Netgear R7800 exploration (IPQ8065, QCA9984)

For Developers
1513

picked this commit and build,run normally for now.

1514

Tried this, didn't notice anything special in the openssl benchmarks, about the same speed.
Btw, for r7800, if i want a custom hz setting, is it correct to specify it in the 4.14 generic config file?

1515

Well, it does make a difference but oh well...

1516

Hi all
I'm new to the R7800 (but not to OpenWRT) and noticed a strange behavior with a 2.4G TP-Link TL-WN725N WiFi stick:
The stick connects to the R7800's WiFi and gets an IP address through DHCP, the stick can be seen under associated stations (including IP). But the IP is not pingable and services like HTTP work neither.

I had a Netgear WNDR3700 before - no problem. Double-checked that right now. Had a Linksys WRT3200ACM - no problem (it had other problems why i went for R7800).
All devices have/had 18.06.02 installed.
Nothing abnormal in the syslog either.
Any ideas?

1517

You don't ping the wifi stick, you ping the operating system of the device the stick is plugged into. The stick just provides layer 1 and 2 connectivity. All above is work done by the device, not by the stick.

So what about analyzing the IP stack and logfiles of the device? You could try to increase the debug level if you don't see the cause for problems.

1518

how do you get it
for

time openssl speed -multi 2 md5 sha1 sha256 sha512 des des-ede3 aes-128-cbc aes-192-cbc aes-256-cbc rsa2048 dsa2048
|real|3m 22.82s|
|---|---|
|user|0m 0.00s|
|sys|0m 0.32s|


time openssl speed md5 sha1 sha256

|real|0m 54.11s|
|---|---|
|user|0m 53.43s|
|sys|0m 0.51s|
1519

Probably, i think i did the test wrong.

1520

I build my own firmware with some tweaks that I found here on the forum over the last couple of years. I also ran that test when there was minimal load on the router.

1521

Tried finding the preempt patches, any idea where they are located?

1522
  • make kernel_menuconfig
    • Kernel Features
      • Preempt
      • 1000Hz clock
1 Like
1523

That is one of several changes that I make. I put it all here: https://gist.github.com/fantom-x

2 Likes
1524

Odd, I looked for preempt but I didn't find it. Now when I read your post I tried again and it was there... I did fiddle with some configs tho', maybe that's why it didn't work. Thanks.

1525

I just tried a master build with the CT firmware and had two crashes in an hour and connectivity issues for most of the devices. Rebuilt it with the auth10k one and it seems to be way more stable.
Is this a known behaviour?

1526

Kind of yes, the CT firmware seems to have more problems, but way less than before.
However if you run the ath10k-ct driver you don't have to recompile to switch firmware. Just replace the firmware-5.bin with the firmware you want (official or CT versions).

1527

I've not been following things here for a while so may have missed a commit, but I take you don't use isolcpus anymore?

1528

Nope, it became unnecessary a while ago after a fix in the switch code.

1 Like
1529

Ok so without spitting through 1517 posts, I flashed 18.06 version of openwrt using tftp and after that I installed hnyman's build through the openwrt GUI (R7800-owrt1806-r7720-0a637c7f87-20190322-2144-sqfs-sysupgrade.bin) and everything seems to be working. But I have the feeling that i'm missing something, since I have no experience with openwrt or other custom roms I figured the best options would be to just ask. So, wot i must do now? I can imagine that I still have some configs or packages to update/install/edit, maybe there have been some major sidenotes on the build that I've missed?

I could ofcourse just tinker with it and find everything out the hard way, but I'd rather not reflash 10 times due to me not knowing that I had to upload another something to the router or change this/that configfile.

Any tips or hints for a total noob? You'll be helping me out ALOT :slight_smile:

Edit: This should probably be in community & builds, my bad

1530

Set a root password, configure WAN access (if not DHCP) and your WLAN settings as needed, be done. Everything else is optional, depending on your personal requirements.

1 Like
1531

Regarding ping spikes, it seems to be due to something in the wifi interface..
pinging from ssh 8.8.8.8 I get an extremely stable ping:

--- 8.8.8.8 ping statistics ---
699 packets transmitted, 699 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 27.346/28.041/36.409 ms
root@OpenWrt:~#

while from other wireless clients I have many spikes.
It's frustrating not to have an effective solution on such a gaming router as the r7800..
I have last owrt1806-r7720 build with default settings.

1532

Hi. I Installed OpenWRT on my R7800. But I found strange thing.

When Idle state, CPU Load is too high. Always keep 0.1 ~ 0.4

I used htop (install: opkg install htop) and monitored processes.

htop -d2

(refresh rate: 0.2 sec) or htop -d1

In every 2sec, kworker/x:x process runs 100% and go down. (CPU spikes every 2sec, 100% and go disappear.)

I tried various firmwares and found something different CPU Usage:

OpenWRT SNAPSHOT r9773: Every 2sec, CPU spike 100%
OpenWRT hnyman's Build: Every 2sec, CPU spike 100%
OpenWRT 18.06.2 Stable: Every 2sec, CPU spike 20~30%
DD-WRT kongs Build (2018-10?, It uses Linux 3.x Kernel): CPU IDLE (Load avg: 0.0x)
DD-WRT v3.0-r39296 (03/27/19) Linux 4.9.166-rc1: CPU IDLE (Load avg: 0.0x)

But I cannot figure out actually what process is cause of this problem.

htop just shows kworker/x:x (x is varient I think).

I removed wireless driver/firmware and rebooted, not worked.
Also disabled IPv6, DHCP, Firewall, NAT... not worked.
This is not related Luci Auto-refresh CPU load.
I tried RESET settings... etc..

DD-WRT is OK.

My other Routers (EA4500 (E4200v2), WRT32X) are OK. (Load avg: 0.00 ~ 0.0x, OpenWRT recent SNAPSHOTs and 18.06.x Stable)

Any ideas?