Hello OpenWrt community!
I recently acquired an R8000 — Nighthawk X6 AC3200 for what I thought was a great deal.
I installed OpenWrt and it seems to be running decently, but the WiFi occasionally has issues.
I followed the instructions for setting up the 5Ghz bands from the OpenWrt Project page... but the I get intermittent times where it basically is unresponsive... then it picks back up and is okay for a bit, and just keeps yoyoing back and forth.
The 2.4Ghz is more stable, but does have occasional latency spikes and bandwidth drops to just a few Mbs.
I know the Broadcomm chips are normally a problem, but from what I've read the R8000 is a special case and is supported.
I have updated to the newest release (19.07.1). I checked the system and kernel logs when this happens but there is nothing there. I don't get disconnected - just everything stops loading for a minute, and then it starts working again.
Okay, well if anyone has had this issue with the R8000 router please let me know I'm not alone and if you have found a solution that would be even better!
Looking at the system log, I have a ton of these messages, but have no clue what they mean!
[5.309273] mtd_read error while parsing (offset: 0x7C20000): -74
and these
Sun Feb 2 22:51:06 2020 kern.debug kernel: [ 7.154921] pci 0001:02:12.0: [000d:0000] type 00 class 0x000000
Sun Feb 2 22:51:06 2020 kern.info kernel: [ 7.154958] pci 0001:02:12.0: [Firmware Bug]: reg 0x10: invalid BAR (can't size)
and a bunch more failures and errors.
Thanks again to anyone who took the time to read and may offer advice!
DeadEnd
Okay, adding a second post with dmesg from a fresh boot...
I'm don't know what errors are "normal" and which are issues... again, any help is much appreciated!
Okay, I connected via ethernet just to confirm... Ran DSL Report to setup SQM and everything was perfect. Disconnected ethernet and changed to WiFi and DSL Report starts good, then crashes to just a few KB then after a few seconds goes back up to nearly the ethernet speed... then crashes back down. Doing this on both 5Ghz and 2.4 Ghz.
What is wrong? I would be very appreciative of help... I read that this router was supported (even though broadcomm) maybe I have bad hardware??
No, windows 10 laptop.
I have confirmed the issue on two windows 10 laptops, 2 android phones, so I am fairly confident it is the router.
I have an older router that I swapped back in and don't have any issues.
But it's a TEW-673GRU with 8MB of flash and 64 MB ram... I have had to use an external drive just to have enough space to run OpenWrt, Wireguard, SQM, etc.
Well, MacBooks and Windows laptops do often scan wifi and that slows down the connection. I was gonna suggest disabling location services, but if the phones do the same then the issue is probably in a different place. May worth a try regardless.
I am fairly confident it is the router. If I swap my old router back in I have no issues. It basically acts like it gets overloaded and stops processing for a few seconds, then is fine, and goes back and forth. Both 5 and 2.4 Ghz do it - so something in the firmware I think. I just don't know where to even start...
If you don't mind me asking - do you have a link to the openwrt firmware you were able to load? I'm trying to load it on one I bought and not having much luck....
Firmware is there along with any/all instructions. I did have issues getting it to stick... a factory reset before flashing helped. Also I believe after the first flash it took FOREVER to load... so let it settle a bit before trying to do anything.
and if you have found a solution that would be even better!