Extreme Networks WS-AP3825 vs Extreme Networks WS-AP3935

Recently discovered these two models are supported by OpenWrt now and tempted to ditch the unifi/controller setup to a few of those flashed with OpenWrt.

How big of a difference:

  • Freescale P1020 vs IPQ8068 make for the dumb AP?
  • 64Mb/256Mb vs 32Mb/512Mb make for the dumb AP in the hundred-ish devices environment? Should I be concerned about not being able to flash even custom 24.xx images on the newer (32Mb/512Mb) models?
  • Atheros AR9590/Atheros QCA9890 combo vs dual Atheros QCA9990 make for a dumb AP?

Tagging commit committers/authors for possible feedback @hurricos @Ansuel.

PS. Linking commits for reference:

Thanks!

The AP3935i STILL does not have good MAC configuration. If the ethernet link goes down, it's gone. It'll make you want to blow your teeth out. Source:

QCA9890 and QCA9990 both suck for environments with large numbers of clients, but <100 might be OK. QCA9990 is "less bad", but again, that ethernet issue will make you seek self-harm on the AP3935i.

You will not have space or RAM issues on either AP.

You will not have CPU limit issues on either AP. (You won't run out of CPU cycles in general.)

If you MUST use the AP3825i, consider swapping in one of these ... https://asiarf.com/product/wi-fi-6-11ax-2x2-dbdc-1800mbps-mini-pcie-module-mt7915-aw7915-npd/ ... or just hope and pray that the ath10k card serves you OK. It'll honestly probably be fine, it just happens to crash after a couple dozen days uptime at the worst possible time.

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@hurricos Thanks for your prompt reply Martin!

I didn't realize there are issues like you've described with either model, that's why I was looking at them.

Are Mediatek-based wifi cards better supported in OpenWrt right now? If you can recommend an OpenWrt issue-free wifi5/MIMO "enterprise" AP (meaning they are being offloaded on ebay in large quantities and can be had at $10-$15 per unit, like one of the 3825 listings I found was $35 for 5 units) instead I'd be grateful.

The issues I've described are prevalent to all ath10k devices, which is a huge chunk of OpenWrt 11ac-capable devices -- maybe 40%? 50%?

You'll have more issues with the AP3825i because it's older ath10k, which has worse support from Qualcomm / Candelatech. The AP3935i still has the other ethernet kinks to work out right now.

Are Mediatek-based wifi cards better supported in OpenWrt right now? If you can recommend an OpenWrt issue-free wifi5/MIMO "enterprise" AP (meaning they are being offloaded on ebay in large quantities and can be had at $10-$15 per unit, like one of the 3825 listings I found was $35 for 5 units) instead I'd be grateful.

I would be grateful if I could find those, too.

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I have deployed about 10-12 of the 3825's using the newer non-ct firmware instead of the default older ct version and have had zero issues.

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Thank you for replying. Which OpenWrt version? What's the average uptime? How many clients per radio maximum do you have throughout the day?

Currently on 23.05.3. The only time uptime restarts is for a power outage or an OpenWrt release upgrade - currently the last reboot was the 23.05.3 release back in March.

The maximum clients would be 20 or less as they are in a multi AP configuration using 802.11r and 802.11k.

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I've been using 4 WS-AP3825i for about 2 years. One is the primary router/firewall for 500/500Mbps service. 2 more are dumb access points. The 4th is a USB print server. I even have a Z-Wave dongle plugged into one of the access points and remotely access via Z-Wave JS over IP. Family of 4 with 2 teenagers gaming and wife streaming. Absolutely no issues once I got the OpenWrt firmware loaded. The WS-AP3825i has a USB port, is more compact and probably consumes less power than the WS-AP3935i. Unless your Wi-Fi devices can take full advantage of MIMO, you probably wouldn't notice the difference.

For those willing to take a chance on the WS-AP3935i despite the advice of @nmpu and @hurricos. You can currently get a lot of 10 on eBay for around $40 with US shipping. The seller originally had high USPS shipping, but I got him to add FedEx. I don't think they will last long. No affiliation or personal recommendation. I did just buy a lot myself.

EDIT: The listing I saw has ended.

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I have had good luck with the WS-AP3825i and was able to load them up with OpenWRT no problem. I liked them so much I decided to tinker with a WS-3935i, but when I go to initialize them using the same method and console cable that I used on the 3825, the characters are all garbled on the 3935. I know my character set and bad rates are all correctly set. I didn't know where to post this question, but it seems like people on this thread have had experience with both units. I have a hard time believing it's the console cable, but I've tinkered with computers long enough to know anything is possible.

What could be causing the garbled characters?

I use a homemade RS232 cable with just TX, RX, and GND. The cable works on both models. Do you have more than one AP3935? Did you try a factory reset by holding the reset button?

If you do manage to get OpenWrt loaded, don't be surprised if eth0 fails to initialize most of the time. eth1 seems to be more reliable. The 2 ports are not identical. They use different PHY chips. I wish I could troubleshoot, but there's no public documentation.

Thanks for the reply

Yes I have both multiple 3825's (5) and 3935's (2) and both 3935 units show the same behavior. I did factory resets on both, and I can log in with the default username and pw but it's sketchy to see the text after login.

my cable is a Cisco cable and seems to be high quality, and works flawlessly on the 3825, but on the 3935 it scrambles the characters. I've seen turning on Vt100 on putty and making sure the character set is utf-8

Do you know your baud rate and settings that you successfully used?

If you can see anything, then it's not the baud rate. The AP3935 does have RTS/CTS on the console. I'd have to open up an AP3825 to compare. I'm guessing it's your cable. My usual cable is plugged into a real serial port on an older Dell desktop. I've also confirmed that my USB console cable works as expected on both models.

Thank you so so much, you were spot on. I ordered a new cable, my USB to console cable that I had just bought was bad. Bought a new one and I'm on in the system with no problem .

Thanks again

Got two of the AP3935 for experiments and I'm struggling to flash OpenWrt on one of them (with the exactly same steps the other one flashed just fine).

I can get it to load the initramfs image, it's the sysupgrade which doesn't seem to stick and the AP is booted back into the EN image.

I don't see anything of importance with the sysupgrade (ran it from the console, so couldn't capture the output properly), but here's the mtd, dmesg and some boot-up snippets for when the EN image is loaded and I can ssh there:
mtd: https://paste.ee/p/fD51vYQ8#section0
dmesg: https://paste.ee/p/fD51vYQ8#section1
some boot-up messages: https://paste.ee/p/fD51vYQ8#section2

@nmpu @Ansuel @hurricos any insight into what's going wrong?

PS. The one which flashed fine, the LEDs for LAN1 and LAN2 are swapped. With the PoE cable plugged into LAN1, the LAN2 is blinking. I did delete wan/wan6 and added eth1 as port to the br-lan, not sure if it matters.