Wifi 2.4ghz mode, only G+N or N, c2600 and r7800

[ActionHenk]

Hi,

I just bought an tp-link archer c2600 and a netgear r7800.

Flashed them both with gargoyle 1.14 factory and then 1.14 sys upgrade.

Everything is good but, on both routers i can't choose b+g+n mode at "2.4GHz Operation Mode"
The only options are g+n or g..

In their original firmware the option is there. I have some problems now with 2.4ghz IOT devices that I'm not sure of, if there related to the wifi mode. This is on the c2600. I haven't tested the r7800 yet, as it just came in today i only just flashed the r7800 to check if it gave me the b+g+n mode, but also this one didn't.

On the archer c7 (gargoyle 1.10) i had b+g+n mode at 2.4ghz and didnt have problems.

Is there an option to force b+g+n mode?

Thanks.

[Lantis]

A modern IoT device shouldn’t need 802.11b mode…
If you want to try enabling it, identify the wifi radio number in the config associated to 2.4ghz, say it is radio0
uci set wireless.radio0.legacy_rates=1
uci commit wireless
wifi

These legacy rates are disabled by default in the latest versions.

[ActionHenk]

Thanks for your reply!

There mostly all esp8266 devices, specs say they do 2.4 ghz b, g, n so indeed it shouldn't be an issue.

Guess i have to search somewhere else for the problem.

[Lantis]

You can try it and see if it improves the behaviour, but in theory it shouldn’t.
ESP devices are notorious for having shoddy wifi though…

The only other suggestion would be to try without SAE/WPA3, i.e. use WPA2 only, if you aren’t already.

[ActionHenk]

Yes, still using wpa2.

Now i installed the r7800 router, same problem.

A few esp devices response very slow on mqtt messages, or they don't respond at all to mqtt, but i can reach the esp webinterface and i can still control them from there.

Also it seems that sometimes i can't reach there webinterface. Its almost as if the firmware or the esp's itself is crashing somehow.

I think i go back to the archer c7 for now to see if the problem still excists.

About the shoddy wifi, actually i never had any problems with the esp chips until now and in my personal experience their more stable then any z-wave of zigbee device i have. Btw i checked the info page on all esp's and indeed they all use N.

Maybe it has something to do with ipv6, since i went from gargoyle 1.10 (c7) to 1.14, although as of now i can't see any ipv6 connections.

[ActionHenk]

Ok, i removed the r7800 and connected the archer c7 back again (didn't reset the c7 so all settings are still intact) and it seems the problems are gone, well at least for now. All ESP's response like they should be.

The next days i will closely watch if the problems will come back or not. Still have no clue what is going on here.

I thought maybe some wifi device could mess up the whole wifi network because there isn't wifi B 2.4ghz.

One last note, on the c2600 and r7800 i had set the 2.4ghz transmit power on 30 dBm. I didn't had this option on the c7, and so the transmitting power on the c7 was always set to 25 dBm.

So in the past i readed about a to high transmission power could lead to distorted signals and mess up your whole wifi network. Could this be my problem? It seems plausible.
That will probably my next test, try 25 dBm transmit power on the 2.4ghz band on the c2600 and r7800. For now i will just test if the problems stay away.

Thanks as always for your help!

[ActionHenk]

Well all was still stable with the archer c7 today.

So i started testing again with the r7800 and gargoyle 1.14, now with low transmitting power on the 2.4 ghz band. I tried 14, 20 and 25 dBm, but no succes, the problems stay.

I was really hoping for this solution. Anyway, i started further testing.

Tried with 2.4ghz 20 mhz channelwidth, no succes.
Disabling the 5 ghz radio (maybe interfering with the 2.4ghz radio who knows), no succes.
changing wifi channels, no succes.

Downgraded the r7800 to gargoyle 1.13, didnt migrate settings, made all settings by hand, no succes.
In gargoyle 1.13 i can activate 802.11b again, and i did, no succes.

I'm really out of options here.
One last test i will try is upgrading the archer c7 from gargoyle 1.10 to 1.14 to see if the same problems also start on the archer c7.

[ActionHenk]

One last test i will try is upgrading the archer c7 from gargoyle 1.10 to 1.14 to see if the same problems also start on the archer c7.

Tested the archer c7, upgraded it from 1.10 to gargoyle v1.14 and didn't migrate settings, made al settings by hand and now i also have the same problems on the c7. Restored it multiple times to default configuration and tried again but the problems stay on 1.14.

So i downgraded the c7 to 1.10, loaded my backup and it all does work again.

[pythonic]

You might try the 1.15 beta build (available here) to see whether that changes anything.

[ActionHenk]

Thanks, gonna try that one