i use a tp link WDR3500 V1 as accesspoint almost 8 years now ....
5ghz Uplink with WDS over 50 Meter distance and 2.4ghz as accesspoint ...
always 4-6 clients connected , nonstop traffic 24hrs/7days
Uptime +300 days
since i dont use the device for WAN accesspoint my setup differs a bit but i never experienced any freeze up events in any way, its a rocksolid machine , which has transfered many Terrabytes over the years
I would like to suggest to look also into the hardware itself , mainly the power supply or any attached devices connected to the USB Port - maybe there is some weak power supply which has a problem under load ?
another thing to check is the maximum possible open connections , by default in older builds this was set to a maximum of 4096 connection, which might be a problem if you have many clients attached using certain software which utilizes P2P data transfer like SKYPE for instance (bittorrent is another culprit)
Also a infestation of attached clients with malicious software is a possible reason that you run out of open connections on the router and lock the machine, because many malware Software is using P2P like techniques for spreading itself and is also capable of sending nonstop malware by email out etc ....
Update the laptop's wireless driver or replace the adapter card and driver entirely.
I was thinking about replacing it... however the config isn't stable enough to get weeks of uptime, and other wi-fis work fine, so I'm leaning into believing it's something with the router or my config.
