Belkin RT3200/Linksys E8450 WiFi AX discussion

I would actually like to bring more attention to this. Here's my setup:
AP: RT3200 on 22.03 RC6
Client (WDS): E8450 on 22.03 RC6
Client: 2021 MacBook Pro M1, macOS 12.5
Client: 2022 MacBook Air M2, macOS 12.5

When setting the AP to 802.11ax mode on 5GHz, uplink speeds from the Macs are HORRIBLE. I'm talking a few hundred kbit/s to ~70 mbit/s. The link rate between them and the router is supposedly ~1gbit/s. Downlink speeds from router to Macs is fine. Checked DFS channel 100 and 161, only at 80MHz channel width. No interference where I am. Same behavior on both.

I tested the same config between the E8450 client and RT3200 AP in 802.11ax mode on 5GHz with 0 issues.

Now, when I set the AP to 802.11ac the speeds on the Macs are normal: ~400-500mbit/s both ways. All the tests were run with iperf3 on both the router and the client devices. ONLY in 802.11ax mode does the uplink from Mac to AP suffer tremendously. I'll be leaving mine in 802.11ac mode for now. It's quite hard to tell if it's an issue with macOS or OpenWrt, but looking for any more insight from others.

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I'm having the same issue with a Mac client (#2579)
This is starting to look like an Apple-only issue...

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Doesn’t the issue go away when using stock firmware? Maybe something with the openwrt mt76 driver since I think it’s also present on the WAX202 which uses the same driver I believe. I wonder what is different with Apple devices that the stock firmware addresses?

It appears to be happening with a Galaxy phone too: 802.11ax worse than 802.11ac with mt76 driver? - #33 by geminis3 but yes it does seem that the issue is in the mt76 driver.

I don't have any devices on stock fw, and to be honest I don't even think stock fw on the Linksys/Belkin devices supported 80MHz (or even 160 for that matter) on 5GHz.

Unfortunately I didn't test with the stock FW. I've already switched to UBI, so it will be a bit risky to go back to stock.

I had tested with stock firmware on the Redmi AX6S (mt7622 and similar to RT3200) with an iPhone 13 Pro before I flashed OpenWrt,.

The problem with upload speeds only happens with OpenWrt/mt76 driver. With stock firmware (AX6S stock firmware had support to 80Mhz) there was no problem with 802.11ax and upload speeds.

I had posted the results of this test in that topic here.

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You can try mediatek drivers for rc5 and rc6 Adding OpenWrt support for Xiaomi "Redmi Router AX6S"/"Xiaomi Router AX3200" - #809 by hck

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Not sure why you're posting issues with a Redmi AX6S in a thread about the Belkin RT3200 even though they use a similar driver. Please use the thread you linked to keep this one on topic.

It was to answer the question of “do mediatek drivers work as expected so we can pinpoint the issue to the open source driver”. Perfectly acceptable post imo.

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My intention was try to help, since the issue is the same. Please apologize if you believe I am disturbing this topic, it was not what I intended.

For now on I will refrain from helping users in this topic since per your comment this is not welcome since I do not own this device.

Others, please feel free to continue the discussion of mt76 issues with mt7622 in other topics. Thanks.

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After setting DTIM to 3 (as per Apple docs) I no longer see slowdowns on my Galaxy that uses Broadcom WiFi :slight_smile:

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I've noticed similar performance issues with AX. I tested 4 clients using iperf3 to a local server

With RT3200 set to AX, 80Mhz width, Channel 52:
MacBook Pro, Broadcom BCM43xx, AC - 500-600Mbps
Desktop, Intel AX200 - AX - 200-300Mbps
Laptop, Intel AX210 - AX - 200-300Mbps
iPhone 13 Pro Max - AX - 200-300Mbps

With RT3200 set to AC, 80Mhz width, Channel 52:
MacBook Pro, Broadcom BCM43xx, AC - 500-600Mbps
Desktop, Intel AX200 - AC - 480Mbps
Laptop, Intel AX210 - AC - 480Mbps
iPhone 13 Pro Max - AC - 551Mbps

Sadly it slowed down after some hours :frowning:

PD: notice the high jitter
PD2: this is the only WiFi 6 client I have available to test

I tried this with no luck. Did you change anything else?

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I think it was placebo effect (idk), my last resort is to give propietary MTK drivers a try

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Just installed the propietary drivers on top of 22.03 rc6, damn this is crazy fast

Btw is this TurboQAM on 2.4GHz?

Edit: 256QAM / VHT on 2.4GHz related post

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Everyone else seeing build failure on latest 22.03 snapshot for a while now?

Package list missing or not up-to-date, generating it.

Building package index...
Downloading https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/22.03-SNAPSHOT/targets/mediatek/mt7622/packages/Packages.gz
Updated list of available packages in /home/aparcar/asu/worker1/cache/22.03-SNAPSHOT/mediatek/mt7622/build_dir/target-aarch64_cortex-a53_musl/root-mediatek/../../../../../../../../../../../home/aparcar/asu/worker1/cache/22.03-SNAPSHOT/mediatek/mt7622/dl/openwrt_core
Downloading https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/22.03-SNAPSHOT/targets/mediatek/mt7622/packages/Packages.sig
Signature check passed.
Downloading https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/22.03-SNAPSHOT/packages/aarch64_cortex-a53/base/Packages.gz
Updated list of available packages in /home/aparcar/asu/worker1/cache/22.03-SNAPSHOT/mediatek/mt7622/build_dir/target-aarch64_cortex-a53_musl/root-mediatek/../../../../../../../../../../../home/aparcar/asu/worker1/cache/22.03-SNAPSHOT/mediatek/mt7622/dl/openwrt_base
Downloading https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/22.03-SNAPSHOT/packages/aarch64_cortex-a53/base/Packages.sig
Signature check passed.
Downloading https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/22.03-SNAPSHOT/targets/mediatek/mt7622/kmods/5.10.136-1-73822654f7110781ea9cff1da39a5fc9/Packages.gz
Updated list of available packages in /home/aparcar/asu/worker1/cache/22.03-SNAPSHOT/mediatek/mt7622/build_dir/target-aarch64_cortex-a53_musl/root-mediatek/../../../../../../../../../../../home/aparcar/asu/worker1/cache/22.03-SNAPSHOT/mediatek/mt7622/dl/openwrt_kmods
Downloading https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/22.03-SNAPSHOT/targets/mediatek/mt7622/kmods/5.10.136-1-73822654f7110781ea9cff1da39a5fc9/Packages.sig
Signature check passed.
Downloading https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/22.03-SNAPSHOT/packages/aarch64_cortex-a53/luci/Packages.gz
Updated list of available packages in /home/aparcar/asu/worker1/cache/22.03-SNAPSHOT/mediatek/mt7622/build_dir/target-aarch64_cortex-a53_musl/root-mediatek/../../../../../../../../../../../home/aparcar/asu/worker1/cache/22.03-SNAPSHOT/mediatek/mt7622/dl/openwrt_luci
Downloading https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/22.03-SNAPSHOT/packages/aarch64_cortex-a53/luci/Packages.sig
Signature check passed.
Downloading https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/22.03-SNAPSHOT/packages/aarch64_cortex-a53/packages/Packages.gz
Updated list of available packages in /home/aparcar/asu/worker1/cache/22.03-SNAPSHOT/mediatek/mt7622/build_dir/target-aarch64_cortex-a53_musl/root-mediatek/../../../../../../../../../../../home/aparcar/asu/worker1/cache/22.03-SNAPSHOT/mediatek/mt7622/dl/openwrt_packages
Downloading https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/22.03-SNAPSHOT/packages/aarch64_cortex-a53/packages/Packages.sig
Signature check passed.
Downloading https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/22.03-SNAPSHOT/packages/aarch64_cortex-a53/routing/Packages.gz
Updated list of available packages in /home/aparcar/asu/worker1/cache/22.03-SNAPSHOT/mediatek/mt7622/build_dir/target-aarch64_cortex-a53_musl/root-mediatek/../../../../../../../../../../../home/aparcar/asu/worker1/cache/22.03-SNAPSHOT/mediatek/mt7622/dl/openwrt_routing
Downloading https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/22.03-SNAPSHOT/packages/aarch64_cortex-a53/routing/Packages.sig
Signature check passed.
Downloading https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/22.03-SNAPSHOT/packages/aarch64_cortex-a53/telephony/Packages.gz
Updated list of available packages in /home/aparcar/asu/worker1/cache/22.03-SNAPSHOT/mediatek/mt7622/build_dir/target-aarch64_cortex-a53_musl/root-mediatek/../../../../../../../../../../../home/aparcar/asu/worker1/cache/22.03-SNAPSHOT/mediatek/mt7622/dl/openwrt_telephony
Downloading https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/22.03-SNAPSHOT/packages/aarch64_cortex-a53/telephony/Packages.sig
Signature check passed.
Downloading file:packages/Packages
Updated list of available packages in /home/aparcar/asu/worker1/cache/22.03-SNAPSHOT/mediatek/mt7622/build_dir/target-aarch64_cortex-a53_musl/root-mediatek/../../../../../../../../../../../home/aparcar/asu/worker1/cache/22.03-SNAPSHOT/mediatek/mt7622/dl/imagebuilder
Downloading file:packages/Packages.sig
Signature check failed.
Remove wrong Signature file.
Collected errors:
 * pkg_hash_check_unresolved: cannot find dependency kmod-nft-nat6 for firewall4
 * pkg_hash_fetch_best_installation_candidate: Packages for firewall4 found, but incompatible with the architectures configured
 * opkg_install_cmd: Cannot install package firewall4.
 * satisfy_dependencies_for: Cannot satisfy the following dependencies for luci:
 * 	kmod-nft-nat6
 * opkg_install_cmd: Cannot install package luci.
make[2]: *** [Makefile:169: package_install] Error 255
make[1]: *** [Makefile:134: _call_manifest] Error 2
make: *** [Makefile:253: manifest] Error 2

The issue seems to relate to @hauke's commit in the 22.03 GitHub:

@aparcar is this a buildbot caching issue relating to dependencies?

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Had to revert to stock mt76 on 802.11ac mode, bufferbloat was terrible over 5GHz WiFi (probably due to no AQL nor improper integration with the rest of the system).

So far this is a superb 4x4 WiFi 5 router for its price till WiFi 6 issues get ironed out, as always thank you to all the devs that make OpenWrt and OSS Linux drivers possible.

4 Likes

Hello I have the linksys e8450 I would like to try the proprietary drivers, could you tell me how to download and install them for 22.03 rc6, I have instability with wifi clients in 2.4 which are standard N, in 5 GHz I have also had problems, I would like to try if with the proprietary drivers because I don't know much about it and I got to the point where I only care about stability before anything else.

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What proprietary drives?