OpenWrt Forum Archive

Topic: TP-Link Archer C9

The content of this topic has been archived on 30 Apr 2018. There are no obvious gaps in this topic, but there may still be some posts missing at the end.

Hi everybody,

I'm kinda new there, even if I had heard of OpenWRT for a while. I recently bought an Archer C9 and I was interested in flashing OpenWRT on it. However I found it it wasn't supported yet (listed in unknown status). It seems like the Broadcom platform may prevent it for being fully OpenWRT-ready, right ?

I already saw this topic, I tried looking at the doc for a long time but honestly this is far beyond my poor programming skills...I could maybe learn it with time but I currently don't have much time and it's not likely to improve in the next 6 months.

So I did what I could do : opening my Archer C9 and taking pictures of things inside. I couldn't go through metallic parts under the heatsink but I documented everything I could document. Some components have something written on them but it's too small to see that in pictures : I numbered them on the pictures and I wrote back those writings under those.

http://i.imgur.com/Oj5epkO.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/3CnFCAv.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/0DmzpVi.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/1s3MbFQ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ZGHkEmm.jpg

(1) :
HST-48002SAR
GROUP-TEK
1440

(2) :
HST-24002SAR
GROUP-TEK
1444

(3) :
SPANSION
FL128SAIF00
427QQ017 A

(4) :
BR
B1182
R e823

(5) :
APM4500A
RQ73Z

(6) :
4301
RQ9CD

I didn't know where to drop this info so I posted here. I hope this helps.

The parts you listed are not relevant to the developers. The parts that are, are underneath the heatsink.

If you want support, I think the best is to purchase the router and make it available to the devs.

the lack of proper broadcom support will be the biggest stumbling block.

Hello
I see in the openwrt wiki, the TP-Link Archer C9 as supported
http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/archer-c9

CPU & Switch: Broadcom BCM4709A0
OpenWrt bootlog

Firmware openwrt-bcm53xx-bcm4709-asus-rt-ac87u-squashfs.trx on Archer C9.

But I can't find the Firmware that is indicated
Additionally what I am really interested on , is about TP-Link Archer C8
AC1750 Router
→ CURRENTLY UNSUPPORTED DEVICE ←

Any information?  CPU is same family as the one in C9 (BCM4708@800MHz, Dual-Core) !!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, it's not supported.

Nah, somebody managed to have a serial access to the router, hence the boot log. Then this guy flashed OpenWRT on the router and published a bootlog. The firmware which was flashed was for another router, it was purely for developing purposes (providing an OpenWRT bootlog).

Btw I have no idea how he could flash such a TRX image on this router (I have serial access too)...

I've revamped the router's wiki page and you can see I wrote "Status : unknown", which can mean a lot of things except it is currently supported. wink

TL;DR: Router not supported atm. Full support is very unlikely because of closed source Broadcom stuff. The logs you can see on the wiki are purely for developing purposes.

Concerning my own case I might even sell the 2 routers I own and switch to something else whithout some obscure bunch of closed software. 'should have fully checked the wiki before buying it, I thought it would be the same than Archer C7

(Last edited by Fullerene on 2 Jun 2015, 17:58)

Hello. It might be a bit off topic, but can you tell me how you opened your router? I am thinking to do the same to get the legs off, but I do not want to break something.


thanks

(Last edited by norbi99 on 29 Jun 2015, 03:05)

acc wrote:

Hello
I see in the openwrt wiki, the TP-Link Archer C9 as supported
http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/archer-c9

CPU & Switch: Broadcom BCM4709A0
OpenWrt bootlog

Firmware openwrt-bcm53xx-bcm4709-asus-rt-ac87u-squashfs.trx on Archer C9.

But I can't find the Firmware that is indicated
Additionally what I am really interested on , is about TP-Link Archer C8
AC1750 Router
→ CURRENTLY UNSUPPORTED DEVICE ←

Any information?  CPU is same family as the one in C9 (BCM4708@800MHz, Dual-Core) !!!!!!!!!!!!!


dont know if this help but i currently running ddwrt on my archers c9, can it be ported to openwrt

ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/2015/09-28-2 … archer-c9/

edit:

any answers or status?

(Last edited by ldf913 on 2 Oct 2015, 14:25)

Hi ldf913,

Do your DD-WRT on Archer C9 be able to set the WiFi in client mode with 802.1X authentication? I can join the "eduroam" but unable to get the IP address. I also cannot see the wpa_supplicant log although I have enabled the syslog. It will be great if you have any information.

I got this router(TPlink Archer C9 ac1900), it a very cheap router but powerlful. Currently using it with the stock firmware, as the support is still available. Once the TPlink support finishes, hopefully by then the DD-WRT or the OpenWRT firmware will be stable, only then I will flash it.

Apparently the DD-WRT firmware works, but it's still kinda new and has a bit of bugs that needs to be ironed out.

ccievoice0512 wrote:

Hi ldf913,

Do your DD-WRT on Archer C9 be able to set the WiFi in client mode with 802.1X authentication? I can join the "eduroam" but unable to get the IP address. I also cannot see the wpa_supplicant log although I have enabled the syslog. It will be great if you have any information.

Hey, everything works so far i able to connet to both the 2.4 and 5ghz bands so it should work for you. im using firmware version "DD-WRT v24-sp2 (05/09/15) std" and its working like a charm

gimbleguy wrote:

I got this router(TPlink Archer C9 ac1900), it a very cheap router but powerlful. Currently using it with the stock firmware, as the support is still available. Once the TPlink support finishes, hopefully by then the DD-WRT or the OpenWRT firmware will be stable, only then I will flash it.

Apparently the DD-WRT firmware works, but it's still kinda new and has a bit of bugs that needs to be ironed out.

read above comment :-)

Hi,

I also got this router and I'm really interested in installing OpenWrt on it. It looks like DD-WRT is using the proprietary Broadcom drivers, as it does the stock firmware. We will probably see full support by OpenWrt only when the BCM4360 will be supported in the open source driver (b43). Until then, is there a way in OpenWrt to install the proprietary broadcom drivers?

dont know would like to find out though

ldf913 wrote:
ccievoice0512 wrote:

Hi ldf913,

Do your DD-WRT on Archer C9 be able to set the WiFi in client mode with 802.1X authentication? I can join the "eduroam" but unable to get the IP address. I also cannot see the wpa_supplicant log although I have enabled the syslog. It will be great if you have any information.

Hey, everything works so far i able to connet to both the 2.4 and 5ghz bands so it should work for you. im using firmware version "DD-WRT v24-sp2 (05/09/15) std" and its working like a charm

gimbleguy wrote:

I got this router(TPlink Archer C9 ac1900), it a very cheap router but powerlful. Currently using it with the stock firmware, as the support is still available. Once the TPlink support finishes, hopefully by then the DD-WRT or the OpenWRT firmware will be stable, only then I will flash it.

Apparently the DD-WRT firmware works, but it's still kinda new and has a bit of bugs that needs to be ironed out.

read above comment :-)

Thanks for this, I've been using the dd-wrt firmware and it's been working great.

Just wondering if the openwrt firmware for the tplink archer c9 ac1900 v1 is now stable??? Hoping to use it???

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