Netgear R7800 exploration (IPQ8065, QCA9984)

[fantom-x]

Why do not you setup SQM with cake and compare the results? That is probably the most CPU and memory intensive “router” function.

[Ansuel]

Not enough band to test it

This is the other post

R7800 cache scaling issue

@facboy searching in the various mess of the L2 cache i found THIS port to linux-4.19 and running normally the link is broken but LUCKLY i found it Will check it and compare them... As we are finally putting some work in kernel 4.19 to master i think we can finally implement this... With original pr ported for 4.19 i got this result root@No-Lag-Router:/tmp# ./mbw 32 | grep AVG AVG Method: MEMCPY Elapsed: 0.07640 MiB: 32.00000 Copy: 418.856 MiB/s AVG Method: DUMB El…

[fantom-x]

@Ansuel

Not enough band to test it

Yeah, unless you have a spare PC/router to test locally, I am not sure how else to test real life improvements...

[Ansuel]

@hnyman i'm doing some test with my r7800... I'm trying to use the ramfs image

I selected it with menuconfig but i can't find a way to make it working...
I tried use the tftpboot feature of uboot but with the command go 0x4200000 the router crash and reboot

Can you tell me how to do this?

[hnyman]

Sorry, I have never used the ramfs image.

But it was recently mentioned in

R7800 -> Flashing openwrt causes bootloop (bad block in kernel area)

EDIT 0: if you have not already done so, try to tftp flash an orginal netgear firmware first as @mk24 has suggested (the same way you would tftp flash an openwrt "openwrt*factory.img") EDIT 1: see if you can find an "older" netgear firmware image (say from the openwrt version "18" timeframe last year) and see if that will flash, and run. If it does, then try to tftp an openwrt image over the older netgear image. Before flashing a sysupgrade image to nand from an initramfs boot, I'm pretty sur…

And it referenced to R7800 initramfs instructions at

IPQ806x NSS Drivers

Too complicated. Here's what I do to test builds without flashing it into my R7800 NAND flash: Before you start, you need to setup your computer as a TFTP server, and copy the initramfs image into the TFTP server's root directory. Let's assume that the name of the initramfs image is called 'lede-nss.bin'. Name of the file is not important. Connect your computer's ethernet port to one of the LAN ports of your R7800. Assign a fixed IP to your computer's ethernet port connected to the R7…

But I have not tested that.

[anon98444528]

@ansuel,

the ram boot address is device dependent. i.e. it is different on my r7500v2 (44000000) compared to the r7800 (50000000 in @quarky's instructions)

as described in step 8 of my instructions for the r7500v2 here, try
printenv
and look for the "bootcmd" environment variable. Using the loadaddr environment variable "0x42000000" did not work for me either (I think this is the nand address to load an image from).

[Ansuel]

so you are telling me tftpboot load the image not in ram but in the nand o.O... good work netgear REALLY.

(Anyway just as a info... i'm working on updating the cpufreq patch that is 6 years old... from 2014... latest revision, 12 got included in mainline kernel and applies correctly... the last 2 patch got dropped for some reason and we actually don't have cpufreq with opp on ipq8064 platform... I have updated the driver and the dtsi but I need to find the reason the driver stalls on driver load)

(this will remove like 14 patch and mark them as backported as they are applied upstream, making the switch to 5.4 easier)

[facboy]

i wish i had serial :(. i think @anon50098793 was working on being able to boot off a USB image (without serial) at one point, but he needed testers with serial.

[anon50098793]

it would help alot if anyone can paste a full printenv / fw_printenv in this thread ( one for each device type )

( minus anything erroneous like macs or misc fields )

static commands to "usbload" on your systems too it would also help...

i.e.

kload=0x44000000
uload=0x50000000 #< safe address to load a uEnv.txt non-oem
sload=0x49000000 #< safe address to load scripts non-oem

oembootcmd=setenv syno_extra_args syno_rescue=1; run syno_bootargs; ext2load mmc 0:3 $kload zImage;ext2load mmc 0:3 $rload rd.bin;bootipq

wrtgo=usb start; ext2load usb 0:1 $kload kernel; run wrtbootarg; bootm $kload

[Ansuel]

A serial USB cost like 12 euros

Anyway I will post here my changes but still no success... All works good on the router but for some reason it doesn't register the opp (so no cpufreq)

Any idea?

[facboy]

serial console requires hardware mods to the R7800 though doesn't it?

[fantom-x]

No, it does not.

[Ansuel]

The serial headers pin is already flashed... You just need to open it

[hnyman]

@facboy

erial console requires hardware mods to the R7800

Just open the cover and attach the serial cable to pins, like I describe in the message 2 of this thread...

Netgear R7800 exploration (IPQ8065, QCA9984)

Advice on opening Netgear R7800 case and using the serial console The case bottom and cover are attached to each other pretty tightly, but the case can be opened once you figure out all necessary steps: The circuitboard is attached to a heatsink that is attached to the top cover. So the bottom panel (with sides) is the one to separate from the others. The heatsink is likely attached with a thermal paste or such (I never removed it). There are five screws (Torx T-10) on the bottom that need to …

[facboy]

yeah, i don't want to pry it open :).

[hnyman]

@facboy

i don't want to pry it open

Opening five screws is no "hardware mod"...

[Ansuel]

If someone wants to help

This is the repo... All done except... it doesn't work (ah ah ah)
OPP for some reason doesn't register named operating point...

I have little time this 2 week so if anyone wants to take a look i would really appreciate it.

Ansuel/openwrt

[rog]

I'm using kernel 4.19 with my R7800 for 3 weeks now and it's rock solid. Actually, it seems more stable than previous versions.

[lantis1008]

I've got users reporting reproducible crashes on 18.06.5 builds when doing 1 of 2 things:

1. use anydesk(http://www.anydesk.com) to remote control PCs. after enable the option "Search local network for other anydesk clients" and then use it to connect to another PC within local network, router reboot.
2. when use Edge to browse this website: https://www.retailmenot.com/view/aliexpress.com,
   and then click any link of "get deal" or "show coupon code", router reboot

Anyone else seeing this? 2 users exact same problem and 100% reproducible apparently.
These are very strange crash conditions...

PS. Not a spam post. Links are explanatory, not advertisement.

[hnyman]

@lantis1008

remote control PCs. after enable the option "Search local network for other anydesk clients"

First guess here is the jumboframe bug, which possibly goes away with kernel 4.19

FS#2026 - kernel ipq806x Oops

No idea about the other cause.