Gargoyle Forum

Several days after a fresh TFTP flash (gargoyle_1.3.8-ar71xx-wndr3700-squashfs-factory.img), my Wireless->WAN traffic slows to an absolute crawl (500-1500ms pings, as slow as 5kb/s speed tests).

Ethernet->WAN performs completely fine (15ms pings, 2.8MB/s speed tests), but the weird thing is that wireless traffic within the LAN works fine too (about as fast as one would expect 802.11 G/N pings/transfers to go).

Right when this happens, I might add, my QOS rules get broken (which is why I, at first, thought this was related to QOS). My rules, which are normally set to max u/d of 2500/22000, get dropped to 320/3200. If I turn off QOS, or attempt to fix the limits on the QOS page, the problems persist. Restoring "default settings" doesn't help.

This has happened about three times so far in the past couple weeks, and the only fix is to reflash via TFTP, which I'm about to do once again. Is there anything I can do to troubleshoot, log, or otherwise help in finding the cause of this when it inevitably happens again? I'm liking Gargoyle way better than any other firmware I've tried, so I'd really like to avoid going back to DD-WRT if possible.

Thanks!

I have a few comments for you that I hope can set you on the right track.

1) I have not heard of this issue before and I do not know what the problem might be and doubt anyone else will.

2) Have you examined the logread and dmesg ouput? I suggest that once your router is in this state that you examine those both before and after reboot for something suspicious.

3) Have you any comments about the memory situation in your router? Have you observed it to be near capacity? What is the maximum number of connections you have set?

4) After flashing make sure that you do not install any packages and if possible disable any optional features in Gargoyle that you do not need. If you can get stability then you can start adding things back one at a time and find the offending item.

Right now you don't report much information that could help identify the problem. I am afraid that you will have to dig harder to come up with the clue that will lead to the solution.

edit: removing no-longer-relevant troubleshooting


Unrelated, two problems I've noticed with the WNDR3700:
- Mentioned here. On Connection->Basic, wireless always shows as "Disabled", despite the radio working fine. If you select "Access Point(AP)" from the drop-down, it shows the current SSID/encryption. But upon a refresh, it
still says Disabled.

- Mentioned here. When I set a Restriction based on an IP (rather than MAC), it blocks WAN connections for *all* clients. I think MAC restrictions work, but specifying an IP seems to cause problems. I only tried this a couple times, and I wasn't filtering based on BitTorrent like the other user--I was attempting to block the machine completely.

I did some more thorough testing tonight, and was able to reproduce the problem on both Gargoyle and OpenWRT (where previously I was unable to). I tested stock Netgear firmware and DD-WRT, and they reamin unaffected. I'm betting it's something to do with OpenWRT's wireless driver, a problem with my individual hardware, or likely a combination of the two.

Thanks for the help and suggestions. I will investigate this further, possibly get an RMA if I'm able, and hopefully someday I'll be able to use Gargoyle again.