DD-WRT on WRT32x - It has NEVER worked in my experience

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djjaeger82
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 13 Sep 2014
Posts: 14

PostPosted: Wed Mar 17, 2021 21:56    Post subject: DD-WRT on WRT32x - It has NEVER worked in my experience Reply with quote
blkt wrote:
For R7000 you should not be using a Marvell fallback build but the latest available, see Broadcom threads.

As for the question it is a combination of hardware, vendor abandoned wifi driver & binary and DD-WRT.


Appreciate the advice regarding R7000 fallback build. But back to this WRT32x. I've never been able to get the WiFi working as well with dd-wrt as the stock firmware. The issues have plagued me on every single build I've tried.

With anything after R44048, my mobile devices (android phones, tablets) all end up intermittently showing the ! next to the wifi signal indicating a connection problem after a few hours. Similarly my ring doorbell goes offline in and out. Both 5.0 and 2.4g seem to be a problem. Just unstable WiFi, period

Even with the "stable" build R44048, I still have problems connecting certain devices. For example, a Fitbit Aria Scale never, ever will connect with dd-wrt on WRT32x even on R44048. Tried short/long preamble, different channels, 20mhz only channel width, etc and no go. Just this week, I had problems with my Monster Smart LED strip, same thing, after 3 hrs each on 2 different days of trying to get it to connect to my wifi I completely gave up. It could see the network, but when it would try to connect it would always fail and timeout. I know for a fact both the fitbit aria and the Monster Smart LED strip are 2.4g devices, and the fitbit is even 802.11b (not sure about the monster). Perhaps this will help someone get to the bottom of this once and for all...

As soon as I reverted to stock firmware, all of these problems INSTANTLY went away. The monster smart strip that couldn't pair for days, paired and connected the first time. The ring doorbell that was intermittently going in and out of wifi works and has been rock solid multiple days. None of my android tablets or phones are complaining about the WiFI any more, or dropping connections. Everything simply works.

I'm a user and proponent of dd-wrt, I really love it, and have used it for years. On my R7000 Netgear I have had nothing but a good experience. Sure occasionally theres a buggy build where something breaks but the next build or previous build almost always restores things.

This simply is not the case for the WRT32x. I have not found a single build that has been stable or even "operable" for all the devices in my home with dd-wrt on WRT32x. There is something fundamentally wrong here, and perhaps this router should be completely removed from the supported device list for dd-wrt Sad
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blkt
DD-WRT Guru


Joined: 20 Jan 2019
Posts: 5660

PostPosted: Wed Mar 17, 2021 22:33    Post subject: Reply with quote
Search the open and closed issues on mwlwifi and will know the open driver's history and workarounds.

Smart home automation, esp8266, doorbells, internet of things and Apple will always guarantee problems.

The open source drivers use black boxed or fullmac firmware, a precompiled binary blob, no documentation.

Linksys drivers are proprietary. Marvell Wi-Fi/BT assets sold to NXP. Discussion about petition went nowhere.

Davidc502 stopped making new builds. More stories and such here, here & here. Don't know what to tell you.
djjaeger82
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 13 Sep 2014
Posts: 14

PostPosted: Wed Mar 17, 2021 22:48    Post subject: Reply with quote
blkt wrote:
Search the open and closed issues on mwlwifi and will know the open driver's history and workarounds.

Smart home automation, esp8266, doorbells, internet of things and Apple will always guarantee problems.

The open source drivers use black boxed or fullmac firmware, a precompiled binary blob, no documentation.

Linksys drivers are proprietary. Marvell Wi-Fi/BT assets sold to NXP. Discussion about petition went nowhere.

Davidc502 stopped making new builds. More stories and such here, here & here. Don't know what to tell you.


Appreciate the links, reading thru the background info now. I guess this means we should never expect full stable support on this router then due to the driver issues. Wish I had known this at the time of purchase, would have picked a better supported router. I guess I'll start looking for WiFi6 routers anyways now that they're coming to market Smile
pbphoto
DD-WRT User


Joined: 29 Oct 2017
Posts: 258

PostPosted: Thu Mar 18, 2021 0:01    Post subject: Reply with quote
I think 44048 is your best bet on the 3200ACM.

For some of my troublesome IOT devices, two things to try.
1) use wifi mac filters to prevent the device from trying the wrong antenna (I prevent my chromecast audio pucks from looking at 5ghz for example).
2) if you use dnsmasq for dhcp, you can try setting static leases under "additional dnsmasq options" for troublesome devices.

For example:
dhcp-host=8E:85:80:xx:xx:xx,eufy-homebase2,192.168.5.107,24h
dhcp-host=54:60:09:xx:xx:xx,chromecast-tribit,192.168.5.108,24h

Here are my wifi settings that work very well under 44048:

5GHz ATH0
Wireless Mode AP
Wireless Network Mode AC/N-Mixed
Channel Width VHT80 (80 Mhz)
Wireless Channel 36 - 5180 MHz
Extension Channel UU (+6)
Allow Channel Overlapping Disable
Wireless Network Name (SSID) XXXXX
Wireless SSID Broadcast Enable

2.4GHz ATH1
Wireless Mode AP
Wireless Network Mode NG-mixed
(if your clients are really old, you may need BG-mixed or mixed)
Channel Width Full (20 MHz)
Wireless Channel 11 - 2462 MHz
TurboQAM (QAM256) support Disable
Wireless Network Name (SSID) XXXXX
Wireless SSID Broadcast Enable

ATH2 - DISABLE

Advanced Settings (mostly the same for both antennas)
TX Power 30 dBm
Antenna Gain 0 dBi
U-APSD (Automatic Power Save) Disable
Protection Mode None
RTS Threshold Disable
Short Preamble Enable
Short GI Enable
Single User Beamforming Enable (5GHz only)
Multi User Beamforming Disable (5Ghz only)
AP Isolation Disable
Beacon Interval 100
DTIM Interval 2
WMM Support Enable
ScanList default
Sensitivity Range (ACK Timing) 0
Max Associated Clients 256
Drop Clients with Low Signal
Minimum Signal for authenticate -128
Minimum Signal for connection -128
Poll Time for signal lookup 10
Amount of allowed low signals 3
Multicast To Unicast Disable
Network Configuration Bridged
Radio Time Restrictions
Radio Scheduling Disable

WPA2 Personal
CCMP-128 (AES)
Give it a nice long shared key
(if they are really old clients, you may need to drop down to WPA Personal)
blkt
DD-WRT Guru


Joined: 20 Jan 2019
Posts: 5660

PostPosted: Thu Mar 18, 2021 0:45    Post subject: Reply with quote
The known workarounds for IoT are disabling LDPC or WMM, modes G-only or BG-Mixed but what do I know...
djjaeger82
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 13 Sep 2014
Posts: 14

PostPosted: Thu Mar 18, 2021 0:45    Post subject: Reply with quote
pbphoto wrote:
I think 44048 is your best bet on the 3200ACM.

For some of my troublesome IOT devices, two things to try.
1) use wifi mac filters to prevent the device from trying the wrong antenna (I prevent my chromecast audio pucks from looking at 5ghz for example).
2) if you use dnsmasq for dhcp, you can try setting static leases under "additional dnsmasq options" for troublesome devices.



Definitely appreciate your wifi settings detail. My 2.4ghz settings were almost identical to yours except needing to run mixed to allow for some of the very old 802.11b clients to connect.

I didn't consider the wifi Mac filtering, but I guess I draw the line at having to add each wifi mac address to a black or white list. At that point I don't consider ddwrt worth the effort. It's supposed to add functionality, be more stable, and enhance the experience. Instead it's a giant PITA on this router.
djjaeger82
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 13 Sep 2014
Posts: 14

PostPosted: Thu Mar 18, 2021 0:47    Post subject: Reply with quote
blkt wrote:
The known workarounds for IoT are disabling LDPC or WMM, modes G-only or BG-Mixed but what do I know...


So then what do you do for 802.11n 2.4ghz devices? Or that's just the sacrifice you have to make to get IoT to work?
blkt
DD-WRT Guru


Joined: 20 Jan 2019
Posts: 5660

PostPosted: Thu Mar 18, 2021 0:53    Post subject: Reply with quote
Try LDPC first, so do not apply all at once. I provided all the links necessary, got tired explaining to people.

Easier to recommend disable ath0/1 and use Ethernet access points or replace altogether, R7800 or R9000.
djjaeger82
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 13 Sep 2014
Posts: 14

PostPosted: Thu Mar 18, 2021 0:56    Post subject: Reply with quote
blkt wrote:
Try LDPC first, so do not apply everything at once. I provided all the links necessary, got tired of explaining to people.

It is easier to recommend disabling ath0/1 and use Ethernet access points or replace altogether with R7800 or R9000.


K will try one by one and LDPC first. I actually set up an extra wifi access point in one location to try to help the situation. It worked and solved the problem, but then I lost the extra wifi coverage I was looking for.

Basically I've got the exact same observations on multiple units, in different family members homes. This wrt32x is a great wired router. It's just the finicky wifi issues that hold it back from being a great all around solution.
blkt
DD-WRT Guru


Joined: 20 Jan 2019
Posts: 5660

PostPosted: Thu Mar 18, 2021 1:18    Post subject: Reply with quote
https://github.com/kaloz/mwlwifi/issues?q=ldpc+sort%3Aupdated-desc+

https://github.com/kaloz/mwlwifi/issues/278 - https://github.com/kaloz/mwlwifi/issues/393

These workarounds apply to the 2.4 GHz wireless interface. Forgot to clarify this but should be obvious.
djjaeger82
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 13 Sep 2014
Posts: 14

PostPosted: Thu Mar 18, 2021 2:07    Post subject: Reply with quote
blkt wrote:
https://github.com/kaloz/mwlwifi/issues?q=ldpc+sort%3Aupdated-desc+

https://github.com/kaloz/mwlwifi/issues/278 - https://github.com/kaloz/mwlwifi/issues/393

These workarounds apply to the 2.4 GHz wireless interface. Forgot to clarify this but should be obvious.


Thanks again, just finished reading thru the issues section of mwlwifi. What a mess, I'm sorry for poking and complaining. Those github issues on the driver are eye opening. And wow, that yuhhaurlin guy seems like a total prick. It's amazing you haven't given up and thrown in the towel, I admire your dedication.
blkt
DD-WRT Guru


Joined: 20 Jan 2019
Posts: 5660

PostPosted: Thu Mar 18, 2021 15:10    Post subject: Reply with quote
Rediscovered a text file of mine: 170, 209, 229, 278, 298, 353, 359, 344, 361, 393 and more, but off-topic.

djjaeger82 wrote:
It's amazing you haven't given up and thrown in the towel, I admire your dedication.
Not me, but BrainSlayer and others.

As for yuhhaurlin it was likely just one guy following orders, then swamped with new projects (AX).
Marvell and the employees over there early on totally dropped the ball for open source development.
Culdil
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 30 Dec 2020
Posts: 7

PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2021 16:10    Post subject: Reply with quote
Hello! Thank you for this post. I struggled with my WRT32X since i bought him and installed DD-WRT on it over a year now.

The only Firmware version r44048std - Marvell Fallback does work. I red the most posts and links with the large problems and developing of the open source mwlwifi driver. Crying or Very sad

My hardware:
Router Name WRT32X
Router Model Linksys WRT32X
Firmware Version DD-WRT v3.0-r44048 std (08/02/20)
Kernel Version Linux 4.9.231 #1979 SMP Sun Aug 2 03:35:09 +03 2020 armv7l

CPU Model Marvell Armada 385
CPU Cores2
CPU Features VFP VFPv3 NEON VFPD32 EDSP
CPU Clock 1866 MHz

Has anyone with a WRT32X hardware successfully other firmware version installed than the r44048std and the wifi does really work?

I tried really many many (naturally all the latest and newest one) firmware versions of dd-wrt, but no others are working for me. I tried also the WMM disabling and LPDC for the Chip ESP8266 (in advanced settings).

So my two questions if I may make them at all on this much discussed topic:
Does anyone with the same hardware a "stable" WiFi with a newer firmware version of r44048std running?

Is there any news or updates about the developing from the mwlwifi drivers developing or something so that my wrt32x has a kind of future? Sad

Thank you in advance
Culdil
ho1Aetoo
DD-WRT Guru


Joined: 19 Feb 2019
Posts: 2927
Location: Germany

PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2021 16:22    Post subject: Reply with quote
Quote:
Is there any news or updates about the developing from the mwlwifi drivers developing or something so that my wrt32x has a kind of future?


maybe if you disable the wifi and use the WRT as a pure cable router - the processor is not bad after all
then you still need an atheros or mediatek WAP and you can forget the marvel WLAN

if such a solution comes into consideration
Gameman Advanced Kid
DD-WRT Guru


Joined: 18 Nov 2012
Posts: 1158

PostPosted: Mon Sep 20, 2021 11:19    Post subject: Reply with quote
ho1Aetoo wrote:
Quote:
Is there any news or updates about the developing from the mwlwifi drivers developing or something so that my wrt32x has a kind of future?


maybe if you disable the wifi and use the WRT as a pure cable router - the processor is not bad after all
then you still need an atheros or mediatek WAP and you can forget the marvel WLAN

if such a solution comes into consideration


My suggestion personally, Keep all your "utility" devices like wireless printers and security cameras on the 2.4ghz freq and everything else thats high capacity on 5ghz.

Been working great for me so far.

Still testing it out though. This is a good router in my opinion. But I might be outta my mind.

Also, whats ATH2 for anyway exactly?

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