Build for Linksys EA9500

Yeah, I did it through the web panel. I’ll have pull out the old serial cable now though.

In my experience flashing from the web panel doesn't usually work very well and can lead to problems with things not working if it does go through...specifically Wi-Fi. I would avoid flashing through the web panel at all. Try using MTD over ssh (search for the instructions above) or the serial cable only. I actually permanently affixed my serial cable and ran it out of the case so I didn't have to take the router apart again.

Thanks for your help, I stole your idea and routed my serial cable through the case, good thinking. I re flashed with no luck, but I’ll keep looking for a previous version that may work.

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Can anyone help me out.

i bought a second hand ea9500 V1 UK with openwrt preinstalled,
I have tried all methods to get stock reinstalled but always get the bootloop with it rebooting at the ctf.ko fail in CFE

I have tried various openwrt builds with various results but can not find one that gives me all three radios.
currently have 2021-10-10 that npcomplete had working installed but its missing radio2 (2.4Ghz) Radio 0 & 1 are showing as 5Ghz

can anyone help me get stock installed on one partition and help get the missing radio to show.

this is your firewall blocking it (i initially had same issue)

reply for people having same issue to this older post.

Flash with this to get back to stock firmware

Then upgrade the stock firmware to whatever you want

thanks @tryingbe but it appears after chatting to @npcomplete that my 2.4 broadcom chip might be faulty :frowning:

when ever i try to run stock it errors with the ctf.ko which he says indicates one of the wireless is dead (my 2.4 is never there in any firmware)

looks like ill have to run the 9500 as a hub and 5ghz wireless and use a bt hub 4 as an access point supplying 2.4ghz

is the latest build safe to install nowadays?
https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/22.03.2/targets/bcm53xx/generic/

build date 10/15/2022

or 20210809 the latest stable one?

I haven't had much luck with current builds. The 20210809 still works great for me though.

I finally managed to "crack" the case and access COM port. Connected USB-COM and now can see boot log via putty. The issue is I cant break at CFE.
Tried to catch "Press Ctrl+C to stop in CFE" and press the combination.
Tried to spam my keyboard with CTRL+C.
Every time this line scrolls up and router boot process continues.

Any clues how to break?

Hi, Im completely new to openwrt, I have only flashed it because I can no longer do guest wifi network with linksys own (devices block it)

I'm having all the same things, openwrt has made this router a fancy switch, the wifi range and speed is awful compared to linksys own, the router has been in use for years so its not like i'm placing it anywhere different, i can barely walk into the next room before wifi 5ghz loses signal with open wrt.

im in UK, have followed all the best practices but I simply cannot get this to a usable state like it was on stock firmware.

I actually have 2 of these routers, a v1 (flashed now with open wrt) and v1.1 - still stock.

I don't believe its worth it flashing my v1.1, instead im now forced to use it as an access point for my own wifi devices, and leave the openwrt to do the guest wifi network on 2.4ghz (if it even reaches- haven't got that far yet)

shame.

Ok some progress filled with headaches (over 12 hours spent messing with this router today)

First headache was usb not detecting so reset switch, start over again,

Reflashed the non us file through Linksys GUI, got into wrt and then SSH flashed fully over Linksys stuff to latest version, still same thing with the poor WiFi.

Tried to flash the older version mentioned above and it bricked unable to get back in, held reset switch in and reset that way.

Upon boot, the web interface was different, but radios now worked and got usable range, setting UK to WiFi radios instead of world, all radios worked.

Not as fast as before, but better than what I started with on wrt.

Tried loading a config file saved from earlier and it bricked again, repeat steps above.

Now been having a nightmare trying to get my pi zero via ethernet pihole working, trying everything to get it actually blocking ads to the point I eventually found a new issue where it would not actually save my changes, no matter what I changed it would sit there for applying but never save, even single changes wouldn't save.

So took a brave pill, flashed the latest version again through wrt keeping the config and good news is the radios still have the range and all work, pi hole now finally works but to get that working and blocking adds on the devices I have spammed nearly every wan,Lan and DHCP and DNS settings with the DNS address (IP of pihole) and disabled ipv6 where I could everywhere, I can't say what one made it work but it works now, just doing what it documented online (6,192.xx.x.xxx) didn't work.

All lan and wan interfaces have custom DNS server IP, use DNS server provided by peers unchecked,
LAN interface has the DHCP options as 6,piholeip
Ipv6 disabled on everything.

Under DHCP and DNS, unchecked ignore resolve file.

All my wireless setups have
Disassociate On Low Acknowledgement unchecked.
Using driver default power

Country codes UK.

Channels whatever was clearest on WiFi analyzer app on Android.

Now the true test of how reliable this will be!

I'm a proper noob and don't understand half the stuff in the options but have at least managed to gain something from this so thank you!

WiFi range and speed is taking a hit though so if anyone's new to all this like me, it's probably a safer bet just buying a new router, I've not even started to look into my usb shares and lan device file sharing as it's took me a day just getting basic functionality back online.

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Can you set the wifi signal strength? I couldn't and my inSSIDer shows the signal is a lot weaker than stock firmware.

Hi team

Can someone confirm that version 22.03.2 works on EA9500 v1.x?

Best Regards

Hi!

I just bought a second hand EA9500 V1 in France.
I modified the device with version openwrt-EA9500-Non-US-20201219.
The router booted on luci and I have access to the main interface etc.

I have doubts about the proper functioning of the wifi elements.
Only the Radio2 send a good signal.
Radio0 seems partialy faulty and Radio1 seems KO.

How could I check this ?

Thank you :slight_smile:

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If you don't need WIFI to work, 22.03.2 will install on EA9500. EA9500 uses Broadcom WIFI chipset and the Broadcom WIFI driver is horrible in OpenWRT. WIFI signal is weak, you can't adjust the strength of the signal. Sometimes the entire radio just doesn't work. It's a waste of time!

I have 3 other lesser routers with OpenWRT installed (AC1750, AC1000, N350), and all have them have better WIFI than EA9500 (AC5400). After my experience with EA9500, I would not put OpenWRT on any devices that uses Broadcom chipset.

You will be better off with stock Linksys firmware with that EA9500 because the OpenWRT Broadcom driver is horrible as you experienced yourself.

EA9500 with OpenWRT is pretty useless if you need WIFI to work. There should be a disclaimer somewhere to prevent people to install OpenWRT into their EA9500 and to expect WIFI to work like regular router.

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Apart from the wireless situation, these Broadcom SOCs aren't that fast at routing either (OEM firmware relying heavily on their proprietary ctf offloading).

Thanks for the advice.
I would like to know if the stock firmware has the

Vendor Class to send when requesting DHCP

option in something like advanced settings in WAN parameters ?
This option is necessary in my case to bypass my stock fiber box.

indeed, it is not written anywhere that this broadcom chipset does not perform well in wifi with the free firmware.

Couldn't tell you that specific question.

What I can tell you is that Linksys firmware is pretty lacking in features and EA9500 firmware hasn't been updated since 2/5/2021. So, I wouldn't bid on the Linksys firmware has what you're looking for.

I use my EA9500 as AP only.

Hello,
I just bought a Linksys EA9500V1 Non-US version. flashed openwrt-EA9500-Non-US-20201219 with Linksys gui
Flashed both partitions with openwrt-20210809.trx
Openwrt gui only shows 2 radios 2.4g and 5g
I have tried flashing different firmwares and the second 5g radio never shows up. I have tried SCP flashing the file, I tried flashing through CFE and no luck.
I reset the firmware in the gui every time I flashed a different build.
I flashed the factory file rebooted reset firmware and flashed back to openwrt with no luck getting the 3rd radio
I'm not sure if the radio is dead or it's a firmware thing any help would be appreciated

config wifi-device 'radio0'
	option type 'mac80211'
	option path '18000000.axi/bcma0:7/pci0000:00/0000:00:00.0/0000:01:00.0/0000:02:02.0/0000:04:00.0'
	option channel '1'
	option band '2g'
	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'

config wifi-device 'radio1'
	option type 'mac80211'
	option path '18000000.axi/bcma0:8/pci0001:00/0001:00:00.0/0001:01:00.0'
	option channel '36'
	option band '5g'
	option htmode 'VHT80'
	option disabled '1'

config wifi-iface 'default_radio1'
	option device 'radio1'
	option network 'lan'
	option mode 'ap'
	option ssid 'OpenWrt'
	option encryption 'none'