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Topic: Netgear WNDR3700 - OpenWRT New User(s)

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I'm running Openwrt 10.3 just incredibly fine on WNDR 3700. the only thing missing is 5 Ghz that it's disabled for now :-)

I built my own and enabled 5 GHz but 802.11n seems highly unstable at the moment. 802.11n connections keep losing an IP address. That's with the Backfire release btw, nothing more recent, I might try snapshots.

Borromini wrote:

I built my own and enabled 5 GHz but 802.11n seems highly unstable at the moment. 802.11n connections keep losing an IP address. That's with the Backfire release btw, nothing more recent, I might try snapshots.

What's unstable? 5Ghz or also 2.4Ghz?

luminoso wrote:

I'm running Openwrt 10.3 just incredibly fine on WNDR 3700. the only thing missing is 5 Ghz that it's disabled for now :-)

Strange. I happened to enable the 5GHz radio, and have been working happily ever since. (Didn't expect it to work, given the forum posts, but it does for me.) Try enabling it, see if it works. (Let us know if you do, please, as to whether it works for you or not. It does for me.)

(Last edited by bs27975 on 21 Jun 2010, 00:17)

Borromini wrote:

I built my own and enabled 5 GHz but 802.11n seems highly unstable at the moment. 802.11n connections keep losing an IP address. That's with the Backfire release btw, nothing more recent, I might try snapshots.

Did you happen to try stock? (5GHz is working for me without problem.)

Aside from that, just curious as I'm tempted to try building my own, too, what made you build rather than use stock - particular features?

bs27975 wrote:
luminoso wrote:

I'm running Openwrt 10.3 just incredibly fine on WNDR 3700. the only thing missing is 5 Ghz that it's disabled for now :-)

Strange. I happened to enable the 5GHz radio, and have been working happily ever since. (Didn't expect it to work, given the forum posts, but it does for me.) Try enabling it, see if it works. (Let us know if you do, please, as to whether it works for you or not. It does for me.)

Could you please spicify? Which country code are you using? And HT mode? Channel? Encription?

luminoso wrote:
bs27975 wrote:
luminoso wrote:

I'm running Openwrt 10.3 just incredibly fine on WNDR 3700. the only thing missing is 5 Ghz that it's disabled for now :-)

Strange. I happened to enable the 5GHz radio, and have been working happily ever since. (Didn't expect it to work, given the forum posts, but it does for me.) Try enabling it, see if it works. (Let us know if you do, please, as to whether it works for you or not. It does for me.)

Could you please spicify? Which country code are you using? And HT mode? Channel? Encription?

Does the file contents shown in message #6 of this thread give you the information you're looking for?

yes. thank you.

luminoso wrote:
Borromini wrote:

I built my own and enabled 5 GHz but 802.11n seems highly unstable at the moment. 802.11n connections keep losing an IP address. That's with the Backfire release btw, nothing more recent, I might try snapshots.

What's unstable? 5Ghz or also 2.4Ghz?

I only tried the full 802.11n spec (ie 5 GHz). 802.11g runs just fine. I just built an SVN revision last night and now 802.11n seems to run stable. I am running r21847. My laptop has only been connected for like half an hour or so, so I can't really judge at the moment, but at least I'm not losing my DHCP lease anymore within a minute or so. The speeds iwconfig reports (not an indication of real throughput, I know) are stable too.

$ iwconfig intel 
intel     IEEE 802.11abgn  ESSID:"Zeus 802.11n"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:5.24 GHz  Access Point: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
          Bit Rate=270 Mb/s   Tx-Power=15 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=60/70  Signal level=-50 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0
bs27975 wrote:
Borromini wrote:

I built my own and enabled 5 GHz but 802.11n seems highly unstable at the moment. 802.11n connections keep losing an IP address. That's with the Backfire release btw, nothing more recent, I might try snapshots.

Did you happen to try stock? (5GHz is working for me without problem.)

Aside from that, just curious as I'm tempted to try building my own, too, what made you build rather than use stock - particular features?

I did not try the stock firmware releases, since those don't have the CONFIG_ATH_USER_REGD=y ath9k driver setting enabled that you need to try other channels than your country allows on the 5 GHz band (I was unaware of which frequencies my country did allow and did not want to take any chances, given Germany seems to require DFS for all channels).

Another reason (which is a minor, cosmetic one) is that i'm running a 10.0.0.0 class C network instead of the regular 192.168.1.0 one, which saves me the trouble from having to hack that in every time I flash a new firmware. I also compiled in a lot of packages I use (or plan on using), so the firmware image packs almost everything I need (I couldn't find htop tongue).

(Last edited by Borromini on 21 Jun 2010, 12:01)

For anybody who is interested I have uploaded my build of openwrt.
It is based on one of the latest branche's of backfire (build 21843) and contains all firmware versions (jffs and squashfs) including the ".config" file so you can make your own version.

The firmware contains:
- OpenWRT base build 21843
- Luci
- Samba (editing of /etc/samba/smb.conf and smb.conf.template is highly recommended)
- USB drivers (only storage for USB2)+automount
- USB supports the filesystems: ext2, ext3, fat and ntfs
- DDNS
- NTP
- UPNP
- Wifi working (both 2,4GHz and 5GHz)
- Realtime statistics
- DHCP
- PortForwarding
- Router IP=192.168.1.1

It is fully functional. I've tested it for the past 30 hours with only one issue... the internet connection is lost after configuring the wifi interfaces.. configuring/renewing the WAN interface fixes this, after that the WAN interface is stable.

An untested version based on the same .config file but with added ftp support and based on branch 21858 can be downloaded here.

[edit] Sry.. deleted the build21858.zip by accident.. will build a new(er) one soon.. [/edit]

(Last edited by hijglander on 6 Jul 2010, 20:40)

Hello Hijglander,

What about the signal strenght for the Wifi?

Cheers

Wifi signal strenght is as strong as the stock firmware.

performance also are comparable ?

Yes it has similar performance.
[Edit] Sry guys, rapidshare account has been locked... will upload new version a.s.a.p..[/Edit]

(Last edited by hijglander on 7 Jul 2010, 09:15)

I'm running r22048 from trunk and it is incredibly stable.
iperf on a single 2.4Ghz wireless 150mbps connection does 70MB/sec on a 5m range. I left a feedback on ticket system for the more curious https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/7559 .

I totality recommend trunk over backfire.

luminoso wrote:

I'm running r22048 from trunk and it is incredibly stable.
iperf on a single 2.4Ghz wireless 150mbps connection does 70MB/sec on a 5m range. I left a feedback on ticket system for the more curious https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/7559 .

I totality recommend trunk over backfire.

the 5 GHz problem is a known issue. You need to set "respect the user regulatory domain" for the kmod_ath driver in the kernel configuration

zorxd wrote:
luminoso wrote:

I'm running r22048 from trunk and it is incredibly stable.
iperf on a single 2.4Ghz wireless 150mbps connection does 70MB/sec on a 5m range. I left a feedback on ticket system for the more curious https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/7559 .

I totality recommend trunk over backfire.

the 5 GHz problem is a known issue. You need to set "respect the user regulatory domain" for the kmod_ath driver in the kernel configuration

What is the known 5GHz issue? I'm running 5GHz just fine as far as I can tell, using stock Backfire (10.03, r20728).

bs27975 wrote:

What is the known 5GHz issue? I'm running 5GHz just fine as far as I can tell, using stock Backfire (10.03, r20728).

could you please do
root@OpenWrt:~# cat /etc/config/wireless | grep -v key

I would like to know which settings you're using

See message #32, this thread.

Does anyone know how to revert back to the factory firmware?  Not sure I'm digging OpenWRT.  Thank you ahead of time!

jubei_nj wrote:

Does anyone know how to revert back to the factory firmware?  Not sure I'm digging OpenWRT.  Thank you ahead of time!

Off the top of my head, I don't remember - but I'm quite sure from my reading of these forums that it can be done, easily.

Reference this thread, or the threads listed in message #1, and you should find what you're looking for.

Do us all a favour, when/if you find the applicable forum message? Post the forum URL and message number here, please. It would be a good point of reference for this thread.

damn, I already found these instructions and did indeed revert it back to .68 NA.  It was the newest official firmware out from Netgear.

luminoso wrote:
jubei_nj wrote:

Does anyone know how to revert back to the factory firmware?  Not sure I'm digging OpenWRT.  Thank you ahead of time!

http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/netgear/wndr3700#uh.oh.i.bricked.my.router.optional
don't rever to .68. it have a bug that kills your router in a short amount of time

jubei_nj wrote:

damn, I already found these instructions and did indeed revert it back to .68 NA.  It was the newest official firmware out from Netgear.

ftp://downloads.netgear.com/files/WNDR3700-V1.0.4.55NA.img still seems to be a viable link. (I just kept decreasing from .68 until it worked.)

New openwrt build: build22079

Not yet tested!

Please do not use above... found a bug when configuring WLAN!

(Last edited by hijglander on 7 Jul 2010, 11:51)