone has a WDR7500 v3 and TTL adapter, may try this...?

http://forum.ixbt.com/topic.cgi?id=14:59217-25

Cheers.

I am completely new to openwrt, and I want to flash the stock firmware again since I can't get the AC band to configure. Can you explain in baby steps how to remove the bootloader portion of the firmware from TP Link? (Completely lost reading the wiki) Once that is removed, can I flash from WebUI? Thanks in advance.