MT7615N driver support status?

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
#1

So, my old TP-Link WDR4300 router died after nearly 7 years of full 24/7 service and I'm looking for a replacement. As this happened suddenly and considering it was my main router, I'm currently limited to what I can find on local stores, since the shipment of anything bought online will take ages due the pandemic we're currently living.

The most common hardware combinations within my price range that are readily available where I live are either MT7621AT + 2x MT7615N (D-Link DIR-878 and DIR-882) or MT7621AT + MT7603EN + MT7612EN (Xiaomi Mi Router 3G and Mi Router 4A) or some very very old models that, while not inherently bad, seems like a waste of money to buy new nowadays (TP-Link Archer C5 and C7).

I'm inclined to go with D-Link because they have official support channels where I live, unlike Xiaomi, which doesn't sell anything officially here, so you're basically on your own in case you end needing any kind of technical support (RMA, warranty, etc). Having essentially a locked bootloader and needing to rely on hacks and exploits in order to flash custom firmwares is another reason to drive me away from them.

I'm aware there's currently no official OpenWRT support for neither DIR-878 nor DIR-882 other than an open pull request for DIR-878, which reportedly also works on DIR-882 since they're essentially the same device (apart from the lack of USB ports on DIR-878) and I'm willing to help bringing official support in case I end getting one of them (likely the DIR-882 since I do have use cases for the USB ports).

What concerns me, however, is the current status of the mt76 driver, as I read lots of conflicting information. What I could gather is that mt76 is a kinda new driver that hasn't been mainlined yet and you might experience all kinds of bugs and instabilities with them depending of the specific MediaTek chip, is that accurate? Looks like it's also possible to use the proprietary, non-free Mediatek drivers on OpenWRT with some effort too, but I would rather avoid that.

TL;DR since I'm probably getting a DIR-882, what's the current status of the MT7615N when using the open mt76 driver? How does it perform, for example, when compared with the proprietary drivers?

#2

MT7615 support in mt76 is still young in comparison. It works - but it wasn't fast, last time I tested on my 878.

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#3

Similar chipsets are found in the D-team Newifi D2 (supported) but no forum reports on the Latest Release.
If your inclined to hack/build with Mediatek, this unsupported
Trendnet Recertified AC2600
TRENDnet TEW-827DRU v2.0R wikidevi
can be had cheaply in the US.

#4

You might want to pull in this when building your own images. Sounds like it could possibly affect throughput.

I get 300-350mbit on 5ghz (80mhz channel) with a 2T2R client. (iperf3 -c serverip -P 5)

The datasheet claims 160mhz operation but I haven't managed to wrangle it into doing it (iw seems to advertise capability though) nor do I believe I have any clients capable of it anyway.

#5

@namidairo Which router do you own?

I am hitting > 400+ Mbps on my RT-AC57U v1 (19.07). Haven't tried that patch yet.

#6

When was the last time you tried? Do you recall which speed could you get from it?

#7

A few days ago, but it was a master image with the mac80211 patches that just got merged a few hours ago (5.7 RC3). So it was not a 'vanilla' master image, so to speak.

I can test again if you'd like.

#9

What's the current status of this?
I'm a DIR-882 owner and wireless doesn't seem as fast as with the stock firmware.
I have a 700-800mbit WAN connection. With stock firmware I had 600-700mbit on both Windows and OSX+iOS devices, no problems.
With latest snapshot, HW offloading doesn't work (but that's another discussion) so I'm limited to <400mbit down and 500mbit up with SW offloading, but the wireless speeds on OSX/iOS drop significantly for download. With Windows I get 250-300mbit, but OSX/iOS tops at <100mbit download, only upload works 300+mbit which to me looks weird. Tried different settings, channels, etc. Don't know what else to try.

#10

Please test the latest mt76 master.

#11

it has improved alot for me "using Intel wifi cards in laptops up to 866Mhz AC"
but i do find the higher the channel the better
I'm in Australia but the best speed I get on channel 149 80Mhz
the other non DFS 80Mhz channel here is 36
it has lower power but so much slower
this is the same on a DIR-878 & a DIR-1960 "Same PCB"
this is just a test copying a file LAN using the device as an access point only
the other channels work the same the higher the faster

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