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Topic: Turn your TP-Link Archer C5 into Archer C7

The content of this topic has been archived on 25 Apr 2018. There are no obvious gaps in this topic, but there may still be some posts missing at the end.

One german guy found out that you can convert your Archer C5 into Archer C7.

I haven't tried this so can't confirm this. Please be careful if you are messing and don't know what you are doing, because it is easy to brick your router. If you are more adventurous try this hack.

https://blog.thesen.eu/wie-aus-einem-tp … 750-wurde/

Is there any proof that it has indeed converted into C7?

Seems very plausible given that the underlying hardware is the same. It wouldn't be the first time this sort of thing has occurred.

I mean is the difference physical? Like the no. of antennas between a WDR4300 and WDR3600?

Who has the guts to try this first and report back? smile

alphasparc wrote:

I mean is the difference physical? Like the no. of antennas between a WDR4300 and WDR3600?

Nope.

If this works, there's no reason the C5 firmware build from OpenWrt couldn't just enable the higher speeds by default. Unless the devs are worried about making TP-Link mad...

drawz wrote:
alphasparc wrote:

I mean is the difference physical? Like the no. of antennas between a WDR4300 and WDR3600?

Nope.

If this works, there's no reason the C5 firmware build from OpenWrt couldn't just enable the higher speeds by default. Unless the devs are worried about making TP-Link mad...

I just read the source code of openwrt, the codes shared by C5 and C7 are identical. So probably C5 and C7 are totally identical in hardware. Please note that opewrt does not support hardware nat, so you have better speed with stock firmware (but less features/freedom)

(Last edited by brianpow on 24 Apr 2015, 17:56)

drawz wrote:
alphasparc wrote:

I mean is the difference physical? Like the no. of antennas between a WDR4300 and WDR3600?

Nope.

If this works, there's no reason the C5 firmware build from OpenWrt couldn't just enable the higher speeds by default. Unless the devs are worried about making TP-Link mad...

What I mean is the internally connected path on the board like WDR3600 and WDR4300 you can see that a path filled with resistor on the WDR4300 intentionally left empty on the WDR3600 although the board is actually identical.

alphasparc wrote:
drawz wrote:
alphasparc wrote:

I mean is the difference physical? Like the no. of antennas between a WDR4300 and WDR3600?

Nope.

If this works, there's no reason the C5 firmware build from OpenWrt couldn't just enable the higher speeds by default. Unless the devs are worried about making TP-Link mad...

What I mean is the internally connected path on the board like WDR3600 and WDR4300 you can see that a path filled with resistor on the WDR4300 intentionally left empty on the WDR3600 although the board is actually identical.

Based on the available pictures, the boards look identical and there are the same number of antennas connected.

drawz wrote:
alphasparc wrote:
drawz wrote:

Nope.

If this works, there's no reason the C5 firmware build from OpenWrt couldn't just enable the higher speeds by default. Unless the devs are worried about making TP-Link mad...

What I mean is the internally connected path on the board like WDR3600 and WDR4300 you can see that a path filled with resistor on the WDR4300 intentionally left empty on the WDR3600 although the board is actually identical.

Based on the available pictures, the boards look identical and there are the same number of antennas connected.

https://wikidevi.com/wiki/TP-LINK_Archer_C5_v1.x
Looks like the same board in C5 1.x and C7 2.x .

WDR3600 and WDR4300 wasn't exactly the same hardware. The difference is the 5GHz wireless chipset ( AR9582 vs AR9580 ).

A good example of two products using the same hardware are TD-W8980 and TD-W9980. The hardware is identical and I sucessfully crossflashed a 8980 to 9980 with all features working.

The discussion might have continued from here.