[smk001]

Hi all! This is my first post on the forum as today I got a used WRT3200ACM to get rid of my crappy router provided by the cable company.

First of all, I tried dd-wrt 40189 (newest listed in the router DB) as well as the newest one on the ftp share (40400). Installation from the stock linksys fw upgrade page went smoothly and everything, except from the wireless connection, seems to be working perfectly. Also, I tested the router thoroughly on newest linksys stock firmware to confirm that absolutely everything works but I need to upgrade since it lacks some features I expect from my router to have.

So, when configuring network adapters I disabled ath2 straight away as per instructions I found, then I proceeded to set up 5 GHz and 2,4 GHz networks (with different SSIDs) and security (WPA2/AES, same on all adapters). However, no matter what I cannot get the 5GHz adapter to even turn on the radio on any channel above 48. Even then I can only connect from my Galaxy A70 with speeds of around 16/30Mbps when sitting about 3 meters away from the router and my WAN speed over wired connection to my PC is a stable 500/30. I guess these speeds come from that fact that this band is already hogged by my two neighbours, with signal strengths of their routers almost matching or sometimes even overpowering my linksys according to Wifi Analyzer app.

Another strange thing is that I cannot connect using my Win 10 laptop (with a fairly new Intel AC8265 wireless NIC) at all if any kind of security is turned on - only open network seems to work with it when on dd-wrt.

But wait! There's more! Seemingly at random the 5 GHz radio is being turned on when I select higher channels (116, 122, etc.) but only if I reduce the channel width down to 20 MHz, although I cannot connect to such network from any device despite the SSID being broadcast.

After wasting couple hours trying to figure that out, I rebooted the router for the nth time hoping it'll finally start working and out of the blue - the SSIDs were not broadcast anymore on both bands (I could seen them appear on Wifi Analyser without an SSID, but couldn't connect)! The only thing that brought back the SSID broadcast was going back to stock linksys firmware and flashing dd-wrt 40400 again, however on newer version all above problems persist.

Then I got an idea to try flashing an older build, namely 31899 and 34411 since I thought that maybe I can't see my problem listed on the forum because many people still didn't update their routers and it's working fine for them. These two however, completely refuse to flash - the router seems to be doing something at least twice as long as during my first attempts, but then reboots back to the first partition containing the stock firmware.

Considering all of the problems one could suspect that the router I got is faulty, but it works perfectly when using stock firmware. I can easily get 200/30 on my mobile, connecting my work laptop takes less than a second and everything overall is stable as a rock.

Did any one of you got similar experiences when switching do dd-wrt or it's just me being extremely unlucky?

[WENED]

I see you are in Europe and the channel configurations differ from here in Canada, but overall the 3200 performs well for me with only minor problems with WiFi.

First off refer to the channel availability chart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels
Beyond that I must mention two possible problems that you may have.
If you are trying to use a channel width greater than 20 you must ensure that you set the extension channels for availability. ie On my master I use channel 100 (UUU+14) as you can reference on the chart. If I choose to run a higher power I must restrict myself to reducing my bandwidth to 80 for channels above 100. You mention using channel 48 and if you look at the chart you must select lower channels for extension. I mention higher power but I realize that you are restricted in this case by TPC or to 25mw on the high end channels.
As for devices not connecting there is numerous posts about this. Linksys uses a proprietary driver not available to the OEM. In my case I have to do work arounds for smart devices based on the ESP8266 chip and in the case of my Lenovo Tab I have to always set my network mode to mixed otherwise I can not get a connect.
There are numerous posts about specific devices being unable to connect with certain parameters, you just need to be specific and get the basic network running first.
Just as a foot note I sometimes do testing on a router in close proximity to my master and I have had it die because of my testing. Not sure if this is due to WLAN interference or something else. There are a lot of users out there most of which only run 20mhz bandwidth to avoid interference, but that is not my case as my nearest neighbour is half a klick away. As I said before be cautious about your channel selection and go from there.

[smk001]

Thanks for the reply WENED

[smk001]

[SurprisedItWorks]

Lots of good info posted so far, but also have a look at the standard reference for wifi settings for routers, like yours, that use atheros wifi chips: https://wiki.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Atheros/ath_wireless_settings.

[WENED]

Take a look at my recent post regarding WiFi concerns with wrt's running client mode. It appears there are still some strange effects on the 5Ghz band.

As for your last post,
If you use Channel 100 (UU+6) I believe you will be stable. As for why your speeds don't increase on using wider bandwidth, it is most likely due to the client being connected not having the ability to connect at other than 20mhz bandwidth. Case in point that even when I run 160 my remote routers will only connect at their max, in the case of my remote 3200 it connects at 160 with the speed increase appropriately. I have an older laptop which always connects at the same speed regardless of available channel bandwidth.

As for your 8266 devices, I currently have two 3200's running so I am able to separate the 8266 devices (Sonoff) on one of the 3200's, but I have run with one by creating a VAP on the 2.4ghz with a separate ssid and disabling wmm support on the VAP. Keep in mind that only the 8266 devices will be able to connect to this VAP.

My 5ghz radios are in AC/N or AC only.
My 2.4Ghz radios must be in Mixed mode to allow for any of my devices to connect properly. Any other setting will kill my Lenovo Tab access.

I don't know if I have been of any help to you, but if you continue to post with your problems/concerns there are many others here that are far more knowledgeable than I.

[smk001]

@SurprisedItWorks
Thanks for the link - there's a ton of valuable info specific to DD-WRT.

@WENED
I guess I finally got it working. I left the 5 GHz channel on Auto, set 160 MHz channel width et voila - it's happily occupying 100-128 range and works perfectly. Turned out that somebody (i.e. me) should RTFM - the main culprit was me trying to force an "AC Only" wireless mode instead of leaving it on "Mixed". After going back to "Mixed" I suddenly stopped having issues. I also set up 2.4 GHz to use the same SSID, 40 MHz channel width with QAM enabled and all clients (except ESP8266 sonoff switches) can now connect with a decent speed.

I wanted to try your solution of re-purposing the ath2 adapter as a short-range smart home network, but in the end dropped the idea of having an unsecured network in favour of more "savage" solution. I just pulled out an old ASUS RT-AC51U which was sitting in my garbage pile due to only having 100 Mbps WAN/LAN connections and set it up as an access point dedicated for sonoffs

Thanks for the help guys!

[SurprisedItWorks]

Great that you got it working!

FWIW, I run my 5 GHz ath0 wifi as AC/N-Mixed at 80 MHz and have always been happy with it. And do remember that if you should find you have inadequate SNR to get full-speed connections, cutting the bandwidth in half will gain you 3 dB of SNR, which in marginal cases may gain you more speed than you lose. Maximum bandwidth is generally the way to go only if you have great signal strength and no interference.

Also, I have read in the forums that some people recommend not sharing an SSID between bands, and indeed I have never tried it. I'm not sure what the specific issue is with such sharing. Generally I prefer deciding for myself what to connect on what band, depending mostly on range. In my house 5 GHz covers two rooms only, and 2.4 GHz is for everywhere else or if I know I'll be roaming around the house with a particular client.

[WENED]

You probably misunderstood about my way of getting the esp8266 devices working or you tried one of the many fixes out there.

The best mode of operation for ESP8266 is to have a separate Virtual VAP, not Ath2.
This VAP needs to have a different SSID than your primary and must have wmm disabled.

The setup you have now is great and if you wish to convert to using the VAP method, you should setup the SSID on the extra router with the dedicated SSID you plan to use on the 3200. The trick with using the 3200 VAP is that it is unlikely you will be able to setup the Sonoff devices with wmm disabled since most tablets and phones won't connect. To that end I have always setup my sonoff devices on a separate router using my dedicated ESP8266 SSID then being able to get them on my 3200. Kind of a pain in the butt to jump through hoops but it works. There is also a way it can be done on the 3200 but that is another story.

If you are happy with the setup you have and it's working stick with it. If however you decide to dump the extra router, just drop me a note and I can guide you through. I run four routers most of the time and sometimes more if I have a special requirement, just have to be cautious about cross channel interference.