Joined: 27 Aug 2006 Posts: 146 Location: Pineville, North Carolina - USA
Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2022 3:10 Post subject: Netgear R8000 and R7000
I am a fairly old member who hasn't needed to use DD-WRT in a long time but I am returning as I seem to need it now.
I currently run two R7000s on stock firmware as my primary routers and since I got them (2016), I haven't needed to post on here much as I kept them stock.
I am running fairly old versions of the stock firmware as the new ones aren't stable. I am aware of the security risks of running old firmware.
I am trying to upgrade and obviously, the stock firmware isn't stable. I just received a R8000 from a family member. It keeps needing a reboot every couple days as the the WiFi speed slows down to a crawl.
I need to know how stable DD-WRT is now a days. My R7000s do NOT need reboots for months. I get that since the old firmare is risky, months is not something to look forward to. I also get that DD-WRT can have scheduled reboots which I used to have back in the day on my WRT-54GS setup.
So, someone wanna help out a returning old timer by providing stats on how stable things are and what versions are stable for both the R7000 and R8000? Planning to switch over by first trying out DD-WRT on the free to me R8000.
Thank you in advance and sorry for the long rambling post.
Joined: 24 Feb 2013 Posts: 1634 Location: Belgrade
Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2022 7:30 Post subject:
There are 2 types of BS builds for R8000. Regular and experimental...
Difference is that regular builds uses brcm dhd driver (ddwrt has NDA with broadcom) and experimental builds uses brcmfmac driver which has FOSS...
I tried them both...
Regular builds for R8000 is very stable (you won't have stalls, crashes etc). Every app is working... SmartDNS, WireGuard, Unbound, Ipv6 with radvd or dnsmasq etc... I tried them all... About wifi: it is stable but has tendency to be "area friendly"... tx is 20dBm max, bandwidth likes 72Mbs, 144Mbs, 288Mbps and those rates...
brcmfmac builds (experimental) are unstable... If you don't use any additional app it is stable, but as soon as you enable ipv6, WG, or any other troubles starts... brcmfmac starts to crash... besides that I like brcmfmac more... wifi works GREAT (but follow regdomain laws)... speeds, latency, coverage - everything is great...
those are my experiences, but if you decide to flash it share yours, please...
Joined: 18 Mar 2014 Posts: 12884 Location: Netherlands
Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2022 7:46 Post subject:
To add the R8000 (and R7000P) is an odd duck and not really comparable to the R7000 as it has a different wifi layout.
I have an R7000 which runs for weeks without a problem (I update usually after a couple of weeks although that is not strictly necessary)
Latest version 50841 seems fine
For general information see the forum guidelines with helpful pointers about how to research your router, where and what firmware to download, where and how to post and many other helpful tips:
https://forum.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=324087
Joined: 24 Feb 2013 Posts: 1634 Location: Belgrade
Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2022 7:47 Post subject:
and to add something...
initiall flash is taking about couple of minutes... longer then on other devices I tried... So no worry, it is not bricked... just wait until all leds are on... then when you set it up you need one more restart because of CTF driver... so, only after second reboot you will have fully funcional unit with giga eth ports...
Joined: 24 Feb 2013 Posts: 1634 Location: Belgrade
Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2022 7:52 Post subject:
and my experience is that swithcing between builds (regular and experimental) needs erasing nvram (restoring to ddwrt defaults) and setting up from scratch...
Joined: 27 Aug 2006 Posts: 146 Location: Pineville, North Carolina - USA
Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2022 12:42 Post subject:
Thank you both for your tips/pointers. I am familiar with some of the information about WiKi etc. I will proceed with playing with the odd duck R8000 first. We had the R7900 Costco version at our temple which I configured to run 3 of them hard wired as APs and they were stable back then. We have since switched to a vendor provided WiFi at the temple at least.
Joined: 27 Aug 2006 Posts: 146 Location: Pineville, North Carolina - USA
Posted: Sat Nov 26, 2022 16:52 Post subject:
Just rounding this thread up for future potential folks who have the same question(s).
I just switched to FreshTomato after tinkering with dd-wrt for a few days. Since I did not run dd-wrt consistently for a couple weeks, I cannot comment on if it will or will not have the issue of needing a reboot once every week or two due to speed loss on WiFi.
The reason I switched was, I was getting dismal speeds on the r50841 firmware for my R8000 router. I would barely cross over 100 Mbps and I tried different channels (even lost the 2nd 5Ghz band and freaked out too) and I tried the several settings/options recommended here for several WiFi tuning threads. The best I ever got was 125 Mbps on my 400 Mbps connection. I was running the 80 width and turned on all the different settings (one at a time which I found on this forum for tuning my WiFi.
I have been running a factory R7000 in parallel (different channels ofcourse) and it consistently gets me over 350 and at times over 400 Mbps while the dd-wrt version never crossed 125/150. The factory firmware for R8000 after a reboot would always give me the same speeds as the R7000 and gradually go down but dd-wrt never came close even after a fresh reboot.
Before I threw the towel in and reverted to factory, I decided I don't have anything to lose and tried out the FreshTomato. It is VERY different than dd-wrt as I have past experience with dd-wrt and am quite familiar with it but I had never used Tomato (all flavors of it).
It shows that FreshTomato is significantly faster with the speeds and I got MORE than what I get on my R7000 and I have tried several reboots and I still continue to get the excellent speeds. Only sort of "tuning" I did was scan the 5Ghz bands and ensured there was nobody else on those channels and I only had to switch the 5G-2 channel.
May be I got lucky? May be FreshTomato is better at speeds, what ever the reason may be, I don't want to constantly keep tweaking the WiFi settings. I used to be able to do that back in the day as I was mostly the only one on WiFi. Now, ALL devices use it and I have a teenage boy and 21 year old daughter along with a wife who all stream content so no tweaking my live router.
I will run FreshTomato for a few weeks on the side and only use it myself and if it does NOT lose speed in a couple week and/or does not need a reboot, I will switch out the network name(s) and swap out my R7000 with the R8000 and then embark on my main R7000 (yes I have run two for the past 5 years) which does not have WiFi disabled.
I am NOT posting this to diss dd-wrt. I was torn to find information and I could not find much on the speed woes with the R8000 and did not get too many responses to this thread either though, I admit, it was fairly vague.
** Edited to add ***
I am very appreciative of the current team still working on and maintaining dd-wrt and would like to thank all who helped me out.
These results are on a slower router than the R7000 so that should be a bit better still
Some time ago I also did speed testing for FT and Stock and the differences back then were small about 5%, (stock and FT being about 5% faster than DDWRT)
Stock and FT are stuck on Kernel 2.6, that kernel is lacking in a lot of things but is leaner and therefore a bit faster
These results are on a slower router than the R7000 so that should be a bit better still
Some time ago I also did speed testing for FT and Stock and the differences back then were small about 5%, (stock and FT being about 5% faster than DDWRT)
Stock and FT are stuck on Kernel 2.6, that kernel is lacking in a lot of things but is leaner and therefore a bit faster
But if you are happy we are happy
Thank you.
Just to clarify, I have not even tried to flash either of my two primary R7000s yet. I am using a free R8000 given to me by a family member who did not need it.
3 - 4 days of tinkering with WiFi settings based on the threads on here and not getting even half of what my R7000 provides on a 400 Mbps connection was enough tinkering for me. I would not even have attempted FT if it was only 5% off compared to my R7000.
I see that one of my replies on another thread was quietly deleted. May be I violated some forum policy by recommending FreshTomato on a dd-wrt forum. Who knows?
I am a dd-wrt adopter from like 2007 and earlier so I just may be back. You never know.
