Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2020 8:47 Post subject: DIR-860L-A1: wl1 AC-Only Wireless Bridging
I have two DIR-860L-A1 routers that I would like to connect via a wireless AC-Only bridge. I have tried bridging via both Repeater-Bridge and WDS on various builds (current: v3.0-r40559 and previous) but to no avail.
Outcomes:
Repeater-Bridge
Works (allegedly) for around the first 10 window ping packets immediately after the initial Apply button is clicked. The 11th packet then takes both routers down, with the Repeater-Bridge needing to have a hard reset.
WDS
Routers can establish a WDS Nodes Connection with a valid signal, but no bridging occurs. Note in order to establish a valid signal on the WDS connection, wireless security is required (opposite of the Broadcom WDS walkthrough states); credit goes to a WDS trouble shooting post on the Atheros forum for this tidbit.
Note that I can establish a wl0 N-Only Repeater-Bridge between the routers on almost any given release. All attempts at establishing a wl1 AC-Only bridge have been attempted without any wl0 bridging in place.
Looking for a confirmation that someone has gotten this configuration to work, any needed mystery steps, and maybe even a release number.
Joined: 08 May 2018 Posts: 7244 Location: Texas, USA
Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2020 23:32 Post subject:
WDS and bridge modes don't always work on Broadcom ARM. Client-only and Repeater-only may work.
Quote:
3. Bridge modes on k4.4 devices may sometimes work in some configurations in certain builds but are not supported by the bcmdhd driver. Use client or repeater instead as WDS doesn't work with Broadcom ARM either (see Issues below).
Thanks for the help, most the items that were highlighted I had already read, but did not fully understand. Like I did not know that all Broadcom chipsets are ARM based architecture. How much time did I spend performing 30-30-30 resets for no reasons now ...
Following these suggestions I went back through the threads and found the following similar routers to the DIR-860L-A1:
EA6200
EA6300
EA6350
EX6200
TEW-811DRU
Going through some google kung fu (we need a better search engine already) of the forums, I was able find about a dozen builds that had some confirmation of working for routers above. The most recent build was DD-WRT v3.0-r36410 std 07/28/18
Downgraded both routers to this release, and I was as able to set up the repeater bridge in a few minutes on an AC only channel and low and behold it worked.
In hindsight I think this is the first time I ever was able to bridge this router on DD-WRT. My previous routers where N based routers and when upgraded to AC I had no luck.
Looking at the existing 2.4 Ghz repeater that was working, I discovered in was actually running an OpenWrt Padwan variation with a relay add in.
Back to DD-WRT, the performance of this release is excellent on the 5Ghz band, better than when the it was just an access point. The 2.4Ghz was another story. Reviewing the forums over the last month or so I stumbled on to the w0_distance nvram setting. This made a world of difference as ping times on the lan dropped to 1ms and the multiples of 100ms spikes that were occurring secondly went away.
Going for broke I enabled the 2.4GZ band on the repeater router as bridged access point. That performance was pretty terrible thus I have some more work to do. But I am very happy that SIP phone and legacy wireless printer/scanner (WEP only) are connected via the repeater. I still to add another repeater on the 2.4Ghz band to free up the 5Ghz for only video streaming.
Based on the forum, I might be switching the backbone off of broadcom. Current N/AC router inventory:
Thanks for the help, most the items that were highlighted I had already read, but did not fully understand. Like I did not know that all Broadcom chipsets are ARM based architecture. How much time did I spend performing 30-30-30 resets for no reasons now ...
not all broadcom routers are ARM. Broadcom N and before routers were MIPS. ARMs are only the newer Broadcom AC routers, even first AC routers were still MIPS.
look at R6700 from Amazon, was about $62 with a coupon and supported by ddwrt. broadcom ARM.
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