C7 v2 5Ghz mesh using 22.03.0 lackluster iperf3 results

For fun I meshed some C7 v2's I had laying around with the latest stable: 22.03.0. I was hoping to get 3x466Mhz (~1Gbps) throughput on 5Ghz, 80 Mhz bandwidth on channel 100, 199 mW using WPA3. Sadly it was not the case. I don't know how this compares to other versions. Packages installed were: dnsmasq-full, wpad-mesh-openssl, ath10k non ct drivers, HTOP.

Using two laptops: iperf3 (UDP mode) reported receiving 170-340Mbps or 210Mbps avg. at 78% received. HTOP shows the single core CPU is maxed out during test. I guess its just an older router and/or a chipset radio limitation? It looks like it is running 1x1x1 antenna diversity instead of 3x3 or 2x2. Is antenna diversity adjustable? Does anyone know of a openwrt router that could do a 1Gbps mesh?

I don't know if this would help but try enabling software offloading under Firewall if you haven't already.

Thank-you I tried that but it didn't work. The QCA9880 chip that handles the 5Ghz is 3x3 / 1.3Gbps capable but perhaps it's driver related as it is fairly old or a CPU bottleneck. It would have been very nice if it had worked! As tested it makes a nice 200Mbps mesh with WPA3.

You might try APclient and later +relayd. Maybe this will be faster for uplink. Mesh mode could be more CPU taxing.

Ath10k? Have you tried the non-CT drivers / firmware, I think one, or both are required to support encapsulation offloading, which has been recently added, might take some load off the poor old CPU, although whether it makes any difference, I wouldn't know.

EDIT: Ah, as you were using mesh, I guess you are using them already.

You are correct, only the non-ct drivers work with mesh.

@nicefile I haven't tried +relayd I will look into it.

I did try some other tests like configuring one C7 as client and the other as AP (using WPA3) with the hopes it would use 3x3 for max speed but that only bore out 120Mbps under test with iperf3.

Then I tried configuring one C7 as WDS AP and the other as WDS client and that netted 250Mbps under test as above. But WDS doesn't support WPA3.

The original 802.11s 200Mbps results are quite good tbh considering you can buy this router for $20USD used and many users only have <200Mbps ISP.

The extra antenna diversity is probably used for enhanced mesh node connectivity instead of max speed which is a good thing. I was just hoping for a magic 1Gbps mesh network for <$100. :crazy_face:

In theory many homeowners just want max speed between 2 points (one end of the house to the other) so 802.11s or WDS AP/client works nicely for that. I only have 100Mbps ISP so it's more than good enough for me for now.

In theory you could add more C7's in WDS AP/client pairs and then link aggregate them or something or just keep them separate. This is potentially better in some ways for some users as they are cheap and reliable.

Does anyone know if I can force 3x3 or 2x2 mode or is it a driver limitation? This router can do 500-800Mbps to the WAN with stock firmware so there seems to be some promise to this.

Anyways I am just testing for fun. In theory eight C7's (@ $20 each = $160) could create 4x WDS AP/client pairs at 250Mbps = 1 Gbps.

Reading that, it appears encapsulation offload didn't make it in to 22.03, so needs master anyway, and
might make about a 10% improvement.

I couldn't see it mentioned in the 22.03 changelog. https://openwrt.org/releases/22.03/changelog-22.03.0

1.Further testing 22.03.0 shows that associated mesh clients in luci do not update their connectivity status in real time (closer to 5 minutes).
2. It would be really nice if associated mesh clients showed their hostnames in luci.
3. Seems to run very well but I reverted to 21.02.5 for now.
4.Testing the customized packages option on firmware downloads works flawlessly.
5.Great work all! TQVM