I have an Archer C7 V2, running BARRIER BREAKER (14.07, r42625)

The router sits in the main floor living room, which is almost the center of my home. House is approximately 4000 sq ft with a basement and upper bonus room above garage.  If I am in the kitchen or bonus upper area within 30-50 feet of the router the signal is between 2-3 bars out of four. If I am downstairs directly beneath the router area I have almost full signal and 2-3 bars anywhere else in the basement. However, if I am in my bedroom or office areas which are approximately 35-45 feet down the hall from the living room, signal drops to almost nothing.  Maybe this is nothing to complain about. However, when I can see my neighbor's 5ghz wifi signal all throughout my home with full reception I feel like my access point is a bit inadequate.

Here is output from /etc/config/wireless:

config wifi-device 'radio0'
        option type 'mac80211'
        option channel '36'
        option hwmode '11a'
        option path 'pci0000:01/0000:01:00.0'
        option htmode 'VHT80'

config wifi-iface
        option device 'radio0'
        option mode 'ap'
        option ssid 'XS 5G'
        option encryption 'psk2'
        option key 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'
        option network 'User'

config wifi-device 'radio1'
        option type 'mac80211'
        option hwmode '11g'
        option path 'platform/qca955x_wmac'
        option htmode 'HT40'
        option txpower '30'
        option country 'US'
        option channel '1'
        option noscan '1'

config wifi-iface
        option device 'radio1'
        option mode 'ap'
        option ssid 'XS Guest'
        option network 'Guest'
        option encryption 'psk2'
        option key 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'
        option isolate '1'

Doesn't seem to be a way to increase the txpower on the 5ghz, even with setting option txpower.

Any insights are appreciated.

You are running a very old version of OpenWRT. Even the Chaos Calmer is a bit aged right now. Do you have some valid reason why you haven't upgraded to the latest release? Perhaps you should consider upgrading all the way to LEDE (an OpenWRT fork)?

That is a valid question. I have a currently working configuration, everything works well despite one or two things, like the 5ghz wifi signal strength.  I basically have a dumb switch setup and no services, e.g., dhcp, nat, firewall, are being provided by openwrt, rather a pfsense box. I also have vlan configurations in place which work very well, and I have not had any problems with.

The pitfalls of upgrading usually include certain functionality not being available or issues trying to get previous configurations working again.  I would not want to upgrade and find out that I am no longer able to run things as I would like.  If that is not something I should worry about, then let me know.

You are correct about the old adage "If it works, don't touch it."

Since the gap between BB and latest LEDE release is quite big from the changes perspective, I cannot say this or that regarding how available functionality or features might've developed in the meantime. I do believe most of the critical components, such as VLANs, NAT, firewall etc. have either improved, or the very least stayed the same.

If your bootloader supports uploading a precompiled image into the router's memory and running it from there, you could try setting up a virtual machine with a LEDE buldroot environment, and then stitch up a minimal ramdisk-variant for your router.

That would allow you to run LEDE on your router without flashing and replacing the current working & stable setup. Using it requires access to the bootloader, and the bootloader must support uploading an image through TFTP or similar protocol to memory, and running it from there.

Compiling the image yourself would allow you to enable and test those features which you want to verify, and leave all non-critical things out. Depending on RAM size of your router, it might even be necessary to optimize the image so it is runnable.

You have  a very early version of the 5 GHz driver, ath10k.  It has been developed and improved greatly since 14.07, even since 15.05.   I would definitely try a LEDE build.

You can make a backup of your entire 14.07 installation by dumping the "firmware" mtd partition to a binary file and scp'ing it out of the router.    That file can be used as a sysupgrade to restore the router to exactly what you have now.

(Last edited by mk24 on 7 Jul 2017, 21:34)

I've gone ahead and updated to LEDE Reboot 17.01.2 r3435-65eec8bd5f, didn't experience any issues in doing so. However, I am still plagued with the extremely poor wifi signal. This is the first 5ghz wifi router I have owned so I do not know if this is just the limitation of 5ghz network or what. However, like I mentioned, when I am only getting 2-3 bars or less in my home, unless I am in line of sight to the AP, and I can see my neighbor's network throughout my house and even on the edges of my property far from his and its at full strength, it makes me wonder if there is a problem or not.

Do you know what hardware your neighbor is using? What make and model, and what software version? Perhaps he is using an enterprise-grade router model? If he has an Archer C7 V2 like you, then I find the situation very strange indeed.

I only know he is using a Netgear, based on the SSID. I am almost certain he is not techie, so I doubt he has done any modifications of his system.  I just don't understand why my signal is 1 bar in my office and bedrooms with the device being 35 feet away. I have tried changing the channel and txpower to no avail or change. Maybe this router just isn't capable of providing anything better. The 2.4 GHz has no issues.

Hi when you upgraded to LEDE did you save settings. If you did I would start from scratch. One more thing is where is your router located? Lots of things can mess with 5 ghz signals like any metel plating, screens, Big PSUs, fridges/freezers and AV aquwipment all sow if your naber is using some kind of wif-i amp to boost signal your router could be getting dround out by the bleed over from harmonics.

You could also try using the top part of the band, channel 149.  Some countries restrict power on the low channels.  But do a scan to find out which channel your neighbor is using and avoid him if you can.

I am in the US, so I am restricted to the non-DFS channels, (36, 40, 44, 48, 149, 153, 157, 161).  I can easily change select a channel outside of that scope within the configurations of OpenWrt. However, my wifi clients are not able to see nor connect to any channel not listed above.

My neighbor is broadcasting two different 5ghz SSIDs. One running on channel 153 and the other at 48 with both being 80mhz.