QCA9531 Custom board - What version to install

For Developers
1

Hello folks,

I ordered a chinese board from alibaba containing the QCA9531 chip + lte modem connected by pcie, so I can experiment with it.
The board came with a very old version of LEDE:

root@LEDE:~# ubus call system board
{
	"kernel": "4.4.61",
	"hostname": "LEDE",
	"system": "Qualcomm Atheros QCA9533 ver 2 rev 0",
	"model": "TP-Link TL-WR841N\/ND v9",
	"release": {
		"distribution": "LEDE",
		"version": "SNAPSHOT",
		"revision": "r3975+3-97d1c49",
		"codename": "reboot",
		"target": "ar71xx\/generic",
		"description": "LEDE Reboot SNAPSHOT r3975+3-97d1c49"
	}
}

I used sysupgrade to push the latest version of openwrt but it did not work, and the board was resetting in that strange chinese web bootloader. I then attempted to install various version of openwrt using that firmware and failed. in the end the only one I can install is this one TP-Link TL-WR841N/ND v9", but on this one the LTE is not working and it's diffcult to install packages because it's so old and obsolete.
Can someone please guide me to install a version of OpenWrt that has USB support for the lte modem and supporting sscripts to manage the lte modem?

Much appreciated, thank you!

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2

huasifei is a very real company, ask them for warranty support?

1 Like
3

That board, even at first glance, is very different from a TP-Link TL-WR841N/ND v9, so while the vendor might have used that as a starting point for their development, they will have done crucial changes to adapt it to their different hardware. Just blindly flashing other firmwares, including original tl-wr841n v9 images, is almost guaranteed to fail and brick the device for good (overwriting irrecoverable calibration data and more). It's dead, Jim - and you killed it.

4

Actually,

Actually flashing both of these from v9, works but without USB. I am guessing the vendor modified something to make USB2 work on their board.

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So basically I have no chance but to depend on them?
I thought that the cpu flash and ram are key and if I use the firmware from another modem that has same hardware, it should pretty much work out of the box.
The communication with them is very problematic and I was thinking I can avoid it.

5

No, not really - but you made your life much harder by flashing random firmwares without documenting the details of the installed original firmware first AND taking backups first, before ever writing anything to the flash.

Now you're left with a barely working and heavily wounded Frankenstein, which might be fatally damaged (OEM data overwritten). What you could have been derived from the OEM firmware now requires guessing, probing and partial PCB reverse engineering. And even then you can't be fully certain that this matches OEM expectations.

6

Thank you for taking the time to address this. Actually I have more devices of the same kind because I anticipated this could happen. Are you guys able to help me build the latest version in this case? What information should I provide the make this easier for whoever is willing to help?

7

64MB RAM is kind of a dead end -

the job is for someone who owns the device anyway -

8

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