Belkin RT3200/Linksys E8450 WiFi AX discussion

Remi · June 5, 2021, 5:04pm

Thanks @sumo for the pointers. Shoulda figured there were hidden screws under the label.

Ha, now get a load of this- with access to the serial port I naively tried wire-wrapping the tx/rx/GND leads to the DB9 pins of a RS-232/USB converter that was in turn connected to my PC. When nothing came out of the terminal after turning on the router, I dug into the openwrt wiki a bit more and realized that 1) there was a difference between RS-232 serial ports and the TTL serial ports used in this router (+3.3V volt if we assume they're using the same scheme as outlined in the WRT devices posted here) and 2) I may have fried the TTL serial port with the 12V or whatever the RS-232 was pumping in!?!

If this is any consolation (mostly to me and my poor router,) I don't think I typed anything into the serial terminal on my PC. Is there any chance of this thing working if I were to properly procure a TTL-to-USB cable, for example? Or is the serial port definitely fried (which won't be the end of the world either, this just means that I won't be able to take a backup of the flash prior to modifying it with a OpenWrt image. Plus the router is still properly booting up and the http:// admin interface is still responsive.)

Figured someone here with prior experience with Linksys devices and their serial interfaces might be able to chime in. As always thanks in advance for any input.

sumo · June 5, 2021, 5:42pm

Likely but hard to say. Maybe at least the routers TX is still fine. I have no prior experience with any MediaTek chips but I fried various other electronics in my career. Please note that most routers or embedded boards in general only have TTL serial aka UART ports. While 3.3 volt is still the most common voltage level, later ones (e.g. Qualcomm IPQ807x) even have 1.8 volt only (and are likely even more sensitive and such adapters even somewhat hard to get).

Anyway, if you PM me your address I might send you a spare tested USB-to-serial adapter even with the proper JST PH 6 pin connector. So you may test whether or not it really fried it .

slh · June 5, 2021, 10:45pm

Based on previous feedback of others trying the same with this router, the device has likely ceased its existence completely. The voltage is fed directly into the SOC, without additional safeguards or filtering, anything above the expected voltage will fry it basically instantly.

mishakov · June 6, 2021, 3:56pm

Hello. I'm again having problems with 2.4Ghz WiFi: my phone (galaxy s10e, and I've now noticed that the same happens with my tablet, and also all of the IoT devices seem to be avoiding it, so it must be completely broken) would not connect to the 2.4Ghz WiFi (I just see it connecting/disconnecting with no errors in settings debug menu) and if it roams to it from 5Ghz/other routers, it manages to connect but I seem to have no network. What can I do to diagnose it and help fix it before it goes away and I have to wait another month for it to may be randmoly reappear? I'm running OpenWrt SNAPSHOT r16844-296aa0781b / LuCI Master git-21.147.31971-74be304 (I think I've updated about 1-2 weeks ago) and my uptime is 2 days. Routing and 5Ghz seem to work perfectly and at least my phone connects and works fine with it.

benciphered · June 7, 2021, 4:12pm

It worked with 3.3V for me, 115200 N81.

Dopam-IT_1987 · June 9, 2021, 7:19pm

hello everybody good news for this router

AX in luci available

alleyu2 · June 10, 2021, 6:39am

Hi. I am planning to install the openwrt snapshot for this device. I am a novice operwrt user and hence would like to know the steps to go back to stock firmware in case something goes wrong. Can someone guide me to the steps required to go back to stock firmware? Thanks.

Fiouz · June 10, 2021, 12:06pm

Edit: Flashing a recent OpenWrt snapshot while keeping the vendor flash layout (a.k.a. non-UBI) is no longer possible since 050621aa017273086d46ccf22dfb6942a367e049 / 2021-08-27 , see: this post
i.e. the below instructions are no longer valid since 2021-08-27

Original instructions (outdated)

The default storage provides the "safety" of dual partitions:

You can start by flashing the regular "non-UBI" version https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/targets/mediatek/mt7622/openwrt-mediatek-mt7622-linksys_e8450-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin. Just use the regular Firmware upgrade feature as provided by the vendor but instead of providing a vendor firmware, provide the OpenWrt one.
Configure and experiment with OpenWrt (note that if you are novice with OpenWrt, snapshots do not have any web UI so you need to use SSH to install LuCI).
If you are done with OpenWrt, or if you encounter an issue, you can use the 3x power off cycle to trigger booting back into the vendor firmware from the alternate partition, where you can flash the vendor firmware again to overwrite the OpenWrt partition (i.e. make sure that both partitions have the vendor firmware) if you really want to go back to stock

Note that if you are "happy" with OpenWrt, the "UBI" layout may offer more convenience (except stock restoration is more tricky):

alleyu2 · June 10, 2021, 12:20pm

Thanks a lot @Fiouz .

fonix232 · June 11, 2021, 12:51pm

Fair warning, people might need a reset, especially if upgrading from the version hosted on GitHub - I've set my router up this morning from scratch (still trying to figure out the best config, so daily resets it is), and did an attended sysupgrade after the setup. Reboot, and bam, I had 5 separate wireless radios, with none of the interfaces working. Yes, I am aware of the dangers of using SNAPSHOT builds, so it wasn't unexpected, this comment is just a heads-up for people in case their WiFi is suddenly unavailable.

I'm getting pretty solid speeds with AX, 1.1Gbps uplink, and on my HyperOptic 500Mbit connection, a stable 650/400Mbps is achievable on my Galaxy S21 Ultra. Quite happy with it. And yes, I know my achieved top speed is higher than the advertised bandwidth, HyperOptic is like that - max speed tends to be 20-30% higher than what the package officially includes. I was getting 300-320Mbps on the previous 250Mbps package.

kaaku3 · June 11, 2021, 1:43pm

Yes i had 4 radios and none working, working fine after a reset.
Luci also has the option to set up an ipv6 relay now under the ipv6 client interface menu, which makes things easier for people on native ipv6

Dopam-IT_1987 · June 11, 2021, 3:01pm

can you explain the config for ipv6 natif please ? thanks

i'm on orange fai in france

kaaku3 · June 11, 2021, 4:34pm

My internet is ipv6 ipoe (ip over ethernet), there is no login required just plug and play, but the router needs to act as a relay rather than a server. untill the recent update luci didnt have the options i needed without some workarounds. ipv4 internet for me is tunneled through ipv6

saxn0t · June 12, 2021, 10:21am

Extroot for overlay 2 usb dont work in nonubi version?

fonix232 · June 14, 2021, 12:00pm

It's working fine for me, following the wiki guide. However this router only has a USB2 port, meaning extroot will be pretty slow.

saxn0t · June 14, 2021, 1:59pm

Hi, thx for your answer. In the UBI Version its working fine for me too, in the nonubi Version i didnt get it to Work. But maybee i did a mistake in the configuration.

MakiseKurisu · June 14, 2021, 2:30pm

Just make sure I got this right, to go back to vendor firmware all I need to do is run "sysupgrade -F /tmp/FW_RT3200_1.0.01.101415_prod.img" right? I'm using Belkin but that command should work with Linksys as well.

fonix232 · June 16, 2021, 12:07pm

Did you read the UBI installer readme?

github.com

dangowrt/owrt-ubi-installer/blob/main/README.md

## An OpenWrt UBI Installer Image Generator for Linksys E8450 and Belkin RT3200

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/82453643/147394017-e7af122c-8234-4f11-8653-64d87ad8628d.mp4

*Showing the installation process. The window on the right displays the serial RX interface for documentation purpose only. The interaction required is shown on the left, which is done entirely within the web browser.*

**WARNING #1** This will replace the bootloader (TF-A 2.9, U-Boot 2023.07.02) and convert the flash layout of the device to [UBI](https://github.com/dangowrt/linksys-e8450-openwrt-installer/issues/9). The installer stores a copy of the previous bootchain in a dedicated UBI volume `boot_backup`.

**WARNING #2** Re-flashing the installer when the device is already using UBI flash layout will erase the previously backed up bootchain, which in most cases would be the vendor/official one.

If you plan to ever go back to the stock firmware, you will need a backup of the vendor bootchain and firmware. When going back to the stock firmware, be prepared to connect to the internal serial port in case there are any bad blocks.

**WARNING #3** The installer is meant to be executed only once per device. Executing the installer more than once should be avoided! Use normal *-linksys_e8450-ubi-squashfs-sysupgrade.itb images provided by openwrt.org insted.

## Table of Contents
* [Script information](#script-information)
* [Installing OpenWrt](#installing-openwrt)
* [Upgrading to the latest OpenWrt snapshot](#upgrading-to-the-latest-openwrt-snapshot)
* [Enter recovery mode under OpenWrt](#enter-recovery-mode-under-openwrt)
* [Device flash complete backup procedure](#device-flash-complete-backup-procedure)

This file has been truncated. show original

Especially this part:

WARNING This will replace the bootloader (TF-A 2.2, U-Boot 2020.10) and convert the flash layout of the device to UBI! The installer stores a copy of the previous bootchain in a dedicated UBI volume boot_backup. If you want to go back to the vendor firmware, you will have to boot into recovery mode (ie. initramfs), copy those files into /tmp, umount the UBI volume, detach the UBI device and then write the files to the corresponding MTD partitions (mtd write $file /dev/mtdX).

Newtman · June 16, 2021, 10:59pm

Hello,
Today I flashed my RT3200 with the UBI version and the latest firmware:

But I can't configure 5GHz WiFi, is missing!

root@OpenWrt:~# iwinfo 
wlan0     ESSID: unknown
          Access Point: C4:41:1E:F8:1E:C7
          Mode: Client  Channel: unknown (unknown)
          Center Channel 1: unknown 2: unknown
          Tx-Power: 6 dBm  Link Quality: unknown/70
          Signal: unknown  Noise: unknown
          Bit Rate: unknown
          Encryption: unknown
          Type: nl80211  HW Mode(s): 802.11bgn
          Hardware: 14C3:7622 14C3:7622 [MediaTek MT7622]
          TX power offset: none
          Frequency offset: none
          Supports VAPs: yes  PHY name: phy0

root@OpenWrt:~# cat /etc/config/wireless 

config wifi-device 'radio0'
        option type 'mac80211'
        option channel '11'
        option hwmode '11g'
        option path 'platform/18000000.wmac'
        option htmode 'HT20'
        option disabled '1'

config wifi-iface 'default_radio0'
        option device 'radio0'
        option network 'lan'
        option mode 'ap'
        option ssid 'OpenWrt'
        option encryption 'none'

Maybe I forgotten a step... can anyone help me?

Thanks!

Dopam-IT_1987 · June 17, 2021, 12:14am

try upgrade the last snapshot wit hback up flash firmware and sysupgrade ubi .itb