WRT3200ACM with MU-MIMO

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

I've just purchased a new linksys wrt3200ACM and installed openwrt on it straight away. It has been a while since I ran a different rom other than stock, as I've been locked in to my ISP router. I want to make sure that I'm getting the best out of the router (one of the reasons of putting openwrt on it) but am not sure about the radio channels. How do I configure all these interfaces? Are there that many because it is a mu-mimo device? I'm currently working my way through the openwrt documentation and would be happy if someone pointed me in to the right place.

TIA (and apologies for not knowing more).

2

@kabads, welcome to the community!

Have you browsed to Network > Wireless on the LuCI web GUI?

Not sure what you mean. You should have a 2.4 and 5.4 GHz radio available to configure.

Also have you seen: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-quick-start/basic_wifi

3

@lleachii - thanks. This device is a mu-mimo device, but it appears that there are no open source drivers for it (yet)[0]. I wondered if each aerial (there are 4 in total) might have it's own interface. Wifi is working, and it's working fast. However, I'm not sure what to do with the radio channels (there is radio0, radio1 etc.)

I'll carry on reading the documentation. Thanks.

[0] https://github.com/kaloz/mwlwifi/issues/296

1 Like
4

???

I don't understand mu-mimo technology to work as you describe.

I most cases, you configure radio 0 and 1 (those aren't "channels"). One is 2.4, the other 5.4 GHz. Simple.

Then what are you trying to solve?

5

Use radio0 for 5GHz, use radio1 for 2.4GHz, and disable radio2. As you already found out, there is no support for MU-MIMO on the open drivers.

2 Likes
6

@eduperez - many thanks.

1 Like
7

Can the 2nd 5ghz radio be used as another 5ghz channel? If so, this could be used a backhaul to another unit to extend the network without cutting bandwidth in half.

8

Technically, yes - but the third radio…

  • tends to mess up the hardware regdomain settings (as it usually differs from the main radios).
  • it has no (real) antenna attached and is 1x1 to begin with
  • it's connected via SDIO, which is a rather low speed bus, so performance will be bad (worse than half of the 4x4:3 main radio)

it's not meant to be used by the vendor - and if used nevertheless, is only rather low speed.

1 Like
9

This topic was automatically closed 10 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.