D-Link DIR-859 A3 AC1750 works with DIR-869 A1 image

For Developers
21

a) forcing a different regulatory domain than your own is illegal and can get you into costly legal trouble in most jurisdictions, just as well as create problems for your clients and neighbours.
b) a megaphone is loud, but it distorts the sound as well - and it can't help you hear either. WiFi is always two-way communication, yanking up the signal levels on one side doesn't help at all.

1 Like
22

I'm trying a 21.02 snapshot build on my DIR-859 A3.

Everything seems to be working OK, but a close inspection on dmesg reveals the following error:

(...)
[   54.308741] ath9k 18100000.wmac: Direct firmware load for ath9k-eeprom-ahb-18100000.wmac.bin failed with error -2
[   54.319399] ath9k 18100000.wmac: Falling back to sysfs fallback for: ath9k-eeprom-ahb-18100000.wmac.bin
(...)

The 2.4Ghz radio is up anyway, but I haven't really tested.

I don't recall seeing this error in the 19.07 builds. Looking at the source code, I've found what appears to be the source of this error message:

(...)
case "$FIRMWARE" in
"ath9k-eeprom-ahb-18100000.wmac.bin")
	case $board in
	(...)
	dlink,dir-859-a1)
		ath9k_eeprom_extract "art" 4096 1088
		ath9k_patch_fw_mac $(mtd_get_mac_ascii devdata "wlan24mac") 2
		;;
(...)

So is 21.02 failing to load the 2.4Ghz radio firmware from ART?

23

Thanks for the tip about installing sysupgrade.bin after factory.bin. I have a refurbished A1 device. When I rebooted or lost power, the device entered recovery mode and wouldn't load at all.

24

why is there 4 anetnna on the DIR-869 vs DIR-859 (3 antenna)? also the antenna is shorter in DIR-869 vs DIR-859 are they the same ?? thanks