Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 18:13 Post subject: what currently-buyable low-cost routers are working?
I _thought_ I had done my homework and found that dd-wrt had builds for TP-Link WR841 v12, but sadly after I bought two of them, I find they are v14 and if I understand what I'm seeing on other googl results, they have the 4/32 (flash/RAM) problems.
Joined: 16 Nov 2015 Posts: 6437 Location: UK, London, just across the river..
Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 19:22 Post subject:
cheap is not always good...
it depends what you'd need them for...
for basic needs those will do...
for advanced needs Netgear R6400 or R7000
for better performance R7800 all those very accessible price on Amazon/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
Joined: 16 Nov 2015 Posts: 6437 Location: UK, London, just across the river..
Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2020 8:31 Post subject:
msoengineer wrote:
archer a7 on amazon or ebay.
TP-Link Archer's are for basic performance...as they have single core CPU@720-750 Mghz
avoid version 5...
version 2,3,4 are good and stable... _________________ 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
Joined: 21 Jan 2017 Posts: 1783 Location: Illinois Moderator
Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2020 13:06 Post subject:
The R7000 is a great candidate for a BCM router.
BS, himself, (Dev. Of dd-wrt) has claimed BCM is a black hole for driver support and so I would only use an Atheros chipset router. The A7v5 is not winning any performance medals, but it can easily be had on eBay for $25-$35 in the USA and is a great value router....
What everyone fails to ask and mention is provisioned ISP speeds....
The A7v5 is rock solid for speeds up to 150mps from the ISP and having great qos. Turn off qos and turn on shortcut forward engine and the A7 is capable of gig speed albeit with shit latency... But again $25 router...
For a gig speed ISP, only way is an x86 setup to yield any decent qos above 500mbps, afaik, but ask Tatsuya46 to assure my claim is valid. Qos code, afaik, is the limiting factor at 500-600mbps on the best router; R9000- which has its own flaws too...
like I've said in the past, I don't recommend the ea8500 anymore because of several idiosyncrasies to make it work on dd-wrt. You're gambling when you buy one and realize you might be throwing away your money because they've completely disabled some of the hardware to prevent you from serial flashing.
R7800 is the best $100ish you can spend on a router still in 2020. _________________ FORUM RULES
Archers C7 v2,v3,v4 are known, as less troublesome and still 'decent' (basic)
with exception of Archer A7 v5... to be precise...
Archers could lack of some valuable features, as their flash ram is limited to 16MB too,
sadly their price, as new could be close to used, Netgear R6400, R7000....
way better than TP-Links above...with full support of all DDWRT features
and then msoengineer provided excellent detailed explanation which one, why and why not...
recently, many articles on the same subject, especially ggl could've do the trick... _________________ 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
Archers C7 v2,v3,v4 are known, as less troublesome and still 'decent' (basic)
with exception of Archer A7 v5... to be precise...
You have yet to provide any reason why is v5 problematic and previous versions not, only a claim without evidence.
Is it because you gave misleading information twice to help someone to brick their C7v5 router?
msoengineer wrote:
I don't recommend the ea8500 anymore because of several idiosyncrasies to make it work on dd-wrt. You're gambling when you buy one and realize you might be throwing away your money because they've completely disabled some of the hardware to prevent you from serial flashing.
Disagree. It's super easy to differentiate between revisions and plenty of ways too without opening: retail box art blue or green, Rev A00 B00 or C00 above UPC code, power supply model, verification of pin headers through the front grill.
A one-off experience, quickly gave up and returned it within hours before anyone could respond or any real conclusions could be made... The evidence was shipped away, as such we are left with FUD or (gasp) fearmongering even though others have soldered a missing header with success.
R7800 agreed, but R7500v2 is half price (along with EA8500) and fitting for the low-cost category.
Joined: 08 May 2018 Posts: 14221 Location: Texas, USA
Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2020 16:17 Post subject:
I should post a picture of the A00, B00, and C00 in my test bench inventory. If the warden wasn't visiting, I would post screenshots, but God forbid I actually "live". Gotta love completely shutting down my home office and workshop for two weeks for COVID fears _________________ "Life is but a fleeting moment, a vapor that vanishes quickly; All is vanity"
Contribute To DD-WRT Pogo - A minimal level of ability is expected and needed... DD-WRT Releases 2023 (PolitePol)
DD-WRT Releases 2023 (RSS Everything)
----------------------
Linux User #377467 counter.li.org / linuxcounter.net
My advise was very clear...so, no misleading info at all...
He took your mention of a stripped firmware as gospel even though it does not exist, nor is one necessary, along with a link to a thread with bootloader extraction, merging, mtd commands all of which have absolutely nothing to do with C7v5. It's his fault, but you fueled the wild goose chase. The one bit of correct advice you gave was to use an old tp-link (official) firmware.
Joined: 21 Jan 2017 Posts: 1783 Location: Illinois Moderator
Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2020 17:30 Post subject:
blkt wrote:
Alozaros wrote:
Archers C7 v2,v3,v4 are known, as less troublesome and still 'decent' (basic)
with exception of Archer A7 v5... to be precise...
You have yet to provide any reason why is v5 problematic and previous versions not, only a claim without evidence.
Is it because you gave misleading information twice to help someone to brick their C7v5 router?
msoengineer wrote:
I don't recommend the ea8500 anymore because of several idiosyncrasies to make it work on dd-wrt. You're gambling when you buy one and realize you might be throwing away your money because they've completely disabled some of the hardware to prevent you from serial flashing.
Disagree. It's super easy to differentiate between revisions and plenty of ways too without opening: retail box art blue or green, Rev A00 B00 or C00 above UPC code, power supply model, verification of pin headers through the front grill.
A one-off experience, quickly gave up and returned it within hours before anyone could respond or any real conclusions could be made... The evidence was shipped away, as such we are left with FUD or (gasp) fearmongering even though others have soldered a missing header with success.
R7800 agreed, but R7500v2 is half price (along with EA8500) and fitting for the low-cost category.
For 50-90% of the everyday population, they won't own a soldering iron and want to undertake having to solder on header pins to a PCB. The soldering onto the PCB is problematic too because of the wave soldering process leaving solder inside the holes...
None of this process is easy and without risk...
The EA8500 is an awesome piece of hardware, but for the average layman who simply wants to download and flash a router and be done with it.... The ea8500 is not the "right" router to use....
If you are a tinkerer (hacker) have a soldering iron, patience, access to a 4pin or 5 pin header...or bulk stranded wire, are willing to crack open plastic, buy a decent USB TTL adapter, etc etc etc...then buy the ea8500 as it's a bargain....
But again, we should not be saying to buy an EA8500 for 80-90% of the userbase on these forums...
Yes I had a one off, the EA8500 actually got sent back to me due to the seller being a total shithead, but I don't want to fuck with it anymore as I already moved on. Too many other worthwhile things need to get done vs. try to make it work... Most of the EA8500's out there will likely be fine and if you want to do all of the above shit, by all means buy a 8500...
The two routers I recommend for the avg/casual user who happens to come across these forums... A7v5 or R7800...
Yes there are plenty of good alternatives in the BCM world, but again driver support is crap on BCM and I cannot with good conscious steer users to something that has "iffy" support....
I will start locking down future posters asking this same question over and over and create a sticky saying to buy an A7v5 or R7800 and be done with it....
Those two are readily available and really are the best...
best bargain router and best overall performer...
There are shit tons of other TP-crap routers out there...
I think it's all what is available in the local market.
I consider the US one market, Canada another, Europe another, Russia specifically, South America and then China and south Asia.
We should try to find consensus for those regions.
So, to that point.
USA-
A7v5- best budget router
R7800 or R9000- best performance routers
Canada
Same as USA
Europe
TBD budget
R7800 for performance
Russia
TBD budget
R7800 for performance
For all else, please chime in... _________________ FORUM RULES
Routers released in the last couple years are increasingly overpriced. It is hard to find something brand new that is reasonably priced and provides decent performance.
Don't forget the old reliables of the Netgear R6700 and R7000. With the R6700 you have to be slightly careful - the one you really want is the original (not R6700v2 or R6700v3). The original R6700 is essentially identical to an R7000. The R6700v2 isn't supported at all, so as I said, be a little careful. The R6700v3 is supported, but has some caveats so I usually recommend trying for the original R6700.
The R6700 and R7000 are fantastic workhorses. They are rock solid reliable, great for DD-WRT (and other firmwares) and I've never run into one that couldn't be stably overclocked to 1200MHz.
There are places in Canada to buy an R7000 brand new. Still, eBay is your friend for both.
What everyone fails to ask and mention is provisioned ISP speeds....
Thank you so much for the detailed replies everyone. Yes I appreciate the "it depends" answers. I am only using 30-50 Mbit/s internet service, so basic is probably fine.
And while I HAVE in the past connected with USB to TTL headers, compiled firmwares from source to include certain modules directly in the kernel, and flashed routers that way, and I'm not looking to do it this time.
So I will likely buy TP-Link Archer A7 or C7 (checking hardware version before leaving store) and hope that putting dd-wrt on it will be uneventful.
