Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2018 17:42 Post subject: TL-WR1043ND v1 finally stable WIFI!
TL;DR
If you just searching a stable firmware for your tl-wr1043nd v1 This is the 3 stable firmware i found:
-Stock tp-link(2014-03-19)
-Gargoyle 1.10.0
-OpenWrt 17.01.6
Unfortunately no dd-wrt image yet. Waiting for testers
Stable WIFI in a wirelesses router is by definition the most important function of this router. If that is broken the only thing left is a very limited computer with little to no use.
I spend the last 5 days searching for a version of dd-wrt for the TL-WR1043ND v1.8 with stable wireless drivers with no luck and decided to reach out to resolve this issue. Not only for me but for everyone is looking for this information as well.
The problem is not unique to me, i found 2 more topics reporting problem with the WIFI for the specific router with dd-wrt and others reporting problems with OpenWrt as well.
The problem in a nutshell is that the wireless client connection stop working after couple of hours. The connection stays ON but no data being transmitted. The router still functions normally, yet the wirelesses interface doesn't work. The workaround until now is either to restart the router either restart the wireless card. This workaround is not acceptable for many reasons, especial if you need to used as a wireless bridge.
So far i search the forum to find what people have reported stable and tested if really are.
The test criteria if you can send and receive for 4 hours in every direction with out the router disconnecting or stop working.
How i did test:
I used iperf3 between 2 computers.(see attachment)
The first computer have a wired connection(100Mb) with the xiaomi nano which is a client to the tl-wr1043nd.
The second computer is connected with lan (1000Mb) with the tl-wr1043nd. The tl-wr1043nd have a wifi access point in channel 13. The wifi settings are wpa2/aes, 20mhz channel width, wirelesses mode N only, wwm enabled.
The 2 routers is connected to each other wirelessly in a distance of 3 meters with no walls in between.
The environment had 2 more access points (-76 ch 1 and -59 ch6) so i choose to use ch 13 to minimize interference.
I used a second router instead using the wireless card of my laptop since i had extensively tested and verified that my xiaomi nano with padavan's firmware have super stable wifi, therefore eliminating another factor from this test.
This is the firmware i tested:
21061 - hangs after ~2000 seconds
21676 - hangs after ~2000 seconds
23838 - hangs after ~1800 seconds
29147 - hangs in less than 1500 seconds
34929 - hangs in less than 1500 seconds
36006 - hangs in less than 1500 seconds
37305 - hangs in less than 1500 seconds
37442 - hangs in less than 1500 seconds
-Tried the channels 11, 6, 1 with no difference in the results.
-Tried adjusting the noise immunity, rts cts, tx ... etc.. a little variation but still unstable.
-Tried OpenWRT 18.06.1 hangs after ~1200 seconds
In that point theorize that the problem may be the hardware after all.
To ensure that was not the case i tried the latest firmware(2014-03-19) from tp-link and it pass the test with no problems:
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth Retr
[ 4] 0.00-14400.00 sec 128 GBytes 76.5 Mbits/sec 13199 sender
[ 4] 0.00-14400.00 sec 128 GBytes 76.5 Mbits/sec receiver
You just need to make sure the tl-wr1043 will use the wirelesses antenna for transmitting between the 2 computers. The easiest way is to setup it as a access point and connect the first computer with a cable and second to the wireless access point. (attachment 2)
Latest Update: 2018-10-28
Stable so far:
-Stock tp-link(2014-03-19) -- tested for 8 hours @ttyUSB0
-Gargoyle 1.10.0 -- tested for 8 hours @ttyUSB0
-OpenWrt 17.01.6 -- tested for 8 hours @ttyUSB0
Edit:
-Added smaller pictures
-Better described the setup
-More results
-TL;DR
Last edited by ttyUSB0 on Tue Oct 30, 2018 0:17; edited 5 times in total
Joined: 16 Nov 2015 Posts: 6440 Location: UK, London, just across the river..
Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2018 20:29 Post subject:
TL-WR1043ND v1.xx is famous with his dodge specs and unexpected turns to weird results after flash...
first bad flash chip, then bad radio, than slow CPU than, small amount of ram...ugly shape too with bad range as well
i don't know y there are ppl ready to save its life and keep struggling with it, personally i've never seen any other router recovered in so many different ways/scenarios...
overall the most/the worst bad router winner ever... _________________ Atheros
TP-Link WR740Nv1 ---DD-WRT 55630 WAP
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 -DD-WRT 55723 Gateway/DoT,Forced DNS,Ad-Block,Firewall,x4VLAN,VPN
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 -Gargoyle OS 1.15.x AP,DNS,QoS,Quotas
Qualcomm-Atheros
Netgear XR500 --DD-WRT 55779 Gateway/DoH,Forced DNS,AP Isolation,4VLAN,Ad-Block,Firewall,Vanilla
Netgear R7800 --DD-WRT 55819 Gateway/DoT,AD-Block,Forced DNS,AP&Net Isolation,x3VLAN,Firewall,Vanilla
Netgear R9000 --DD-WRT 55779 Gateway/DoT,AD-Block,AP Isolation,Firewall,Forced DNS,x2VLAN,Vanilla
Broadcom
Netgear R7000 --DD-WRT 55460 Gateway/SmartDNS/DoH,AD-Block,Firewall,Forced DNS,x3VLAN,VPN
NOT USING 5Ghz ANYWHERE
------------------------------------------------------
Stubby DNS over TLS I DNSCrypt v2 by mac913
Compering with the stock is slower, yet stable.
It's based on OpenWrt Chaos Calmer, so probably i will able to find a working OpenWrt firmware as well. Yet im here to find a stable DD-WRT firmware.
@Alozaros
If you take into consideration the popularity of the specific router and that there is more than 8 years of discussion around it im surprised that i have problems. Well if nobody did that until now, in this thread will find out, im sure someone else will benefit finding this discussion later.
Joined: 03 Jan 2010 Posts: 7568 Location: YWG, Canada
Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2018 3:24 Post subject:
these numbers mean nothing when zero details of the test setup was mentioned, how are they connected, whats connected behind them, the wifi settings of each, the latency of the link while its maxed out etc...
there is also more modern dirt cheap routers with more proper stable wifi radios in them if all u want is a basic bridge.. _________________ LATEST FIRMWARE(S)
BrainSlayer wrote:
we just do it since we do not like any restrictions enforced by stupid cocaine snorting managers
these numbers mean nothing when zero details of the test setup was mentioned, how are they connected, whats connected behind them, the wifi settings of each, the latency of the link while its maxed out etc...
there is also more modern dirt cheap routers with more proper stable wifi radios in them if all u want is a basic bridge..
My point is not to provide wifi benchmark data from every firmware there is, rather finding which reliably will work 24/7. That being said i updated my initial post to go into more details in the setup used.
I wouldn't mind if you share what cheap routers are stable so far and with which firmware. Still im searching to keep this router alive.
The settings for the specific setup is seen in the pictures bellow.
2 notes on this:
Gardoyle didn't have the option for the channel 13 and i didn't waste time find how to setup so i switch to 11.
Also i didn't had the option to lock the mode to N only. There was b/g and b/g/n. I choose the latter.
A interesting finding is the if i run the test trough xiaomi nano the ping while the test is running is in the range 45-70 ms, while if the laptop connected directly the ping is from 7 to 13 ms. So what this result revels? Can you suggest a better way for testing ?
Any suggestion so far for a stable dd-wrt build for the tl-wr1043nd ?
this is actually an interesting thread, although I believe not much will be done regarding this device and eventually trying to fix what seems to be broken. It's interesting to note that with the original firmware (rather old) the device seems to be stable and able to deal with a fair amount of work. It's only when using ddwrt that it seems to have issues.
I have a 1043nd v1 and a v3. I bought the v3 to replace the v1 exactly because of the issues reported. The v1 is now just used as a backup in case the v3 dies. It's a pity that such a device is just thrown to the bin when it seems to be fairly competent with what it was built to do, when using the original firmware or even gargoyle.
A few months ago I incorrectly loaded a wrong firmware into the v3 and had to use the v1. It was just a plug-and-play task, keeping the v3 power brick. Against my expectations the v1 worked very well, and I believe it did not hang once. It had (and still has) an end of 2017 ddwrt version, which I can't now recall. At the time I had the feeling, and I wrote something about that in the forum, that the v1 power brick was under-powered when using ddwrt. I believe I read a comment in that regard also, back when some some the problems were being reported.
Joined: 16 Nov 2015 Posts: 6440 Location: UK, London, just across the river..
Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2018 19:18 Post subject:
TL-WR1043ND v2 and v3 are the same don't know whats different at all may be the flash chip ??
but v2 witch i have is a great unit never had any issues and
its radio is robust consider connectivity, range and performance no complains at all
it was my edge router back in the days, than i replaced it with R7000 and later with R7800
to be honest i had some records on it like 9 months without restart solid performance
i do have few of them (v2), up and running here and there keeping up with the last DDWRT builds..
Stability is very dependant thing it depends from many factors, like settings, scripts running
services used, clients connected...even current builds running, so unless you do not reveal
your details/settings... stability is a very blur thing to talk about...
On DD-WRT N only settings is broken and does not produce good results...
its even known the only working and stable settings NG-mixed have issues like still broadcasting an older B rates...
NG mixed works well with fixed channel especially 11+lower and country domain Canada...
With Gargoyle OS i only use it for very few services, and i can state its radio drivers are not as good as the DD-WRT, consider range/performance value....
last thing to say cheap is not always good...but i can confidently say that routers in my sig are stable with DDWRT and my setup, and i got them cheap second hand on ebay _________________ Atheros
TP-Link WR740Nv1 ---DD-WRT 55630 WAP
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 -DD-WRT 55723 Gateway/DoT,Forced DNS,Ad-Block,Firewall,x4VLAN,VPN
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 -Gargoyle OS 1.15.x AP,DNS,QoS,Quotas
Qualcomm-Atheros
Netgear XR500 --DD-WRT 55779 Gateway/DoH,Forced DNS,AP Isolation,4VLAN,Ad-Block,Firewall,Vanilla
Netgear R7800 --DD-WRT 55819 Gateway/DoT,AD-Block,Forced DNS,AP&Net Isolation,x3VLAN,Firewall,Vanilla
Netgear R9000 --DD-WRT 55779 Gateway/DoT,AD-Block,AP Isolation,Firewall,Forced DNS,x2VLAN,Vanilla
Broadcom
Netgear R7000 --DD-WRT 55460 Gateway/SmartDNS/DoH,AD-Block,Firewall,Forced DNS,x3VLAN,VPN
NOT USING 5Ghz ANYWHERE
------------------------------------------------------
Stubby DNS over TLS I DNSCrypt v2 by mac913
@dasnick if you could share your version and settings of the 1043nd v1 i will appreciated.
@Alozaros
I didn't know there was a problem with only N i will revisit a firmware to try change this and post detailed settings.
Yesterday i decided to investigated the OpenWrt 17.01.6 after reading this:
"Connection quality drops after a few hours, latency/ping/lag spikes
Still reproductible with release 15.05.1; gone in LEDE 17.01.4: If wireless performance becomes awful after a few hours and ping times to the router over wifi increase up to half a second or more, there's a good chance you're experiencing https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/12372"
All though i had tested 18.06.1 i though they may have broke something during the way. And the results are that is stable, as you can see there was no disconnects or freezes:
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth Retr
[ 4] 0.00-14400.00 sec 143 GBytes 85.3 Mbits/sec 30643 sender
[ 4] 0.00-14400.00 sec 143 GBytes 85.3 Mbits/sec receiver
Since OpenWrt 17.01.6 worked fine the last 2 days i will continue using it. If someone have to suggest a stable version of dd-wrt he tested i will come back for more testing.
?ll have to dig it from storage, so this might take a while. If the gargoyle is running fine, I might just update it to gargoyle. Is there a reason for selecting gargoyle 17 instead of 18?
Joined: 16 Nov 2015 Posts: 6440 Location: UK, London, just across the river..
Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2018 10:21 Post subject:
guy's this is DDWRT based forum questions and test's
regarding other 3rd party firmware post on their forums
apart of that there is no Gargoyle 17 or 18 last version
is 10.0 once you get on GGyl you have to be very careful
how do you revert back otherwise you might need serial and dump file...just be careful _________________ Atheros
TP-Link WR740Nv1 ---DD-WRT 55630 WAP
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 -DD-WRT 55723 Gateway/DoT,Forced DNS,Ad-Block,Firewall,x4VLAN,VPN
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 -Gargoyle OS 1.15.x AP,DNS,QoS,Quotas
Qualcomm-Atheros
Netgear XR500 --DD-WRT 55779 Gateway/DoH,Forced DNS,AP Isolation,4VLAN,Ad-Block,Firewall,Vanilla
Netgear R7800 --DD-WRT 55819 Gateway/DoT,AD-Block,Forced DNS,AP&Net Isolation,x3VLAN,Firewall,Vanilla
Netgear R9000 --DD-WRT 55779 Gateway/DoT,AD-Block,AP Isolation,Firewall,Forced DNS,x2VLAN,Vanilla
Broadcom
Netgear R7000 --DD-WRT 55460 Gateway/SmartDNS/DoH,AD-Block,Firewall,Forced DNS,x3VLAN,VPN
NOT USING 5Ghz ANYWHERE
------------------------------------------------------
Stubby DNS over TLS I DNSCrypt v2 by mac913
Since OpenWrt 17.01.6 worked fine the last 2 days i will continue using it. If someone have to suggest a stable version of dd-wrt he tested i will come back for more testing.
Hey @ttyUSB0 in case this is still useful to you (or anyone else reading this, actually) I own a tp-link WR1043ND version 1.4 and it has been working stable for years now, using emule and utorrent, with stabe wifi and not needing a reboot for months. The installed version of dd-wrt is this one:
Router Name
DD-WRT
Router Model
TP-Link TL-WR1043ND
Firmware Version
DD-WRT v24SP2- (03/25/13) std - build 21061
Kernel Version
Linux 3.5.7 #6146 Mon Mar 25 08:43:27 CET 2013 mips
Joined: 15 Jan 2012 Posts: 12 Location: Kiev, Ukraine
Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2022 23:45 Post subject:
Sorry for bumping old thread
For me, i've got stable wifi on latest openwrt (21.02.1 if I remember correctly). No wifi hangs for month or so.
With latest dd-wrt wi-fi hangs several times a day, same with latest stock tp-link firmware.
Initially i want to set up wifi watchdog on openwrt, but its working perfectly with no additional config.
