What makes TPLINK units so bad?

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Blebekblebek
Posts: 17
Joined: Fri May 11, 2018 10:24 pm

What makes TPLINK units so bad?

Post by Blebekblebek »

I've been happy user of gargoyle for almost 4 years.

Every units that I have has been headache (stock firmware) and every time I look up there are so many people experiencing the same thing, wireless not responding, freeze, these problems is very common.

I own 6 tplink unit
-MR3220
-MR3420
-WR740ND
-WR1043ND
-CPE210 (2x)
Which unfortunately 2 of it isn't being supported by gargoyle. every single of them have common problem which is wireless timeout, and timeline is very similar.

It use to be once a week, then gradually worse until it timeout randomly in an hour.

I used to think " oh well, maybe it was the time to replace it " but every time I replace it with new one the same problems repeated it self (it was the moment with WR1043ND)

I had enough, was about to get another brand and tinkering with gargoyle since I have nothing to lose, magically the problem seems solved, out of curiosity I also pick every old units I have and I flash everything with gargoyle and voila, it's been running for weeks and I don't even have to schedule my self to reboot it, it just works, but why? what make it so special/different?

Sure I have to reboot once in a while to reconnect my samsung and iphone, it seems both phone have problem reconnecting to wireless access point after it goes to sleep mode, and so far this is the only problem I have randomly.

Alexbrewer
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun May 20, 2018 1:40 pm

Re: What makes TPLINK units so bad?

Post by Alexbrewer »

I also have problems with my TP-Link TL-WR1043N/ND v3. I am currently running 1.10.0 but have had the same problem with the last few updates as well.

The unit is working just fine, but then decides that all the WiFi devices need to be disconnected because of inactivity. It is theme like a waterfall and disconnects everyone and the said goes away. This is cured by rebooting the router.

I tried scheduling an automatic reboot, but that didn’t help.

I found a few threads that implied it may be in the WiFi chip itself ... maybe overheating?

I still don’t have a plan to fix it, only to put up with it.

lilunxm12
Posts: 13
Joined: Sun Aug 23, 2015 4:40 pm

Re: What makes TPLINK units so bad?

Post by lilunxm12 »

It really depends. eg. C7v2 is one of the more popular openwrt compatible ac devices. It's solid and offers great price/performance ratio.
I have 3 TP-LINK devices (1041N,841Nv9 and C7v2) that works great. I do own a 845N that has issue like yours, but note that it has lower spec (16M ram, no openwrt, only stock vxworks)
For a long time (maybe pre 2015?) TP-LINK is known for low cost but not that solid product. They also had a record to make great initial revision to gain reputation and then roll out newer cut down revision so people pick revision carefully. I don't know those model you mentioned but I guess you may just bought low spec models or cut-down revisions.
That being said, 1043nd should work okay. If I were you, I would flash old stable gargoyle (1.6.x and 1.8.x) to see if issues go away. The hardware is kind of outdated.

tapper
Moderator
Posts: 1076
Joined: Sun Oct 13, 2013 5:49 pm
Location: Stoke-on-trent UK

Re: What makes TPLINK units so bad?

Post by tapper »

I have 1043nd wdr3600 x2 and a c7 v2 all work fine. The most stable build of Gargoyle is 1.9 IMO.
Linksys WRT3200ACM
NETGEAR Nighthawk R7800
NETGEAR R6260

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