[GCC 7.2 BUILD] Optimized TP-Link Archer C7 V2 AC1750 LEDE Firmware

I'm using 2 Archers C7 v2's as dumb aps in my network.
Is this build gonna give me some better performance or can I just better use the official build?

The official 19.07-rc2 build works perfect for me.

https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/19.07.0-rc2/targets/ath79/generic/

( Make sure you read the flashing instructions if you are switching from ar71xx to ath97 ! )

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“Official” v19 should allow you to enable flow-offload for higher routing/NAT throughput. This is similar to how OEM firmware works.

However, if you use SQM (“bufferbloat control” or “enhanced QoS”), the packets need to all go through the CPU. There is no known “magic” to make a single-core, MIPS-based router run at much more than about 150-250 Mbps with SQM.

Edit: For "dumb AP" use, there typically wouldn't be any SQM involved at the AP, so "any" build will perform about the same. There are some concerns around excessive RAM consumption for ath10k-CT drivers and firmware at this time. I run the "upstream" ath10k (no "-CT") on my Archer C7v2 units as it is required to support 802.11s on the "Wave 1" chip set found in the Archer C7v2. I find the upstream versions to perform well in my applications. They can be installed by removing the ath10k-CT versions and installing the ath10k versions using opkg.

I'm using the master branch with the "CT" ath10k firmware, with no big issues, I compile the source and update my router every 2 or 3 weeks.
It's true that the CT version uses more memory but I think that is a problem for devices with < 64MB RAM or if you are using memory-intensive apps.
Personally, I prefer SQM over flow offload because it really improves the network latency, and if you have a wan speed > 600Mb you don't need flow offload, you need a better router.

Where can I find these ar71xx to ath97 flashing instructions? What's different from regular flashing upgrade?

You shouldn't keep the configs when flashing from ar71xx to ath79...

For more info, check this thread:

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to flash from AR71xx to ATH97 basically just force flash the correct image file on SSH command-line with
sysupgrade --force sysupgrade.bin

question remains is it worth this upgrade to ATH97 on archer C7? is the 5 ghz wifi throughput better than this optimized build from this thread? what are the specific gains so it would be worth the upgrade?

i am using it as an AP + VPN tunnel (not the main router), no problems so far.

I'm also having the same issue on gwlim's october build. Mind sharing your cron command to reboot wifi?

Restart wifi every day at 3 o clock:
0 3 * * * wifi down && wifi up

00 5 * * * wifi reload radio1

The above does the 2.4GHz radio at 5AM, just note that the reload command is hit or miss on which build it works on. You may need to use the down/up command juppin posted, you'll have to test if specifying the radio works instead of doing both.

This one seems to work, the other one left no trace in the log so I guess it doesn't work on my build. Thanks

Update to the new Jan 2020 build.

For the people worried about the memory utilization of the ath10k-ct driver, I was looking at the latest commits and there's a new ct driver: ath10k-ct-smallbuffers for 64 MiB devices.
So if you have a <= 64MB RAM router you should use this.

Our Archer C7v2 has 128

Hi there,

I have an Archer C7 v2.0 and I noticed that the 2.4 gHz radio freezes up on me periodically. It usually happens once a day. The 2.4 gHz is used by quite a few of my devices; printer, tablet, phone, etc etc. There are up to 10 devices attached to it daily. I see a few posts in this thread where users were having similar problems and one solution was to write a cron job that restarted this radio every day at 3 AM. I would like a better solution than this so I was wondering if anyone had a recommendation for a stable build where the 2.4 radio DOESN'T freeze at all? I keep seeing references to Shunjou's builds. Where are these? Are they better?

@mobulaman Shunjou's build is no better, in fact all OpenWRT builds seem to have 2.4 radio problems. Restarting the radio is the best solution I've used so far!

I've switched back to the stock firmware since I only use the Archer as an AP, as the environment I use it in isn't as busy right now I'm going to have to wait to see how stock firmware works out.

Neither @r00t nor @shunjou have visited the forum for almost 12 months now.
Since the builds are probably outdated and this topic is unmaintained, I will close it now.

Please open new topics for any questions related to official OpenWrt builds for this device.