Joined: 16 Apr 2018 Posts: 85 Location: Milwaukee, WI
Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2025 23:19 Post subject: looking to buy a new AX dd-Wrt router
Kipper34 wrote:
ADDED AX DEVICES:
Linksys MX4200 - r56932 - 06/18/2024
Linksys MR5500 - r57200 - 07/08/2024
Linksys MX5500 - r57200 - 07/08/2024
Asus RT-AX89X - r57447 - 07/17/2024
Linksys MX4300 - r57538 - 07/23/2024
Buffalo WXR-5950AX12 - r58464 - 10/05/2024
Buffalo WXR-6000AX12B - r58464 - 10/05/2024
Buffalo WXR-6000AX12P - r58464 - 10/05/2024
Buffalo WXR-6000AX12S - r58464 - 10/05/2024
Linksys MR7500 - r59171 - 01/14/2025
Linksys MX5300 - r59302 - 01/22/2025
Linksys MX8500 - r59302 - 01/22/2025
I'm looking to buy a new AX dd-Wrt router. Is DD-WRT developed enough to purchase one of these model routers and expecting them to fully work with DD-WRT? Does having a beta ddwrt firmware always imply that the firmware will work for a specified model? Or should I wait for DD-WRT to be more developed for these models? _________________ DanRanRocks - Tech Tutorials by Dan Ran
As a former WRT1900acs v2 user, I can ensure you, WiFi on my MR7350 works way, way, way faster and reliable.
E.g Wifi 6 reaches 9xx Mbit/s with my Nothing Phone 2a, dozens of devices just connect and do their job.
My MR7500 (Lost by DHL/Amazon a few weeks ago and found two days ago ) works also very reliable with WiFi 6E, sporting ~12xx Mbit/s against an intel m.2 WiFi card.
Both routers and all of their features fully work with current beta r60662 std (04/10/25).
Yes WiFi AX is and was subject to development, but thanks to the according threads here you can decide / report if an update is worthwhile / what your findings are.
Joined: 07 Jan 2025 Posts: 143 Location: Bethel Park, PA, USA
Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2025 13:08 Post subject:
Similar to Zyxx, I think the Linksys MR7350 is a good Wifi 6 router for the money. You can find them pretty cheap on EBay and other sites, if you're okay with used/refurb. Most of the bad reviews I read about this device online stemmed from the factory firmware missing features. With DD-WRT on it, though you can really push it.
The only caveats is that it doesn't have Wifi 6E or 160MHz channels. The fact is, I don't have any clients that can do either of those, so I'm good with basic Wifi 6.
It should also be noted that this was the first AX router to get DD-WRT support, so in those terms, the firmware is the most mature. It's been pretty stable for a while. _________________ Formerly dpp3530 Linksys MR7350
Gateway, 2 wired APs, NSS-ECM , Clock 1440MHz
VAPs on wlan0 and wlan1 for guest/IOT devices
IPv4 & IPv6 (Prefix Delegation)
Static Leases & DHCP
SmartDNS (using NextDNS, Cloudflare), DNSMasq
Wireguard and OpenVPN server
2.4GHz: dd-wrt, N/G-Mixed, ACK Timing 1350, WPA3 SAE & WPA2 w/AES
5GHz: dd-wrt, AX/AC/N Mixed, ACK Timing 1350, WPA3 SAE & WPA2 w/AES
Verizon Fios, 500/500Mbps
Joined: 04 Aug 2018 Posts: 1560 Location: Appalachian mountains, USA
Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2025 20:18 Post subject:
Agree that the Linksys MR7350 is great. I have two.
The other one I've done super well with is the Dynalink DL-WRX36. I have three of those. But the issue with them is availability. At any given moment, they're either cheap on Amazon or impossible to find at all. At the moment, Amazon is not listing them.
The Linksys MR7350 here is a lower-spec router than the Dynalink, by quite a margin, but I was also coming from the Linksys WRT1900ACSv2, and compared to that 2017 router, the MR7350 performs like a champ. The Dynalink is trickier to set up with dd-wrt than the MR7350, and webupgrades are trickier as well. Research the experiences of others before you try it. The Linksys MR7350, on the other hand, couldn't have been simpler.
One I advise against is the Linksys MX4200v2 (don't even think about the v1). I set up one of these easily enough, but its wlan0 5G wifi is low channels only (at least in the US). The high channels require wlan2, and as of 59582 anyway, wlan2 was too much of a WIP to be useful. I tried setting up a VAP on wlan2.1, and its SSID was not broadcast. Also "ifconfig wlan2.1" showed lots of data flow when there was actually none at all. _________________ On 59582: 2x Dynalink DL-WRX36, Linksys MX4200v2, MR7350. On 61465: DL-WRX36, MR7350. WPA2personal/WPA3 w/ AES, VAPs, NAS, station mode, OpenVPN client (AirVPN), wireguard server (AirVPN port forward) and clients (AzireVPN, AirVPN, private), Two SmartDNS/DoT providers and one DNSCrypt provider via VPNs. DNSmasq manages that plus ad blocking and local DNS.
Joined: 03 Nov 2015 Posts: 374 Location: Florida, USA
Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2025 23:34 Post subject:
The choice of which router is yours. But.... personally I can`t think of any reason to buy new unless its brand-brand new and unavailable anywhere else. Once you put on DD-WRT, there goes the warranty and returns. If your good you may get factory back on there and pull it off, but.... I find if it working its usually alright. Lightning strikes and power surges usually take out ports and its done. Good ones are usually half price of new. Just my opinion but I been doing this a long time and I have done well. I cherry pick and make the seller give me revision numbers ! _________________ ......All GOOD here... Just Handshakes and Time Stamps !......
Agree that the Linksys MR7350 is great. I have two.
I could not agree more.
SurprisedItWorks wrote:
The other one I've done super well with is the Dynalink DL-WRX36.
This router is certainly not for the average user. As you said, it's "trickier". It requires both skill and patience. Also, having to remove the USB drive just to perform a firmware update is a huge PiTA.
SurprisedItWorks wrote:
One I advise against is the Linksys MX4200v2 (don't even think about the v1). I set up one of these easily enough, but its wlan0 5G wifi is low channels only (at least in the US). The high channels require wlan2, and as of 59582 anyway, wlan2 was too much of a WIP to be useful. I tried setting up a VAP on wlan2.1, and its SSID was not broadcast.
I think all tri-band routers with 2x/5Ghz and 1x/2.4ghz are intentionally designed like this. Wlan0 only allows channels 36-64 and all channels on wlan2. While I do not have any varieties of the MX4200, they are similar H/W as the MX4300s with much less RAM (v1 512M v2 1024M). My MX4300s work amazingly well. I believe @BrainSlayer told me he could make both 5ghz radios use all channels, but didn't want people setting both to the same channel and wreaking havoc. I do believe he also said some don't have enough RAM to support this as well. 512MB is just not enough RAM.
So without any experience with any of the Buffalo or Asus AX routers, I can only recommend what I have read a lot about or actually own.
- MX4300 - Outstanding performance and stability. 1GB NAND, 2GB RAM. Limited Channels on wlan0 5ghz. No 6E.
- MR7350 - Good performance and okay stability. 512MB NAND, 512MB RAM. No 6E. I can crash this router pretty quickly over and over using iperf3 over wireless via WDS.
- MR7500 - No real issues with this one. 512MB NAND, 512MB RAM. Tri-band w/6E
- MX8500 - Great router, super fast, 512MB NAND, 1GB RAM. 5Gbit WAN port. Tri-band w/6E. I don't really have much use for 6E and wish we had the option to switch that radio to 5ghz instead of 6ghz. It's certainly possible and early test builds did indeed have this ability but it was not very stable.
With that said, ALL AX routers are still a WiP, more or less, depending on the router. _________________ - Linksys EA8500: I-Gateway, WAP/VAP 5ghz only. Features: VLANs, Samba, WG, Entware - r60xxx
- Linksys EA8500: 802.11s Secondary w/VLAN Trunk over 5ghz - r60xxx
- Linksys MX4300: 802.11s Primary w/VLAN Trunk over 5ghz. 2.4ghz WAP/VAP only - r60xxx
- Linksys MX4300: (WAP/VAP (7)) Multiple VLANs over single trunk port. Entware/Samba r60xxx
- Linksys MR7350: WDS Station for extended Ethernet r60xxx
- Linksys MR7500, MX8500: None in production. Just testing. r60xxx
- OSes: Fedora 40, 10 RPis (2,3,4,5), 23 ESP8266s: Straight from Amiga to Linux in '95, never having owned a Windows PC.
- Forum member #248
Joined: 16 Apr 2018 Posts: 85 Location: Milwaukee, WI
Posted: Wed May 14, 2025 0:17 Post subject: I'm torn between MX4300 and MR7500
lexridge wrote:
SurprisedItWorks wrote:
Agree that the Linksys MR7350 is great. I have two.
I could not agree more.
SurprisedItWorks wrote:
The other one I've done super well with is the Dynalink DL-WRX36.
This router is certainly not for the average user. As you said, it's "trickier". It requires both skill and patience. Also, having to remove the USB drive just to perform a firmware update is a huge PiTA.
SurprisedItWorks wrote:
One I advise against is the Linksys MX4200v2 (don't even think about the v1). I set up one of these easily enough, but its wlan0 5G wifi is low channels only (at least in the US). The high channels require wlan2, and as of 59582 anyway, wlan2 was too much of a WIP to be useful. I tried setting up a VAP on wlan2.1, and its SSID was not broadcast.
I think all tri-band routers with 2x/5Ghz and 1x/2.4ghz are intentionally designed like this. Wlan0 only allows channels 36-64 and all channels on wlan2. While I do not have any varieties of the MX4200, they are similar H/W as the MX4300s with much less RAM (v1 512M v2 1024M). My MX4300s work amazingly well. I believe @BrainSlayer told me he could make both 5ghz radios use all channels, but didn't want people setting both to the same channel and wreaking havoc. I do believe he also said some don't have enough RAM to support this as well. 512MB is just not enough RAM.
So without any experience with any of the Buffalo or Asus AX routers, I can only recommend what I have read a lot about or actually own.
- MX4300 - Outstanding performance and stability. 1GB NAND, 2GB RAM. Limited Channels on wlan0 5ghz. No 6E.
- MR7350 - Good performance and okay stability. 512MB NAND, 512MB RAM. No 6E. I can crash this router pretty quickly over and over using iperf3 over wireless via WDS.
- MR7500 - No real issues with this one. 512MB NAND, 512MB RAM. Tri-band w/6E
- MX8500 - Great router, super fast, 512MB NAND, 1GB RAM. 5Gbit WAN port. Tri-band w/6E. I don't really have much use for 6E and wish we had the option to switch that radio to 5ghz instead of 6ghz. It's certainly possible and early test builds did indeed have this ability but it was not very stable.
With that said, ALL AX routers are still a WiP, more or less, depending on the router.
Thankyou so much for this answer. After reading over all of the responses, looking at ebay prices of recommendations, assessing stability/compatability reports, router power, and costs, it looks like my top two choices are going to be between the MR7500 (which seems to be a pretty powerful device with good stability/compatability), and the MX4300, which also seems to be extremely powerful as well as stable and compatable. What I cant wrap my head around is how cheap the Mx4300's are going for on ebay! With a couple of them below $40 on ebay https://ebay.us/m/M8nEtG , I'm almost inclined to think that there is something defectivewith them. An AX router with 2GB of ram sounds like of a monster of a powerhouse router more than capable of running an openvpn serve at a fast rate (which is what i intend on doing). So why is this router so cheap on ebay? Is there anything I should know about it that would make it not worth the cheap ebay deal? It has the most Ram out all of the options and is also the cheapest on ebay!
The MR7500, also is relatively cheap on ebay running at about $60-$100 https://ebay.us/m/AJCOW4 on ebay. I like the fact that this router has 4 antennas wich I suspect might give it a bit more range than the MX4300. But other than that is has much less ram than the MX4300. Not sure how that would affect an openVPN server or how fast the MR7500's openVPN server would be compared to the MX4300's openVPN server. Maybe someone could chime in here and let me know which one has the faster processor for faster VPN speeds?
Either way these both look like good ddwrt routers, and i'm very torn which one would be a better purchase for me. If the MR7500's only downfall is that it has less ram than the MX4300, but it has better processor speeds (thus likely better VPN Server speeds), than I think it would be worth the extra $40 compared to the MX4300. Does anyone else here care to chime in and help me make up my mind on what would be the better router of the two? I'm very torn. Which one is actually more powerful, and which do you think has better ddwrt compatability? And which one will have the fastest WiFi speeds for my 1000mb/s connection? And which one is really worth the money? Any downsides to either of these routers you can think of?
Please share your thoughts and help me make up my mind! Thanks for all of your thoughts, knowledge, and opinions! _________________ DanRanRocks - Tech Tutorials by Dan Ran
I dont own the MX4300 (too ugly) but it has "only" 1GBit/s Eth Ports.
The MR7500 (looks good so I have it ) has a WAN Port that is capable of up to 5GBit/s.
If not in use for WAN it can be configured to be used for ethernet.
Also antennas can be adjusted by hand to fit your needs.
In my opinion these are huge advantages over the MX4300.
I just got the MR7500. Set up last night, build 61238. 2.4GHz, 5Ghz, 6Ghz, IPv6, all working well. Had one issue with 5GHz dropping, fixed by reboot. Lot of errors in Syslog related to my Plex server. Took a lot of google-fu but eventually seems to be working. Previously I was using a WRT3200ACM with the big (extended) Linksys antennas that were discontinued a few years ago. MR7500 range isn't as far, but 6GHz speed is smokin'. 900Mbps+ on Comcast Xfinity. Nice. Only "wishlist" item would be if it had 2.5Gbps ports.
Downloads in the /betas forum (because people always seem to ask):
) works also very reliable with WiFi 6E, sporting ~12xx Mbit/s against an intel m.2 WiFi card.
) has a WAN Port that is capable of up to 5GBit/s.
