Belkin RT3200/Linksys E8450 WiFi AX discussion

These speed tests are often reliant on multiple factors, including:

  • signal interference (i.e. how many other APs work on the same band)
  • client antenna/MIMO setup (e.g. even the latest smartphones, like the Galaxy S21 Ultra, use 2x2 MIMO)
  • country-specific limitations

Even the angle you're holding your phone at can affect speeds a lot. So take any speed test with a major pinch of salt.

1 Like

I think 802.11r is broken in 21.02.

I didn't heard it's working ok in 21.02 yet.

Yes, I know, thanks. Just wondering if the current OpenWrt implementation can achieve something similar to stock in ideal conditions?

Perhaps others can chime in?

Cheers.

Stock firmware has all hardware acceleration features available paired with propietary Mediatek WiFi drivers so raw performance can be better (it doesn't supports DFS channels so results can vary).

That's my guess because I spent less than 10 minutes with stock firmware.

However the WiFi speeds I get on OpenWrt are superb for a sub $100 router, my previous Mikrotik ac2 had really terrible WiFi with stock Router OS for example if you tilt your phone speeds drop to 20-50mbps (yep it supports OpenWrt but 128MB RAM it's a big limitation for power users).

2 Likes

Isn't the stock firmware a modified version of openwrt lede?

I get 900+ megabit with AX200 sharkfin antenna almost touching the router and 500-700 megabits at 3.5 meters and no obstructions, 160mhz wide channel. So I would say it's the same in terms of performance as the stock firmware, if not better. But it really depends on both router and antenna orientation, so I plan to try replacing router internal antennas with something bigger and external to see if it helps.

3 Likes

The stock firmware is based on MediaTek's SDK which is based on LEDE 17.01. It got MediaTek's reference Linux kernel and their drivers for everything incl. offloading features, which may perform different.

3 Likes

Confirm 802.11r broken.

1 Like

Anyone here using WDS?
Anyone using DFS channels?
Which channels do you prefer?
AFAIK higher channels reduce latency.

The problem I have with WDS + DFS channels, that channel mode auto does not work on STA / repeater (AX, 5ghz) in WDS.
The connection between AP and STA gets lost after several time. I need to restart STA.
Further, the highest channel that works is 128.

Anyone can share a snapshot that can run of non-ubi version? The Snapshot seems broken for the non-ubi version. Thanks.

Recently I started to notice slow internet on my Galaxy S10e, other clients were fine.

Just for testing purposes I switched the router to AC mode from Luci and now internet speeds are as expected but no WiFi 6.

I wonder if anyone else has a similar problem.

I had similar issues where nothing seems to happen after flashing non ubi. What worked was building an image from commit 7119fd32d397567931e63dbbf72014e95624018f, flash it through Belkin, then flash latest non ubi.

1 Like

About 23 days ago? is there any thing wrong on my compile command?

make clean; 
git reset --hard 7119fd32d397567931e63dbbf72014e95624018f;
git pull;
make -j1 V=s

You should do this instead:

git reset --hard HEAD
git checkout [commit id]

You shouldn't do git reset [commit id] on a branch because it can screw things up. Rather, check out the ID directly after a hard reset to HEAD (which nukes all local changes on top of the currently checked out branch/commit). And if you do a git pull after that reset... You're just getting back to the HEAD of that branch, so that reset was for nothing.

1 Like

Yes it does, thanks. Am just wondering if I should wait for the official build or not to get one. From the above posts, the snapshots look sometimes not as stable as some would have hoped.

Cheers.

The snapshot builds has been pretty stable for me. I have 2 of them running in AP mode and they have been running without issues for 5 days now after tweaking and working around minor issues mentioned in this thread (5ghz band set to 80mhz and manual channel selection with country code configured). I recommend it if you don't mind digging into the logs when you encounter issues.

1 Like

Hi, if you managed to get the non-ubi image up and running, could you please share it with me? I don't have the tools/knowledge to build it. Many thanks in advance!

Thanks! Currently I'd prefer something that "just works" as I don't have a lot of time to troubleshoot when things break.

Any idea when the next OpenWrt freeze will occur?

Anyhow, will keep monitoring this thread closely.

Cheers.

You mean a new release branch?

Probably something like Feb 2022. I haven't yet seen any discussion about it.

2 Likes

I have tracked down this issue to my laptop which I have in the same desk as the Belkin RT3200.

When the laptop runs Linux I have no problems at all but if I boot into Windows then I get slow internet on my Galaxy S10e.

The laptop has a Qualcomm QCA61x4A card.