I am just now seeing that Netgear has released the R7500v2, which seems to have done away with the Quantenna solution on 5GHZ and has switch both radios over to a QCA based solution.

Sources:
https://wikidevi.com/wiki/Netgear_R7500v2
http://www.snbforums.com/threads/netgea … -up.24717/
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless … r-reviewed

Radios:
QCA9880 3-stream 802.11ac for 2.4 GHz
QCA9980 4-stream 802.11ac MU-MIMO for 5GHZ

CPU:
Qualcomm dual-core IPQ8064 Internet Processor @ 1.4 GHz

Switch:
Qualcomm Atheros QCA8337

It appears the Router has also 512MB of internal RAM and 128MB Flash

Would it be feasible to think that OpenWRT could support this router? Seems very similar to the TP-Link C2600. Expect according to SNB, the TP link has a smaller 32MB flash (vs the 128MB of the R7500v2). And the C2600 uses the QCA9980 4-stream on the 2.4 band (vs the QCA9980 3-stream of the R7500v2), and is listed as having Skyworks Poweramps.

Thoughts? The CPU power of this router would be nice for those who wish to run a VPN client on the router.

Food for thought, the R7500v2 seems to be available at Wal-Mart in the U.S. for $149.00 currently.

(Last edited by cybrnook2002 on 10 Jan 2016, 19:51)

I bought one yesterday R7500v2. I had updated firmware to 1.0.2.2 , ppl complaints it is dropping connections, i have to test it yet.
I believe someone already flashed dd-wrt onto this router.  I see VPN is there by default, i guess it is vpn server. still looking on how to setup vpn and use it.

I would like to know possibilites of open-wrt on this beast.

I believe the release from DD-WRT is for the V1. Not the QCA based V2. I don't believe the V2 is supported across any open source firmware yet.

Kong's release on DD-WRT speaks of his v1 build is starting to lay groundwork for support for the v2 (which should be supported by OpenWRT and DD-WRT eventually since it has 2 x Atheros Radios, and not the 1 atheros and 1 Quantenna the v1 had):

http://www.desipro.de/ddwrt/K3-AC-IPQ806X/Readme

"Experimental R7500 build:

This build does not include support for the quantenna radio 5G and won't likely ever get support for it.
You can flash from Netgear webif by uploading: R7500v1-factory-to-ddwrt.img

Flashing back to Netgear fw through webif is not supported. To flash back to Netgear firmware,
login via telnet or ssh, then run command:

erase linux
reboot

the router will reboot and start tftpd server (flashing power light indicates tftpd ready).

Now push oem firmware through tftp client:

tftp 192.168.1.1
binary
put R7500-V1.0.0.94.img

Important:

This build is not supposed to be an alternative to oem firmware as there is no 5G support. It is
rather a proof of concept:-)
This build however prepares dd-wrt for full R7500V2 support which has two supported atheros radios."

(Last edited by cybrnook2002 on 14 Jan 2016, 14:30)

Bump for visibility

No interest for this router? It seems a very capable router with it's internal specs.

Open it up and get a serial port on it. If its very close to the R7500v1, it may be quite easy to support. If there have been significant changes, it may be more difficult.

Per Tathagata Das (who seems to have an alpha, I need to get him a drop box) ,it is the same pin out:
http://www.myopenrouter.com/forum/7500v2-support-dd-wrt

Pin out info:
https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?pid=277961

(Last edited by cybrnook2002 on 6 Feb 2016, 23:02)

Alexis Green posted a patch to support R7500v2 here
https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/patch/601351/

I tired it, and it builds a bleeding-edge image that the stock version would approve!
The only issue is that none of the wifi bands are working.
I would assume the 2.4 should be easy to fix as it seems to work for R7500, but I lack the expertise to do that, can one of you experts try to fix that?
Got the following kernel boot log:

[    8.993666] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: enabling device (0140 -> 0142)
[    8.994402] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: pci irq msi interrupts 1
irq_mode 0 reset_mode 0
[    9.124371] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for
ath10k/cal-pci-0000:01:00.0.bin failed with error -2
[    9.124400] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: Falling back to user helper
[    9.505820] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: qca99x0 hw2.0 target 0x01000000

Working!
Alexis Green actually posted two patches here
https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/project/op … tter=68617

The second one resolves the problem i pointed above
Bottom line: OpenWRT bleading-edge with active wifi (both 2.4G and 5G chips) on R7500v2!
Many thanks to Alexis Green on this great work.

That is awesome!!!!

How did you go about getting the build for install, I assume you compiled it yourself with that patches? I am not the savvy to do the same myself unfortunately :-(

(Last edited by cybrnook2002 on 15 Jun 2016, 16:40)

Great job guys. Thanks!!!  I got a couple of r7500v2 so I am very impressed with cybrnook2002's great info and info sharing. How did Kong's new firmware for the r7500v2 works out for you guys? I need to use the repeater bridge function.

I also want to know how to install the patches. Not familiar with openwrt.

(Last edited by husky55 on 18 Aug 2016, 00:49)

I am thinking of flashing LEDE R7500V2 image, did anyone flash the images, is everything working as expected? Any issues so far?

lede-ipq806x-R7500v2-squashfs-factory.img   
lede-ipq806x-R7500v2-squashfs-sysupgrade.tar

(Last edited by chandoo on 5 Mar 2017, 20:05)

I flashed few months back LEDE, below with latest update

Firmware: LEDE Reboot 17.01.1 r3316-7eb58cf109 / LuCI lede-17.01 branch (git-17.100.70571-29fabe2)
Model: "Netgear Nighthawk X4 R7500v2"

everything is working great, i implemented vpn server, adblock, dnsmasq, custom firewall setup, it works great except 2ghz wifi is not working. not sure how to make it work. when client connects it simply says "Cannot connect to this network"

it deauthenticates , not sure why, It is a bug , not sure whom to reach on this and who will fix this.

######## logread output
Sat May 13 11:18:58 2017 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1: STA 00:00:00:00:00:00 IEEE 802.11: authenticated
Sat May 13 11:18:58 2017 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1: STA 00:00:00:00:00:00 IEEE 802.11: associated (aid 1)
Sat May 13 11:19:03 2017 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1: STA 00:00:00:00:00:00 IEEE 802.11: disassociated
Sat May 13 11:19:06 2017 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1: STA 00:00:00:00:00:00 IEEE 802.11: deauthenticated due to local deauth request
Sat May 13 11:19:08 2017 daemon.info odhcpd[515]: Using a RA lifetime of 0 seconds on br-lan
#####

How did you build openwrt firmware for r7500v2?

I downloaded the source from github. And build the firmware under master branch. Alexis Green's first patch has applied in a previous commit whose SHA is 6320398fe1ba338ed9ac55bc84f9bd9e2f6a0112

I build it as follow:

./scripts/feeds update
./scripts/feeds install -a -p luci
make package/symlinks
make menuconfig      # choose target system as qualcomm atheros ipq806x
make

However, the firmware didn't work on my router. Both internet and power light keep in orange color.

If you could give me some hints, I'd be very appreciate. Thanks.

hi,rkeidar

Could you please tell me how to apply the diff file and patch file,I mean where to put these file on my openwrt build tree

thank you