Newbie questions with WR841ND

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damamm
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Jun 22, 2014 3:25 pm

Newbie questions with WR841ND

Post by damamm »

Greetings fine people,

I'm new to installing customs firmware on routers (never did before), so I have a few newbie questions. I did try reading the documentation and searching forums, but I either didn't find what I need in the mass of posts or just didn't find something clear enough.

My router is a TP-Link TL-WR841ND V8.1 running stock firmware.
I'll be as straightforward as I can:
1) Am I supposed to use this download from the downloads page? gargoyle_1.6.1-ar71xx-generic-tl-wr841n-v8-squashfs-factory.bin
2) Can I simply install it from the WebUI?
3) In case things goes bad and I want to revert, what am I supposed to do to revert it to stock?
--I did try reading the documentation I could find on OpenWRT's page (clicky), but I wonder if it applies to reverting from Gargoyle's as well.
--The steps on that page doesn't use a WebUI. Can I revert from the WebUI? I have no idea where am I supposed to enter those commands, and don't want to risk my router trying to learn it.
4) Are the routers the same regardless of country versions? Mine is a TL-WR841ND (BR), which came with a BR firmware. Won't I have problems installing Gargoyle, and/or reverting to a stock english firmware?

and just in case, anyone else with the same router/version around who can share the experience?

I'd appreciate very much any help.
Thanks in advance!

ps: in an unrelated note, some links on the bottom of the Installation Guide are broken

omiez
Posts: 70
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2012 10:12 am

Re: Newbie questions with WR841ND

Post by omiez »

Hello damamm

I will try to answer all your questions.

1) This is the formware you need to first flash your router, yes. After this use the upgrade files when a new version is ready.
2) Yes flash from Web Ui and wait 5 minutes and you are fine.
3) In case of bad flash you can use a usb ttl cable if your router does not respond anymore, but this will not happen if you do all like described and reverting from Gargoyle to Original is not possible via Web/Ui but it is simple when you understand how to do it. There are some guides in the forum and if you need a cut firmware for revert i make it for you.
4) All routers all the same in Hardware regardless the country where they are selled and you can even go back to your original language,

I am in Brazil too and i use two WDR4300 a TL-WR842ND and some TL-WR740N with no problems.

damamm
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Jun 22, 2014 3:25 pm

Re: Newbie questions with WR841ND

Post by damamm »

Thank you for the answers!

I've successfully installed the firmware and had no outstanding issues, but I do have an issue that is annoying me very much. Allow me to summarize:

>I have a 60mbit internet download link.
>This router is supposedly 300mbit capable.
>I have a wireless N laptop and adapter on another desktop, which are 150mbit.

>When using cable connection, I can easily reach 7,5mb/s on torrents downloads, and I will not run into higher pings/lost packets unless I saturate my connection, when I'm around 7,0mb/s.

>Signal, walls, distance, etc, is a great issue here, and because of that, I am unable to utilize my full link on any single station I have.
on my Desktop, I get around 40mbit (downloads at ~4.5mb/s) and on the laptop it varies, but is in general worse.

Now, the issue: say I'm downloading torrents at 4,0mb/s on my Desktop.
I have well over 20mbit available of my internet link before it saturates.

BUT, on my other stations (which are not saturated, nearly idle), even when the signal is very good (like laptop right next to the router), I will start losing packets and having greatly increased pings on them.

That would be natural on my Desktop, where I'm saturating it's local connection, but NOT on my other stations.

This doesn't make sense, and is a great annoyance.

QOS seems to be pointless in this situation, as it is intended to prevent saturation of my internet link... which is NOT saturated (both up & down). I don't want to throttle my torrents unless I have less than 10mbit for browsing.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!!

omiez
Posts: 70
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2012 10:12 am

Re: Newbie questions with WR841ND

Post by omiez »

Helllo my friend.

Throughput questions i will better leave to some expert. There are many factors that can influence the wireless signal.

First thing you can do is to look if the channel you are using is occupied by some other wireless near you and change channel.

60 mega is a lot and the routers used on higher adsl speeds and i saw people using Netgear hardware performing better on high speeds.

pbix
Developer
Posts: 1373
Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2009 5:09 pm

Re: Newbie questions with WR841ND

Post by pbix »

I think you are saying that if one Wifi client is saturating the Wifi the other Wifi clients also are affected. Is that correct?

All stations are sharing the same radio signal and cannot transmit or receive at the same time. Furthermore, it is my understanding that all stations must operate at the speed of the slowest station. So for example if one station is far from the router and only able to connect at 1mb/s then all stations will have to operate at this lower rate. This can even occur when another router is operating on the same channel as your router. They must co-operate in regards to the radio signal they share and will affect each other's performance.

If you have further questions about Wifi operation it would be best if you post over at OpenWRT.org since they are the ones who developed this part of the design.
Linksys WRT1900ACv2
Netgear WNDR3700v2
TP Link 1043ND v3
TP-Link TL-WDR3600 v1
Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH2
WRT54G-TM

damamm
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Jun 22, 2014 3:25 pm

Re: Newbie questions with WR841ND

Post by damamm »

Hi, thanks for the replies and sorry for the late answer.


I'm no expert on wireless, but regarding all the stations having to operate at the speed of the slowest, that certainly can't be the case. Most often I have a couple very slow devices on the network (like smartphones and so) and others running on other speeds, as shown by the "Connected Hosts" page (some at 1.0-2.0mbps speeds and others at 70+mbps).
Not to mention some stations are G only, and others still connect on N speeds.

Upon some more tests, I found out I can't reach my internet speed (60mbps) even when placing the laptop right next to the router and it being the only connected client (optimal conditions).
It really feels like the wireless speed is overall capped on the router, far from the supposed 300mbps/150mbps speeds. Rather annoying. On cable it works fine.

I'm not sure if this could be faulty hardware, something with openwrt's firmware or just really bad product quality (tplink selling a G router labeled as N or something).

I'll follow your lead and give a try on OpenWRT's forum then as soon as possible.

Thanks once again!

danymarc
Posts: 104
Joined: Mon Nov 18, 2013 5:51 pm

Re: Newbie questions with WR841ND

Post by danymarc »

damamm wrote:My router is a TP-Link TL-WR841ND V8.1 running stock firmware
Question, did you ever tried the 60mbit internet download with stock FW cause this is a trouble model and you read a lot of issues on TL forum on this model.

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ericwong
Posts: 430
Joined: Sat Aug 25, 2012 6:15 am
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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Re: Newbie questions with WR841ND

Post by ericwong »

For wireless speed, check you are using 40Mhz for channel width and not 20Mhz. This can double or half your WIFI speed.

For single antenna router, you will only get 150Mbps connection speed if you set your channel width to 40Mhz. Same idea for dual antenna and so on.... Google WIFI channel width for more info.

Check your computer's connected speed, it sounds like you are running on 20Mhz channel width to me because you seems to be hitting the maximum for a single channel 20Mhz transfer speed.
Eric Wong

PM me if you need to buy Gargoyle router in Australia/NZ, willing to pay me to help you on your Gargoyle configurations or build custom configured ROM with pre-installed app or try to fix your bricked router. Yes, I am looking for job/work.

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