OpenWrt Forum Archive

Topic: Update on Linksys WRT1900AC support

The content of this topic has been archived between 16 Sep 2014 and 7 May 2018. Unfortunately there are posts – most likely complete pages – missing.

gufus wrote:

Automatic fan control

OpenWrt Chaos Calmer 15.05

Runs as a daemon, MUCH FASTER than a cron job

@gufus, do you have a wiki entry for stuff like that? You (and others) have posted so much cool stuff here in the forum, but it's hard to find again or to track improvements...

northbound wrote:

[...]

My personal opinion is we need a proper mwlwifi.ko and marvel does not seem to want to supply it.
If they released the source code I am sure after reading what I have.  They, meaning the openwrt volunteer’s could make it

work properly.
Thanks to all for what you do for the community to support this router you know who you are.

Actually mwlwifi.ko is the kernel module that gets buiilt in the process of compiling the firmware. What we need is improved driver code as well as a revised version of the .bin file.

nitroshift

(Last edited by nitroshift on 3 Oct 2015, 17:16)

northbound wrote:

@shallpion

@ idle no downloads cpu 50% avg. Core 0. Core 1 @ 10%
Changing affinity. idle Core 0 1%  Core 1 35%
Thu Oct  1 15:53:49 2015 kern.info kernel: [   14.262451] <<Marvell 802.11ac Wireless Network Driver version 10.3.0.8>>

After swapping driver and a reboot.
Thu Oct  1 15:53:49 2015 kern.info kernel: [   13.717445] <<Marvell 802.11ac Wireless Network Driver version 10.3.0.3>>
@ idle both cpu 0 .7% and 1 .3% and lower .1%
using a 5 ghz ac connection on both tests
The above is using the processor tab on luci statistics.

That indeed sounds abnormal. I just installed collectd and observed the cpu load during a full speed 5ghz test both using speedtest.net and iperf between router and wifi clients. The cpu load did not exceed 5% all the time.

But on the other hand, I just experienced the dreaded "router lost response, have to reboot" issue this morning. But I feel like it is less annoying compared to the wifi speed drop to me personally big_smile

Cheers

if i'm having problems with the .03 driver can i simply just take the previous version of the .BIN and .KO file and replace them, or is there more to it than that?

Also guys, I noticed that the cron job /sbin/fan_ctrl.sh is in openwrt-mvebu-armada-385-linksys-caiman-squashfs-factory.img

I suppose this image currently only supports wrt1200ac and this router does not have a fan...

I tried to run this script on my 1200, and it naturally gives

cut: /sys/class/hwmon/hwmon2/temp1_input: No such file or directory

mistake.

Should we consider removing it?

@galballyj

You can replace the .bin file. The .ko is a kernel file usually kernel version dependent so YMMV...

nitroshift

galballyj wrote:

if i'm having problems with the .03 driver can i simply just take the previous version of the .BIN and .KO file and replace them, or is there more to it than that?

I think they correspond to different kernel version? So my uneducated guess would be no...
But correct me if I were wrong please...

@shallpion

Yes, you can safely remove the file and its entry in init.d.

nitroshift

shallpion wrote:
galballyj wrote:

if i'm having problems with the .03 driver can i simply just take the previous version of the .BIN and .KO file and replace them, or is there more to it than that?

I think they correspond to different kernel version? So my uneducated guess would be no...
But correct me if I were wrong please...

If you take the file from an image built on the same kernel version you're OK (though I'm currently running on 4.1.9 with mwlwifi.ko built in 4.1.6 because I forgot to edit the corresponding Makefile before building the firmware...)

nitroshift

(Last edited by nitroshift on 3 Oct 2015, 18:43)

Hi,

Maybe a silly question. I have just put openwrt on my Linksys wrt1200AC. But cannot see the Switch tab under Network (in LuCI).

Can anyone help me out with this?

Thanks in advance!

Dave.

nitroshift wrote:
shallpion wrote:
galballyj wrote:

if i'm having problems with the .03 driver can i simply just take the previous version of the .BIN and .KO file and replace them, or is there more to it than that?

I think they correspond to different kernel version? So my uneducated guess would be no...
But correct me if I were wrong please...

If you take the file from an image built on the same kernel version you're OK (though I'm currently running on 4.1.9 with mwlwifi.ko built in 4.1.6 because I forgot to edit the corresponding Makefile before building the firmware...)

nitroshift

looking back on the commit history here:
https://github.com/kaloz/mwlwifi

looks like 10.3.0.3 has been out for some time, anyone know if the issue people are experiencing is with the firmware, or the driver?

im thinking of trying the firmware version 7.2.8.5 which was released with 10.2.8.5. what do people think?

TBH i dont really want to try compiling the kernel module itself as that means hours of reading up on how to do it properly. i'm not a n00b, but the last time i tried compiling anything the pentium processor was new!

dmccourt wrote:

Hi,

Maybe a silly question. I have just put openwrt on my Linksys wrt1200AC. But cannot see the Switch tab under Network (in LuCI).

Can anyone help me out with this?

Thanks in advance!

Dave.

I flashed a WRT1900AC v1 a week ago and I had problem seeing the Network/Wifi: it was not there!
I turned out to be a bad flash: the file I had to flash it was corrupted (the MD5SUM did not match what it was uspposed to be).  I downloaded again the firmware file, checked the MD5SUM and flashed the unit again (after putting it back to the Linksys firmware) and everything was fine after that.
I am not saying that this is your ptoblem, but maybe something to look at!

(Last edited by jmlacroix on 3 Oct 2015, 22:46)

jmlacroix wrote:
dmccourt wrote:

Hi,

Maybe a silly question. I have just put openwrt on my Linksys wrt1200AC. But cannot see the Switch tab under Network (in LuCI).

Can anyone help me out with this?

Thanks in advance!

Dave.

I flashed a WRTY1900AC v1 a week ago and I had problem seeing the Network/Wifi: it was not there!
I turned out to be a bad flash: the file I had to flash it was corrupted (the MD5SUM did not match what it was uspposed to be).  I downloaded again the firmware file, checked the MD5SUM and flashed the unit again (after putting it back to the Linksys firmware) and everything was fine after that.
I am not saying that this is your ptoblem, but maybe something to look at!

You were lucky!

JW0914 wrote:
Hobb wrote:

Just a silly question, would there be more CC releases to fix bugs or we have to go the DD route?

I would imagine there will be further updates to CC, especially since it appears a lot of the bugs in CC 15.05 Final are due to the radio drivers.

As far as every single bug, probably not due to everyone not having the same the exact same hardware since the routers were created in batches by Linksys.  It's been hypothesized this is the reason why some have issues others don't.

I'm seeing regular hangs with my router on 15.05 that was not occurring on previous RCs. Is there any information that I can provide to help troubleshoot, or is this a known issue that we just need to wait for new Wi-Fi drivers to fix?

kop48 wrote:
JW0914 wrote:
Hobb wrote:

Just a silly question, would there be more CC releases to fix bugs or we have to go the DD route?

I would imagine there will be further updates to CC, especially since it appears a lot of the bugs in CC 15.05 Final are due to the radio drivers.

As far as every single bug, probably not due to everyone not having the same the exact same hardware since the routers were created in batches by Linksys.  It's been hypothesized this is the reason why some have issues others don't.

I'm seeing regular hangs with my router on 15.05 that was not occurring on previous RCs. Is there any information that I can provide to help troubleshoot, or is this a known issue that we just need to wait for new Wi-Fi drivers to fix?

There are some who are having positive results by setting cpu affinity, and cpu performance. See below instructions. Or you can do what I did, and that was to revert back to RC3.

# create a copy of installed packages
opkg list-installed | cut -f 1 -d ' ' > /etc/config/packages.list
# Set the cpu governor to performance (it will allways work on 1.2GHz)
echo performance > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
echo performance > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq/scaling_governor
# Set the CPU affinity of the wifi interfces to CPU1 (Core 1)
echo 2 > /proc/irq/`cat /proc/interrupts | grep 'armada_370_xp_irq  59' | cut -f1 -d':' | cut -f2 -d' '`/smp_affinity
echo 2 > /proc/irq/`cat /proc/interrupts | grep 'armada_370_xp_irq  60' | cut -f1 -d':' | cut -f2 -d' '`/smp_affinity
# Increase the amount of reserved memory
echo 16384 > /proc/sys/vm/min_free_kbytes
echo 50 > /proc/sys/vm/vfs_cache_pressure
echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/swappiness

Is there a way to do a "reset to factory defaults" with the WRT1900AC without using the reset button? Ever since I unbricked my router a few months ago, the reset button on the back doesn't do anything. I did try flashing 15.05-rc3 after seeing references to it having more stable wireless than the final, and found that when I went to set the keyphrase for 5GHz. security, it was already set to the root password, and would not allow me to change that keyphrase from the router's root user password. No problem with the 2.4GHz. security keyphrase, it just took what I typed, as it should.

I tried lots of different things, including going back to the stock firmware on boot partition 1, and using the GUI there to reset back to factory defaults. Then reflashed rc3 before doing any configuration in the stock firmware, and found that when the time came to set the keyphrase for 5GHz. security, same problem. The 5GHz. wireless security keyphrase was already set to the root user's password, and I couldn't change it. I even tried changing the root password, but it would still only let me use the old root password for the 5GHz. for the keyphrase, and was preset in the field. Never seen anything like that before. I also tried flashing the latest stock firmware from stock firmware in boot partition 1, and then when that came up, resetting to factory from the GUI in it. And then going back to the boot partition 1 stock firmware and re-flashing rc3. Again, same problem in setting the 5GHz. security keyprhase. Spookie stuff.

So the only thing that I can think of is to return to factory defaults while using OpenWRT on the router, but I don't have a working reset button.

Just on the chance that I used the wrong flash image, this is the one that I used:

openwrt-15.05-rc3-mvebu-armada-xp-linksys-mamba-squashfs-factory.img

md5 checksum:

db80d2c26c02eb400b926e8f055de940 *openwrt-15.05-rc3-mvebu-armada-xp-linksys-mamba-squashfs-factory.img

Although I'd probably have just bricked the router if I had used the wrong image, and it isn't bricked. Just really weird when I try to use this version of OpenWRT.

Any ideas on how I could do a reset to factory defaults in Openwrt rc3? Stock firmware still works fine, this problem with not being able to change the 5GHz. security keyphrase in OpenWRT away from the root user's password just has me totally stumped.

Thanks for any help!

(Last edited by RogerSC on 4 Oct 2015, 09:48)

@RogerSC,

Regarding the password issue, is your browser remembering form entries?  Meaning, caching previous passwords. 

Regarding reverting to default, have you looked in the OpenWRT Wiki

@RogerSC

Clear your browser cache and try again or use a different browser altogether. Resetting OpenWRT is as simple as rm -rf /overlay in a ssh / telnet session.

nitroshift

(Last edited by nitroshift on 4 Oct 2015, 16:29)

RogerSC wrote:

Is there a way to do a "reset to factory defaults" with the WRT1900AC without using the reset button? Ever since I unbricked my router a few months ago, the reset button on the back doesn't do anything. I did try flashing 15.05-rc3 after seeing references to it having more stable wireless than the final, and found that when I went to set the keyphrase for 5GHz. security, it was already set to the root password, and would not allow me to change that keyphrase from the router's root user password. No problem with the 2.4GHz. security keyphrase, it just took what I typed, as it should.

That's not normal and I don't know if anyone else has come across something like that, but I never have.  It would be different if both password inputs were causing issue, but one and not the other doesn't make sense since they're both configured from the same config file.  Try what @kirkgbr & @nitroshift suggested, and if that doesn't fix it, reflash the firmware with the system image, not the sysupgrade.

RogerSC wrote:

I tried lots of different things, including going back to the stock firmware on boot partition 1, and using the GUI there to reset back to factory defaults.

This does nothing, as they're two completely different firmwares (it would be like booting ubuntu to reset settings on a Windows OS), of which do not share any files or have access to files from the other.

RogerSC wrote:

Then reflashed rc3 before doing any configuration in the stock firmware, and found that when the time came to set the keyphrase for 5GHz. security, same problem. The 5GHz. wireless security keyphrase was already set to the root user's password, and I couldn't change it.

This indicates user error since WiFi is disabled by default and does not have a default SSID or password.  There is no way possible for the root [admin] password to be set as a wifi password unless done so by the end user [something that should never be done for obvious reasons].

  • If, as @kirkgbr and @nitroshift have mentioned, you caused a web browser to save your root password for login, it's recommended to delete that saved password and never allow a web browser to remember it.  Your router secures your entire home LAN and every device connected to it... providing a way to cache the root password is asking for an intrusion.  It's simply not recommended.

RogerSC wrote:

I even tried changing the root password, but it would still only let me use the old root password for the 5GHz. for the keyphrase, and was preset in the field. Never seen anything like that before. I also tried flashing the latest stock firmware from stock firmware in boot partition 1, and then when that came up, resetting to factory from the GUI in it. And then going back to the boot partition 1 stock firmware and re-flashing rc3. Again, same problem in setting the 5GHz. security keyprhase. Spookie stuff.

Your issue is definitely user error, however where exactly you're going wrong is impossible to say, but you are most definitely going wrong somewhere.

(Last edited by JW0914 on 4 Oct 2015, 16:40)

nitroshift wrote:

@RogerSC

Clear your browser cache and try again or use a different browser altogether. Resetting OpenWRT is as simple as rm -rf /overlay in a ssh / telnet session.

nitroshift

Thanks much, I appreciate it.

Just a quick note, 15.05-rc3 does work with my Apple mobile devices, where the final didn't work with them very well. Gives me something that I can play with and learn from.

Interesting.

(Last edited by RogerSC on 4 Oct 2015, 22:07)

CC works with my mixed device household, but goes through lockups and temporary freezing. I'm going to RC3 too.

RogerSC wrote:

Just a quick note, 15.05-rc3 does work with my Apple mobile devices, where the final didn't work with them very well. Gives me something that I can play with and learn from.

Interesting.

Indeed.

Both CC 15.05 and RC3 use the same wifi driver.

gonzlobo wrote:

CC works with my mixed device household, but goes through lockups and temporary freezing. I'm going to RC3 too.

On a side note.

I'm evaluating dd-wrt r27805. it uses the same driver too.

So far, looks good.

gave up with the Wifi and i'm now back on my Sky provided SR102. good lord the wifi is terrible i'm getting better signal off of my powerline AP!

if anyone knows how i can revert back to the stability of the pre-RC versions please point me in the right direction, i can't live with this Sky router, nor restarting the wrt1900acV1 once every 20 minutes.