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[SOLVED] TP Link WR1043ND - Setting up

Posted: Sun May 29, 2011 10:57 am
by belbo
I've just installed 1.3.14 on a new TP Link WR1043ND v1.8 (with a bit of drama, see http://www.gargoyle-router.com/phpbb/vi ... f=6&t=1357).

The objective is to improve wireless performance for streaming tv shows and movies from my mythtv media centre in the lounge room to the eeepc 901 laptop (wireless g) in the bedroom. I'm currently using a Linksys WRT54GL (also running gargoyle).

I'm not sure if my issues may be related to my installation dramas. I have reinstalled 1.3.14 since recovering the WR1043ND via telnet.

Firstly, my original installation was from stock firmware using the sysupgrade file. This was according to the instructions on the wiki. However, I'm wondering whether I should have used the factory file (and if not, what is that file for?).

Second, I'm not sure what setting to use for the wireless operation mode - Auto, B+G or N+B+G (I only have G clients and have not used an N router before) nor for the channel width (20 or 40 MHZ). The wireless performance at the moment seems pretty slow (under a few combinations of the above settings).

Third, my Connected Hosts and Wake on Lan pages are blank.

I see there are a couple of posts on the above topics. I suppose I'm looking for some basic guidance, an indication of whether my situation is normal and I should try the fixes proposed in the threads, or whether I should try restoring to stock and then installing gargoyle again (factory file ?) - perhaps v13? Or whether it is possible to / I should try downgrading to v13?

Re: TP Link WR1043ND - Setting up

Posted: Mon May 30, 2011 12:26 pm
by foreverstorm
Is the WRT54GL involved? You're just going from the MythTV through the WR1043ND to the Eeepc right? Your problem is probably related to the Eeepc being slow. I don't see why Gargoyle would matter, you'd probably get the best performance for the least effort out of the stock firmware in this case.

Re: TP Link WR1043ND - Setting up

Posted: Mon May 30, 2011 9:43 pm
by belbo
Thanks. I will give the stock firmware a go, but the whole point in buying this router was because it was in the list of working and tested routers for gargoyle - which is what I want to use.

The issue isn't related to the pc being slow, since it works fine with the WRT54GL. (The WRT54GL isn't involved when I'm using the WR1043ND - I bought it to replace the WRT54GL).

Some posts seem to indicate issues with wireless on the WR1043ND (which is dissapointing given it is in the list of tested routers). However, I have a couple of things to try first. ie Go back to stock and see how wireless works with that, then flash with factory.bin and see how that goes - I flashed from stock with sysupgrade.bin (since the wiki installation instructions said to use that from stock - but that appears wrong).

Re: TP Link WR1043ND - Setting up

Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 3:00 am
by foreverstorm
If you like you can give what Doritos suggested to me a go http://www.gargoyle-router.com/phpbb/vi ... f=8&t=1340, and use his firmware.

I would suggest running the router and thus everything else in your network in wireless G mode (not N) as well. Hopefully in the next build or two whatever wifi issues there are with the WR1043ND atheros chipset will be fixed - so if you have to use stock for the performance issues don't lose hope.

Try downloading inssider as well to find a clean channel in case neighboring signals are interfering.

Re: TP Link WR1043ND - Setting up

Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 4:42 am
by belbo
Thanks.
give what Doritos suggested to me a go

I am planning to do so. Only concern with downloading and installing that is that there are no md5sums to check against.
I would suggest running the router and thus everything else in your network in wireless G mode (not N) as well.

Will give that a go. I don't actually have any N clients at the moment. From what I've read an N router should provide better performance with G clients, and apparently the whole network doesn't slow down to G as is commonly believed. Do you know any more about this?
Hopefully in the next build or two whatever wifi issues there are with the WR1043ND atheros chipset will be fixed - so if you have to use stock for the performance issues don't lose hope.
Yip. Hopefully will be sorted before too long. I can use alternatives for the functions I use in gargoyle at the moment (until my kid is older when the whitelist / blacklist functionality will be really useful).
Try downloading inssider as well to find a clean channel in case neighboring signals are interfering.

Will look into that. Thanks. I have linux and android wireless channel scanning software which I use. We live in an apartment so there are loads of other networks around. Nevertheless streaming SD video is still pretty good with the WRT54GL, so I'm hoping it will be even better with a properly-operating WR1043ND.

Re: TP Link WR1043ND - Setting up

Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2011 9:21 am
by belbo
Just an update to say I reinstalled the stock firmware and then flashed dorito's factory.bin. I'm very pleased with how this router is performing.

It turns out that the eeepc I'm using as a mythtv frontend in the bedroom is actually the 1000HE (not the 901 as stated previously - not good working and posting on this stuff late at night) - and it does have N.

So far (2nd day) streaming even 1080i tv recordings to the bedroom frontend is working beautifully. I have played back SD tv recordings at 1.3x normal speed without any problems(at 1.5 x I got the brief occassional freeze). Ad-skipping, fw/rw and jumping through the show work virtually as well as watching on the combined fronend / backend machine that hosts the recordings.

BTW, I'm using the router in combined BNG mode at 20W with WPA PSK encryption.

Also, I should mention that I'm pretty sure that what I previously thought were performance issues of the router / firmware were actually independent but coincidental client machine / user issues (as well as not being able to verify connected hosts on the router).

Thanks for the assistance and the great firmware and apologies for any (probable) misinformation regarding performance issues with the 1.3.14 sysupgrade.bin firmware.

I'm marking the thread as solved.

belbo

Re: [SOLVED] TP Link WR1043ND - Setting up

Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2011 5:44 am
by fidjit
Glad to see Dorito's firmware is working for you.

I'm not so lucky . Reflashed last night, within 24 hours was having wireless connectivity issues again and after a reboot it lost my PPOE login details :oops:

Back to my WRT54G V2.2 with Gargoyle again, but that seems to have wireless issues as well just weekly rather than daily so I've tried to include a reboot at least once a week.

The WR1043ND is back to stock just in case I get sick of rebooting.

Wonder if it's related to the hardware version ?? Mines v1.8 , what's everyone elses ???

Re: [SOLVED] TP Link WR1043ND - Setting up

Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 12:09 pm
by IeU
Im on OpenWRT with Luci and want to get Gargoyle and want to start "fresh". Should i go back to factory then go to Gargoyle?

Or is it possible to go from OpenWRT(LucI) direct to Gargoyle . . . ? (Want to "wipe" everything and start "fresh")

Thanks.

Re: [SOLVED] TP Link WR1043ND - Setting up

Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 5:28 pm
by DoesItMatter
IeU wrote:Im on OpenWRT with Luci and want to get Gargoyle and want to start "fresh". Should i go back to factory then go to Gargoyle?

Or is it possible to go from OpenWRT(LucI) direct to Gargoyle . . . ? (Want to "wipe" everything and start "fresh")

Thanks.
Gargoyle is a GUI replacement plus added features to OpenWRT.

Gargoyle has OpenWRT underneath.

You can flash back/forth from OpenWRT -> Gargoyle from the GUI

Re: [SOLVED] TP Link WR1043ND - Setting up

Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2011 2:46 pm
by IeU
DoesItMatter wrote:
IeU wrote:Im on OpenWRT with Luci and want to get Gargoyle and want to start "fresh". Should i go back to factory then go to Gargoyle?

Or is it possible to go from OpenWRT(LucI) direct to Gargoyle . . . ? (Want to "wipe" everything and start "fresh")

Thanks.
Gargoyle is a GUI replacement plus added features to OpenWRT.

Gargoyle has OpenWRT underneath.

You can flash back/forth from OpenWRT -> Gargoyle from the GUI
Thanks, should i use factory or sysupgrade . . .?