Build for Netgear R7800

[dotXboi]

I've been using hnyman's build for months now. I went back to OG FW for a month just too contrast as I thought wifi speeds might improve, they didnt. So Im back on this build. I love the flexibility, interface and want to thanks hnyman and the community. I love the NAT speed, the massive set of add on packages. network gear vendors really need to lift their game. open source will win, maybe if they stop chasing proprietary "gaming" RGB LED sales and focus on customer features and stability??

Slighty off topic, I switched from raid to DrivePool software raid, it is awesome, plz consider it before buying a proprietary nas.

[billmy1228]

Interesting product you point out, DrivePool. If I did not already have NAS support I would probably take one of the older PC's I have and use it as a NAS with this product. Probably wasn't around when I did the NAS as that was years ago.

[r00tz]

connect via ssh and type these two commands

echo 35 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/ondemand/up_threshold
echo 10 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/ondemand/sampling_down_factor

then let me know if that improves your network transfer speeds (it did for me, it also improved my overall network speeds)

[cynics]

@r00tz

connect via ssh and type these two commands

echo 35 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/ondemand/up_threshold
echo 10 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/ondemand/sampling_down_factor

then let me know if that improves your network transfer speeds (it did for me, it also improved my overall network speeds)

Wow, this command/setting helped bump up my wireless throughput by about 100 Mbps. I have a pretty beefy connection @ 480 Mbps and before using these settings I was lucky to see 350 over WiFi, but now I can sustain 450. Is there anything I need to worry about with this is as far as stability? What exactly does this do? Something to do with the clockspeed I suspect, correct?

[hnyman]

It modifies the decision logic for adjusting CPU frequency. Likely a ramp-up with somewhat lower CPU load and a bit later ramp-down.

Of course, if you want to maximise the CPU power, just disable the ondemand governor and select performance instead. (so that CPU frequency is maxed out all the time.)

more info at https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/cpu-freq/governors.txt

[cynics]

Would there be any reason not to use the performance governor on a device like this? There's no concern about battery life... but perhaps the lifespan of the router could be reduced?

[hnyman]

@cynics

Would there be any reason not to use the performance governor on a device like this? There's no concern about battery life... but perhaps the lifespan of the router could be reduced?

Well, as a typical home router sits most of the time rather idle, so running the CPU all the time at 1700 MHz instead of 384 MHz seems wasteful and causes higher thermal load on the device.

[fantom-x]

@hnyman

causes higher thermal load on the device

No it does not, at least in my case. The temperature did not change at all.

[cynics]

What SSH command would I use to set the governor to performance? I tried looking it up but have been unsuccessful.

[hnyman]

@cynics

What SSH command would I use to set the governor to performance?

Some hints below:

root@Router1:~# ls /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/
ondemand  policy0   policy1

root@Router1:~# ls /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/
affected_cpus                  related_cpus                   scaling_governor
cpuinfo_cur_freq               scaling_available_frequencies  scaling_max_freq
cpuinfo_max_freq               scaling_available_governors    scaling_min_freq
cpuinfo_min_freq               scaling_cur_freq               scaling_setspeed
cpuinfo_transition_latency     scaling_driver                 stats

root@Router1:~# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/scaling_governor
ondemand

root@Router1:~# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/scaling_available_governors
ondemand performance

root@Router1:~# echo performance > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/scaling_governor

root@Router1:~# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/scaling_governor
performance

(and naturally the same for both cores 0 and 1)

[phinn]

Very cool thanks. Wishing my WRT32X had CPU scaling for heat/power efficiency too as it would probably save a couple watts. Right out of the box (Linksys' stock firmware based off OpenWrt) during boot says:

[ 0.090030] cpuidle: using governor ladder
[ 0.092202] mvebu-pmsu: CPU idle is currently broken on Armada 38x: disabling

[hnyman]

@phinn

Wishing my WRT32X had CPU scaling for heat/power efficiency too as it would probably save a couple watts.

You can test my version of the mvebu CPU frequency scaling driver:

CPU frequency scaling driver for mvebu (WRT3200ACM etc.)

I have been wondering why no proper CPU frequency scaling driver has been implemented for WRT3200ACM (and WRT1900ACS etc.) and the other mvebu devices. Apparently no such driver has been accepted upstream in Linux, but luckily there is one RFC version of a driver, which has been published in 2015. I noticed that the driver has recently been implemented for Turris Omnia (running an Openwrt derivative with kernel 4.4 for mvebu), so I decided to test if the driver could be modified to work with ke…

[johnnysl]

This one only scales cpu though, and not the voltages. R7800 is just a lot better for that.

[boood]

Thank you very much for the instructions. Real transfers in my specific case have increased after wifi from 20MB / s to 30MB / s (link 866), and after a cable with about 40MB / s to 60MB / s it is increasing the real bandwidth by 50%. I am very happy with the results. In the CPU clock statistics I finally see twice after 1.7GHz. Thank you very much again. PS. we are slowly approaching the parameters of the netgear software

[cybrnook]

@billmy1228

Interesting product you point out, DrivePool. If I did not already have NAS support I would probably take one of the older PC's I have and use it as a NAS with this product. Probably wasn't around when I did the NAS as that was years ago.

FreeNAS and UnRaid. I use UnRaid and have been happy for almost 10 years now wow.....

[mooternutz]

I have my setup perfect for me but am curious about going forward which file type to just do an upgrade instead of a full blown install. Here is my version. How would I just update my current setup? Thanks

OpenWrt 18.06-SNAPSHOT r7157-8a0ad2660a / LuCI openwrt-18.06 branch (git-18.198.67944-94b6aa2)

[hnyman]

@mooternutz

am curious about going forward which file type to just do an upgrade

Just a normal sysupgrade with a sysupgrade image. Nothing special needed.

[mooternutz]

Thank you!

[lukesan]

Got this router a week ago to replace my trusty Asus RT-N66u which ran Merlins FW.
Not to say the least but was not happy with the FW from Netgear.
I flashed the R7800-owrt1806-r7190-ce234299bc-20180730-2012-sqfs-factory.img and it was a bit of a challenge to find all the settings etc ... (yes, I've used dd-wrt, tomato etc in the wrt54 age)

After 2 days running I got complains that my 5GHz dropped out. In the logs I see this ... unfortunately it seems that I can't copy paste from the log so typing is the way to go. WLAN0 disconnected due toexcessive missing ACKs

[hnyman]

@lukesan

unfortunately it seems that I can't copy paste from the log so typing is the way to go.

Already fixed bug that only affects the default Bootstrap theme. You can install update luci theme from the download repo.

opkg update
opkg install luci-theme-bootstrap

(or you can switch to Material theme that is also installed in my build)