Gargoyle Forum

I've just bricked one of my Archer A7 V5 routers so I now don't have a spare. Upgraded it to 1.14, been fiddling with DNS settings to try and work around an external issue, suddenly the 2.4G wifi network vanished overnight, and settings for 5G wifi vanished in the user interface (though I could still connect to it). A reset to factory settings made no difference, so I tried reflashing, but after that I couldn't make the guest network operate and I got a load of new/weird settings for what appeared to be some sort of radio connection that I'd never seen before. I then tried to reflash back to TP-Link original firmware to start over again and put 1.13 on it (I'd been using 1.13 for a couple of years with no issues) and it's sulked completely, I can't get it into failsafe and I'm now not even sure if I am trying to recover TP-Link firmware or OpenWRT .... I have no idea what went wrong but I think it's cooked. It might be a hardware failure, though this is the newest of them.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem that you can still buy these routers anywhere that I can get them shipped here, otherwise I'd just get another one. Knew I should have got a spare spare

So I need a new one/new spare. I will soon be upgrading to Starlink as our country should support it early next year and ideally I want something that is stable operating Gargoyle, and will play nicely with a V3 (flat fixed dish with the kickstand) Starlink unit, and is readily available. Any good recommendations for something that is either readily available in the UK, or available from B&H in New York (they'll send to me by DHL) please? I did a search but didn't find much related to Starlink. Thanks.

Edit: I'm struggling a bit to navigate the compatibility lists but for example would something like the TP-Link Archer AX55 work well with Gargoyle? I don't need anything super-fancy in terms of performance, even once we get Starlink (which will be a huge upgrade on external bandwidth, I'm currently living with 7Mbps on a good day....)

You can browse through currently supported devices here in the downloads
https://lantisproject.com/downloads/gar ... TExMyJdXX0

No router will support Starlink more or less than another in general. You're just going to be a DHCP client to it most likely.

AX55 is definitely not supported (and not any time soon either).
Without knowing your budget it is difficult to comment, but the Netgear WAX206 is similar in price to the ax55.

BogMonster wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 18, 2024 4:52 am

I'm struggling a bit to navigate the compatibility lists but for example would something like the TP-Link Archer AX55 work well with Gargoyle? I don't need anything super-fancy in terms of performance, even once we get Starlink (which will be a huge upgrade on external bandwidth, I'm currently living with 7Mbps on a good day....)

A router has to be supported by OpenWrt (supported devices) before Gargoyle can support it, and at the correct OpenWrt release for a given Gargoyle release (e.g. the current Gargoyle 1.15 beta is based on the OpenWrt 23.05 release branch, 23.05.5 at this moment).

The Archer AX55 is currently not supported by OpenWrt at all, so that's a no-go. Pretty much any recent device with Broadcom chips is not a good prospect, and there is only limited support at this time for some recent Qualcomm chips (the qualcommax target in OpenWrt). Devices with Mediatek chips are probably the best supported by OpenWrt at the moment, specifically those with mt7621 (ramips target) and filogic (mediatek target) chipsets.

Before purchasing any device, be sure to find the OpenWrt initial flashing instructions as many newer devices unfortunately have more complicated initial flashing procedures which you may not wish to engage with. I'd also generally recommend not updating the manufacturer firmware if you intend to flash Gargoyle, as manufacturer updates not infrequently invalidate the documented flashing procedures . After finding a device supported by OpenWrt, check the 1.15 beta info (the downloads link is at the bottom of the post).

Some devices I know about: if you can do without USB, the TP-Link Archer AX23 v1/v1.2 is supported (and there's a Gargoyle 1.15 beta build for it). The gl.inet GL-MT6000 is well supported and easy to flash; the Asus RT-AX59U, TUF-AX4200 & TUF-AX6000 are also supported and can be flashed fairly easily with a third party created initial OpenWrt "factory" image (I have an RT-AX59U running Gargoyle installed this way).

Thanks, I hadn't really thought about the fact that the OpenWRT support was patchy and that it was a prerequisite to Gargoyle.

My price range - up to $120 or so, and throughput around what the A7/C7 I current use brings (1750Mbps) is more than enough for current and likely future needs. I'll have another look. After looking again at TP-Link recovery, I think there might be some mileage in trying TFTP recovery on the old A7 as when you power it up with the reset button pressed, you get the double arrow symbol on the front panel as described, so I think it's essentially back to factory but not happy with the US V5 firmware I downloaded (not sure why as it should be right - it is a US v5.8 model). Somewhere I think I saved the OpenWRT files I used when I first flashed this one (which was a bit of a journey involving some brickery too) so I know those worked once upon a time...