TP Link Archer C8

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There are four revisions of the Archer C8, with v1, v2, and v3 supported by DD-WRT.
WARNING: OEM reversion capability is still questionable.


Contents

[edit] Hardware Specifications

FCC ID TE7C8
Industry Canada ID 8853A-C8
Power 12 VDC, 3.3 A
CPU Broadcom BCM4708 @800 MHz
Architecture ARM Cortex A9 (2 cores)
RAM / Flash (ROM) 128 MiB / 16 MiB
Switch Broadcom BCM4708
LAN/WAN ports 4 /1 @ 1 Gb/s
USB Ports 1x USB 2.0, 1x USB 3.0
Serial internal: TX, RX, GND, VCC (3.3v TTL, don't connect!), 115200 8N1
WI1 chip Broadcom BCM4360
WI1 protocols an+ac
WI1 MIMO config 3x3:3
WI1 antenna connector U.FL, RP-SMA
WI2 chip Broadcom BCM4331
WI2 protocols bgn
WI2 MIMO config 3x3:3
WI2 antenna connector U.FL, RP-SMA
  • The unsupported v4 has 128 MiB flash but otherwise appears to have the same specifications.

[edit] Serial Boot Log info

From the OpenWRT wiki:

[edit] CFE memory report

   Tot mem: 131072 KBytes
   CFE mem: 0x00F00000 - 0x00FCC810 (837648)
   Data: 0x00F414A8 - 0x00F418F4 (1100)
   BSS: 0x00F41900 - 0x00F66810 (151312)
   Heap: 0x00F66810 - 0x00FCA810 (409600)
   Stack: 0x00FCA810 - 0x00FCC810 (8192)
   Text: 0x00F00000 - 0x00F396D4 (235220)

[edit] MTD partitions

   Creating 5 MTD partitions on "bcmsflash":
   0x000000000000-0x000000040000 : "boot"
   0x000000040000-0x000000240000 : "linux"
   0x000000240000-0x000000ee0000 : "rootfs"
   0x000000fe0000-0x000000ff0000 : "radio"
   0x000000ff0000-0x000001000000 : "nvram"

This means that DD-WRT firmware must be smaller than 0xee0000-0x40000 = 14976 KB (14.625 MB).

  • Do not flash builds after 33986 nor before 35452. They are too big and can overwrite the 'radio' partition!


[edit] Revert to OEM Firmware

WARNING: There is no webrevert file, and the other method to flash the C8 back to OEM has had mixed results.

  • Some have reported reverting to stock here and here using a specific file name and IP addresses: procedure.

[edit] Reset

Do not 30-30-30 reset ARM devices!


[edit] Installation

Tested: TP-Link Archer C8 V1 with TP-Link firmware: Archer C8_V1_150515

  1. Download DD-WRT firmware: factory-to-ddwrt.bin
  2. "Reset to factory defaults" via the OEM Archer GUI.
  3. Also from the Archer GUI, upload the factory-to-ddwrt.bin file.
  4. Wait at least one minute
  5. Access DD-WRT GUI at 192.168.1.1, set password, then GUI reset (Admin->Factory Defaults) again
  • v2 should use the same process, and the 'v1' file.
  • 33006 has also been tested.
  • v3 is an EU model. There is one report of a v3 running DD-WRT, but with no details.
  • No reports of a v4 (also EU). Warning: v4 has different flash size from v1-3.

More information and alternate download locations: FAQ: Where do I download firmware?


[edit] Recovery Mode

The v3 and v4 CFE has a built-in Webpage Firmware Recovery mode for bricked routers: see TP-Link article.
It may be possible to retrofit a v3 CFE onto v1/v2 models, but this is untested.


[edit] Notes

Forum model thread: Support for TP-Link Archer C8