First the background. I purchased the router because a cursory glance of the OpenWRT compatibility list showed both 1.2 and 2.0 as supported, so I thought it a safe bet. Deeper research before attempting to flash uncovered two issues disallowing an easy transition to Gargoyle.
- Starting December of last year, the v2.0 hardware changed(a new flash chip was used) with no version bump...so if the serial is 215C or later, old builds brick the router(possibly soft brick, but regardless, it no longer works). Support for the new version was added in 1.9.1, so use that version and all is well.
- The router also came with a US specific new firmware 3.14.3 Build 151014. It apparently preemptively implements proposed FCC safeguards against installing 3rd party software. So, simply trying to flash from the stock UI threw an error back.
- Downloaded Gargoyle 1.9.1
- Downloaded OpenWRT build from http://luci.subsignal.org/~trondah/arch ... actory.bin
- Rename OpenWRT build to ArcherC7v2_tp_recovery.bin
- Downloaded TFTP 32 bit from http://tftpd32.jounin.net/tftpd32_download.html
- Followed directions for TFTP de-brick Alternative section at https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wdr7500
The flashed succeeded and the OpenWRT build linked has UI, so I was able to login and flash the latest gargoyle from there. Couple minutes later I was presented with my familiar purple admin page...
So far, everything looks good. 2.4 and 5Ghz wifi are functioning as expected.