Hi,
so I recently got my hands on an AW7990-NPD module that I want to use in my AP. I have a TP-Link Archer C5 AC1200 V1.2 running the latest OpenWrt SNAPSHOT r34273-bcaa6a8367 / LuCI Master 26.123.65173~a1b4725 with kernel 6.12.85. I know that Wifi 7 is still very new and it's early days on OpenWrt but I wanted to give it a shot. The config I ended up with is as follows -
set up as Dumb-AP
packages:
- kmod-mt76-connac 6.12.85.2026.03.21~018f6031-r1
- kmod-mt76-core 6.12.85.2026.03.21~018f6031-r1
- kmod-mt7990-firmware 6.12.85.2026.03.21~018f6031-r1
- kmod-mt7992-23-firmware 6.12.85.2026.03.21~018f6031-r1 (supposedly "MediaTek MT7996 firmware (2+3 antenna variant)")
- kmod-mt7996-firmware-common 6.12.85.2026.03.21~018f6031-r1
- kmod-mt7996e 6.12.85.2026.03.21~018f6031-r1
/etc/config/wireless:
config wifi-device 'radio0'
option type 'mac80211'
option path 'pci0000:00/0000:00:00.0'
option radio '0'
option band '2g'
option channel '11'
option htmode 'EHT20'
option country 'US'
config wifi-iface 'default_radio0'
option device 'radio0'
option network 'lan'
option mode 'ap'
option ssid 'OpenWrt'
option encryption 'psk2+ccmp'
option key 'pass'
option ieee80211w '1'
option disabled '0'
config wifi-device 'radio1'
option type 'mac80211'
option path 'pci0000:00/0000:00:00.0'
option radio '1'
option band '5g'
option channel '100'
option htmode 'EHT160'
option country 'US'
config wifi-iface 'default_radio1'
option device 'radio1'
option network 'lan'
option mode 'ap'
option ssid 'OpenWrt_5G'
option encryption 'psk2+ccmp'
option key 'pass'
option ieee80211w '1'
option disabled '0'
config wifi-device 'radio2'
option type 'mac80211'
option path 'platform/ahb/18100000.wmac'
option band '2g'
option channel '1'
option htmode 'HT20'
config wifi-iface 'default_radio2'
option device 'radio2'
option network 'lan'
option mode 'ap'
option ssid 'OpenWrt'
option encryption 'none'
option disabled '1'
the second 2.4g radio is the one soldered in the TP Link (AW7990 NPD replaced the 5ghz module)
From my understanding the config should work no problem but unfortunately there are a couple of issues:
5GHz is never truly 160mhz (even if it thinks so when I use my laptop with intel BE201 it's only 80MHz)
And also on both radios the TX Rate is 6 Mbit, 20MHz - running a local OpenSpeedTest i get 80Mbit down and 700Mbit up in 5gh case. I can only get more download on 2.4g and 5g when I'm running a speedtest in the WifiMan Android app. absolutely everything else even on the laptop is limited
The thing is that these speed are (even when upload is fixed) barely any better than the stock Wifi 5 5GHz radio from this 13 yo router (480Mbit up 570Mbit down) so if I can't get this working the AW7990 simply doesn't make sense...
I know that the AW7990 NPD is a power hungry module and the official site says minimum 3.3V 2.5A but I never saw it pull more than 3W so that surely can't be the issue, right? Also I plan on fixing that later down the line. I'm by no means an OpenWrt expert and have never needed to install custom packages etc but am ready to take on a challenge ;).
Am I missing something? Is there some proper way of doing this?
Thanks in advance