TP-Link TL-WA850RE v7 SOC?

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
1

Does anyone know which SOC the TP-Link TL-WA850RE hardware version 7 access point / range extender uses? I have one that I want to flash to enable me to do a few more things than the very basic capabilities that the stock firmware comes with. I can't seem to find any info on it, and it's not officially supported by OpenWRT due to the 4/32 size. I only need the basic wifi & IP routing functionality so don't really need any other services, so a very stripped down version would be fine.

Does it use an Atheros SOC like the previous hardware versions do? I suspect it may be the Realtek RTL8197FN but am not sure.

Mine is the Australian version which is labelled as "TL-WA850RE(AU) Ver:7.0". From what I can tell, all international versions appear to use the same SOC, and I've successfully flashed mine with both AU and international (EU) versions of the latest stock firmware. Unfortunately, it doesn't have any FCC details on it, so I'd have to open it up to find out more.

Here's the link to the stock firmware pages for reference:

2

Set device log to maximum/debug
Switch it off and on
Copy boot liog from the web interface
RAM and SoC are on first lines, storage mtd somewhat later.
Any fcc id on the box?

3

No FCC ID unfortunately.
This is all that's in the log:

##########################################################################
# 			       TL-WA850RE  System Log 
# Time = 2024-08-27 14:29:53
# H-Ver = TL-WA850RE 7.0 : S-Ver = 1.0.13 Build 231115 Rel.51785n
##########################################################################
  0days, 00:00:04, [lan]LAN: Set interface br-lan0 ip=x.x.x.x netmask 255.255.255.0.
  0days, 00:00:04, [dhcps]DHCPS: Dhcps start
  0days, 00:00:04, [lan]LAN: Set interface br-lan0 ip=x.x.x.x netmask 255.255.255.0.
  0days, 00:00:05, [dhcps]DHCPS: Dhcps stop
  0days, 00:00:07, [behav]ACCESS CONTROL: Disable Wireless ACL
  0days, 00:00:07, [behav]ACCESS CONTROL: Disable Lan ACL
  0days, 00:00:08, [httpd]HTTPD: Http server start!
  0days, 00:00:20, [sntpc]Get Time From Internet [2023-01-01  0:00.02d]
4 
20            0x14            IMG0 (VxWorks) header, size: 1372824

1.7MB upgrade size indicates it has 2 or 4MB flash just like the rest of series
https://openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wa850re
i.e totally unsupportable. If you are to discard it you can open case and take picture of PCB to document it, wont help booting any llinux on it.

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5

This looks like the FCC ID for it: https://fccid.io/TE7WA850REV7

I don't mind using older builds and can try compiling a stripped down version as is done here for v2:

I need to know what the SOC is though :thinking:

6

Check fcc doc, internl photos, it is there.
Since you have no intent or chance to run OpenWRT this discussion is over.

7

Just clarifying what was already said:

32MB of RAM is barely enough for OpenWrt 19.07.x. 2MB of flash was barely enough for OpenWrt 14.07.x.

Since 18.06.x was the first to support this SoC, a device with 2MB of flash is never going to fit, no matter what you strip out of the image.

It also runs WxWorks not Linux in the stock firmware so even if it hypothetically had more flash you would be one to make a dts for it manually with lots of trial and error and make it boot.

This device was not the only one that has the same problem. For example, TP-Link Archer C6v4 is likely to never be supported even if v3 is.

8

The picture in the FCC doc is too low resolution to read it.

9

Are you sure it's 2MB flash size? The image header says 1372824 bytes compressed, but 2418064 bytes decompressed. Does it only decompress to RAM?
The forum post I referenced above manages to fit a build into 2MB and includes even more than I need.
If the SOC turns out to be one that's supported by Linux in other devices that use the same SOC, would a stripped down build using the above method work?

10

Even if the SOC is supported it will still require a custom dts that supports the flash memory, wifi and Ethernet. These will likely be unique to this device.

And you’ll need a way to boot it - the vxworks bootloader is very unlikely to support booting a Linux kernel

1 Like
11

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