What's your favourite cheap LEDE/OpenWrt device?

TL-WDR4900 is quite good value used:

800MHz PPC
16MB flash
128MB RAM
5x gigabit, 2x USB2
2.4 & 5GHz wifi

I get ~370Mbit down, 450Mbit up.

1 Like

Two minor nicks with the TL-WDR4900...

a) it's EOL and no longer for sale.
b) the powerpc platform makes this a pretty unique system, yes, it's rather powerful (although contemporary ARM can beat it), but it also means that it offers much less (continued) support promises into the future.

the fuson fs-wr106 is very very impressive for its pricerange. is it only available on alibaba? anyone having ordered from there if so is it quite safe?

1 Like

I've always loved TL-WR740N's for being able to run openwrt/lede for a very low price. Today they are becoming somewhat less useful because of their RAM/Flash specs BUT... It's not very complicated to mod them to 16/64MB by replacing relevant chips. I would not recommend buying them new but if you have a bunch of them laying around (as I do) and a hot air station you can still make good use of those.

This also applies to similar Tp-link devices on ar71xx platform such as portable MR3020/3040's

1 Like

Do note that most of the suggestions here are either EoL or just very weak/unsuitable hardware.

I would have suggested the Netgear R6220 (Mediatek AC platform) but @diizzy pointed out it's singlecore, not dualcore MIPS like the DIR-860L rev. B1.

Except that it's only single core :-/

and that it costs like 100 bucks

Hi Friend, thanks for your recommend, the price on alibaba is wrong. :blush:

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/2-4GHZ-5-8GHz-Openwrt-11AC_60536411333.html?spm=a2700.7724838.0.0.OUAQ6v, here is the link, wants to know more details, please feel free to contact me.

elina@fusonwap.com
Skype:info@fusonwap.com
whatsapp:8613760459115

I'd say if you want to go cheap the lowest is tp-link tl-wr1043nd v2+

1 Like

I saw i malaysia 1043n v5. Some said the hardware similiar to v4 except antenna undetachable. If that so could simply use v4 instead.

I just ordered the Fuson Router. As soon as it arrives I will try to get a working LEDE up an running as soon as possible (at least a sort of prove of concept). The specs look really good in terms of price/quality. 16MB of flash plus 512MB of RAM, dual core and gigabit ethernet plus USB and SD-card for additional packages.

Possibly it can out perform my ARM based Netgear router since we should be able to get better support for it since its a Mediatek SOC compared to the closed source Broadcom.

The FS-WR106 is running Breaker Barrier by default, which directly excludes it from my abilities to move into production- at least until it's a supported device.

Hardware wise, it is quite similar to the zbt wg3526, but it isn't exactly the same. The chipsets in the FS-WR106 are not 100% compatible.

The FS-WR106 comes with MT7603EN and MT7612EN chipsets for the WiFi.

I figured it might have issues, but I flashed the 17.01.1 firmware for it, and lost 802.11ac- which I thought might happen.

The system panics with the mt7603e driver, and mt76x2e driver seems to be working, but I have yet to successfully test it.

[   57.220000] Stack : 00000000 00000000 804e6862 00000036 00000000 00000000 804
90000 80500000
[   57.220000] 	  8fd718ec 80489d83 8040494c 00000001 00000213 804e367c 00000003
 8f1f4b78
[   57.220000] 	  8f1f52c8 80064fa8 80490000 80500000 8048e288 8048e28c 80409260
 8f173a34
[   57.220000] 	  00000003 80062cf4 00000003 8f1f4b78 8f1f52c8 00000000 00000000
 00173a34
[   57.220000] 	  00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
 00000000
[   57.220000] 	  ...
[   57.260000] Call Trace:
[   57.260000] [<8001692c>] show_stack+0x50/0x84
[   57.260000] [<801b736c>] dump_stack+0x84/0xbc
[   57.270000] [<8002cf40>] warn_slowpath_common+0xa0/0xd0
[   57.270000] [<8002cff8>] warn_slowpath_null+0x18/0x24
[   57.280000] [<8f000b94>] wiphy_register+0x58/0x6c4 [cfg80211]
[   57.280000] [<8f180f20>] ieee80211_register_hw+0x7fc/0xa20 [mac80211]
[   57.290000] [<8f1e9a98>] mt7603_register_device+0x908/0x948 [mt7603e]
[   57.300000] [<8f1e8124>] init_module+0x90124/0x91130 [mt7603e]
[   57.300000] [<80225c00>] devm_kfree+0x20/0x44
[   57.310000] [<80221e94>] driver_sysfs_add+0x6c/0xa0
[   57.310000] [<802224c4>] driver_probe_device+0x120/0x288

   54.830000] mt7603e 0000:02:00.0: ASIC revision: 76030010
[   54.840000] mt7603e 0000:02:00.0: Invalid MAC address, using random address 8
a:b3:11:e5:db:c2
[   56.950000] mt7603e 0000:02:00.0: Firmware Version: _mt7603mp
[   56.960000] mt7603e 0000:02:00.0: Build Time: 20151020155902
[   56.990000] firmware init done
[   57.170000] ------------[ cut here ]------------
[   57.170000] WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 531 at compat-wireless-2017-01-31/net/wirele
ss/core.c:763 wiphy_register+0x58/0x6c4 [cfg80211]()
[   57.180000] Modules linked in: mt7603e(+) ledtrig_usbport mt76 mac80211 cfg80
211 compat ip6t_REJECT nf_reject_ipv6 nf_log_ipv6 nf_log_common ip6table_mangle 
ip6table_filter ip6_tables x_tables mmc_block mtk_sd mmc_core leds_gpio xhci_mtk
 xhci_plat_hcd xhci_pci xhci_hcd ahci libahci libata sd_mod scsi_mod gpio_button
_hotplug usbcore nls_base usb_common
[   57.210000] CPU: 1 PID: 531 Comm: kmodloader Not tainted 4.4.61 #0
[   57.320000] [<802226a8>] __driver_attach+0x7c/0xb4
[   57.320000] [<80220988>] bus_for_each_dev+0x9c/0xac
[   57.330000] [<80221bbc>] bus_add_driver+0xec/0x20c
[   57.330000] [<80222df8>] driver_register+0xa8/0xf8
[   57.330000] [<8f158044>] init_module+0x44/0x74 [mt7603e]
[   57.340000] [<8000f920>] do_one_initcall+0x1e8/0x214
[   57.350000] [<80089c68>] do_init_module+0x74/0x1d0
[   57.350000] [<8008b5d4>] load_module+0x1794/0x1c3c
[   57.350000] [<8008bb94>] SyS_init_module+0x118/0x168
[   57.360000] [<80007898>] syscall_common+0x30/0x54
[   57.360000] 
[   57.370000] ---[ end trace 43917352ef7fbd9e ]---
[   57.370000] mt7603e: probe of 0000:02:00.0 failed with error -22
[   57.430000] mt76x2e 0000:01:00.0: ASIC revision: 76120044
[   57.430000] mt76x2e 0000:01:00.0: EEPROM data check failed: 7603
[   57.440000] mt76x2e 0000:01:00.0: Invalid MAC address, using random address 0
2:75:f8:ee:d5:80
[   57.460000] mt76x2e 0000:01:00.0: ROM patch already applied
[   57.460000] mt76x2e 0000:01:00.0: Firmware Version: 0.0.00
[   57.470000] mt76x2e 0000:01:00.0: Build: 1
[   57.470000] mt76x2e 0000:01:00.0: Build Time: 201507311614____
[   57.500000] mt76x2e 0000:01:00.0: Firmware running!
[   57.500000] ieee80211 phy1: Selected rate control algorithm 'minstrel_ht'

I can get further data as necessary, and will try to work on a local build for myself- but I'm still a greenhorn in this land of LEDE. :slight_smile:

@sholwe looks like this: https://bugs.lede-project.org/index.php?do=details&task_id=460&string=witi&search_name=&type[0]=&sev[0]=&pri[0]=&due[0]=&reported[0]=&cat[0]=&status[0]=&percent[0]=&opened=&dev=&closed=&duedatefrom=&duedateto=&changedfrom=&changedto=&openedfrom=&openedto=&closedfrom=&closedto=

You need a newer build.

Also, that invalid MAC address warning is worrisome. Need to find a way to fix it.

1 Like

Its getting off topic, but I have the same/similar error on my own build for the Mercury MAC1200R v2 (MT7628AN + MT7612E). I updated my feeds, but I'm not sure if the MT76 driver is updated/patched correctly. How to check? Sorry for the Noobs question. I am using the Reboot (SNAPSHOT, r3925,-64175ff) revision

git pull or ./scripts/feeds/update -a

if that doesn't work, poke nbd on IRC.

I ordered a WR1043ND v4 to replace a aging v1 lately. While I hoped I would get a v4 it's a v3.

The v3 has a slightly older/slower CPU (QCA9558@720Mhz) and less onboard storage (8mb) but with extroot and zswap it does everything I want it to do (including but not limited to OpenVPN and adblock).

tl;dr: WR1043ND is great.

If you really want v4 then I think someone here might be inclined to exchange his v4 for your v3. I know some of the users wanted v3 because of OpenWRT and Gargoyle support but they got v4 instead.

For what it's worth, trunk added support for the ZBT-WE1326 yesterday, which appears to be the same device. I'm building it now, and will let you know if/how it works.