I recently purchased an archer C7 v5 second hand as I wanted to upgrade mi Xiaomi 4a Gigabit as my main router. It was only 20€ so not a pretty bad deal for a router with so much features.
After installing Operwrt without any problems, I realized that it couldn't manage to get more than 280 mb/s because the NAT was only single-core and having to process so much data saturated it.
There are some ways around this:
Using a second device as a router and only using the C7 as a dumb AP point
Using the custom images provided by @Catfriend1. Really cool user and their threads have a lot of useful info about this device.
I personally did not have time to try their images yet, but the feedback seems great. This will be my next test as soon as i get some free time.
Overclocking it:
This is where I'm at the moment. Seems like there is no much information at the moment to overclock the C7 v5. There is a wonderful guide made by @Pedro :
But there seems to be some kind of incompatibility with the v5 as if I follow the tutorial and install the file pointed in the tutorial I get a brick. (Nothing too serious as I can bring the router back to life with the unbrick guide:
(Note: for the C7 v5 you need the computer ip to be 192.168.0.66 and the file name to be ArcherC7v5_tp_recovery.bin)
My issue is that I don't know what breed version can be used for our router. I really don't know how to choose one, and I don't want to go 1 by 1 trying all the ones available. Any help will be appreciated.
If I achieve a successful installation I will post it here.
EDIT: As stated in the original guide, you need the breed bootloader to achieve this:
You can found it here: https://breed.hackpascal.net/
The Breed version you need to pick is based on the reset GPIO your device uses. You need to check your DTS for that. From what I recall the file names are a combination of the SoC + the GPIO number linked to the reset function. You should link to the Breed download page, that helps. Don't have that link handy.
Hey! Thanks for your response. I edited the main post and added a link to the breed download page:
In the original tutorial for a C7 v2 they use the qca9558-ar8327n file. The I can only suppose that the first half of the file points to the model of the first radio as the v2 uses the Qualcomm Atheros QCA9558.
After a bit more of searching I found that probably the 2nd half of the file name refers to the switch used as in the v2 it uses a Atheros AR8327N switch
The problem is that if i follow that logic, i can not find any 9563 - 8337 file.
In the device wiki shows that the v5 uses the Qualcomm Atheros QCA9563 as the primary wlan hardware and the Qualcomm Atheros QCA8337N. This combination can not be found in the page.
There's images for QCA956x SoCs too, but they use a combination of Rx/Tx numbers combined with the GPIO reset. You can find the GPIO reset in the relevant DTS(i) for your hardware, but I have no idea how to find out the Rx/Tx values the file names use.
Yeah I looked through it. The problem is that is super outdated (last updated on 2018) and only points out 2 of the 5 current 9563 images.
I guess I will have to try them all and see if if its supported...
Probably sometime this weekend
I'd try to make sure which one you need instead of just trying them one by one. Someone else might know. And you can always try IRC as well (and be patient there).
If you don't care too much about the router (meaning is not primary one) its fine.
As I stated before, you can recover the router after a failed flash with a tutorial like this. (Written version)
At least it is my experience.
It is worth it ? Depends of your necessity. If you are fine in this state, don't need the extra power and are not familiar with it, don't do it.
Well, I don't think this will help much if the device gets bricked by flashing the wrong boot partition. It will be total dead and only jtag can recover it. I do not have jtag adapter atm anyway. Thanks for the info.
If the device is unable to boot you can recover the device by the method that i pointed out earlier.
I had to do it a couple of times so is no problem.
I understand that.. but the method you pointed out only works when boot partition is intact and working. Even the guide warns about this. the next command has the possibility of bricking your router to the point that you will need special tools to unbrick it. These special tools are probably jtag or programmer.
This breed bootloader is certainly interesting, if it can increase the wireless performance of my device(by overclocking it) then I will definitely try it some time. My device is 1043ND v4. I don't see an image for my device in the link provided above.
breed cannot increase the performance of your device as such, it can only help you overclocking the SoC beyond the vendor specifications (which in turn will either result in more speed or crashes or permanent hardware damage). What amount of overclocking may be safe or not, is hard to judge beforehand, it depends on the margins of the SoC design, the yield quality if your individual chips and the hardware design (PCB, impedance matching of the memory lanes and the design of the ground plane) and a certain amount if pure luck.
I've heard in the forum that 9563 can OC'ed safely upto 1000Mhz(given the extra heat is handled properly.) But this may differ from board to board on which the SOC is running. It solely depends on parameters like you mentioned.
By my experience, (I already failed to flash and recover the router 2 different times with the method) I believe that the recovery works without a working partition.
I know, but at as temporary fix to get the extra power I need, It is a good enough method. I only need like a 20% increase in power to saturate my actual internet connection.
