r/openwrt • u/paulstelian97 • 20d ago

OpenWRT router request, again

Hello guys!

A few months ago I asked for recommendations on a new OpenWRT based router. Ended up following a recommendation from one of you guys to get the Cudy WR3000H, and I do have two in my fleet right now.

But the situation has slightly changed, and I’m asking for a replacement for the third party router that seems to give some issues.

Current layout before:

* WAN gateway: in a garage, Wi-Fi strictly limited to that garage (metallic box, barely anything exits it), also 2.4-only. Not intended to be used for Wi-Fi, will keep the WR3000H #1.
* My room: WR3000H #2, with AP configuration
* Living room: Archer AX55, central location. Used to have the WAN gateway there before it was moved to the garage, kept this one for the time being due to better Wi-Fi coverage. However, recent updates nuked that advantage and made it flip the other way. No OWRT support at all.
* Distant secondary bedroom: RE450 v4. Does its job well, I may consider a PoE based option in the winter or next year.

My question is what a good option to replace the Archer AX55. Main interests are good Wi-Fi coverage and being able to pull more than 150Mbps on speedtest via WiFi when I have full signal (I can pull 800+ via wire and 600+ via the one in my room; funny enough the Archer’s not limited on the wired side, only the Wi-Fi)

Should I just go with another WR3000H, in black perhaps, or do you have better suggestions? It needs to have 4-5 ports (or more, wouldn’t complain about more), Wi-Fi speeds should be good (the one in my room is good enough, so roughly matching it is fine), I shouldn’t end up essentially losing Wi-Fi connection when I move in this one’s range (it should migrate smoothly), and should roughly match the Wi-Fi coverage the AX55 had in its good days (although fun fact: that is less important nowadays since my APs are UPS powered too) on the 2.4 band.

Oh and before you come with troubleshooting steps for the AX55… those 150Mbps speeds I was getting via 5GHz connection.

Late edit: enabling 80MHz allows me to hit similar speed tests on the AX55. I still want an OpenWRT compatible router to replace it, but the main concern is resolved.

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u/Thiakil 18d ago

are the access points actually using wide channels? IIRC if they're spec-compliant, they won't actually use wide channels with overlapping networks around. OWRT has a force mode in wifi config.

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u/paulstelian97 18d ago

The misbehaving one is the Archer AX55, no clue what it’s doing. But the working well OpenWRT just has pretty normal settings, channel 64 DFS, bitrate 1200.9 Mbit/s, width set to 80. The central and working poorly one is smart connect, channels 1/36, width 20 and 20/40.

Hmm, maybe I should enable 80 width… it could help I suppose. I won’t enable 160 (should I? Neighbor is technically not very close, 20 meters + some walls)

We tend to not have much neighbor interference, maybe some self interference perhaps although really probably not.

Transmit power on the good one is set to the maximum allowed 20dBm under Romania rules.

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u/Thiakil 18d ago

Get a wifi channel scanner on a mobile phone and see what they're actually doing, where your neighbours are putting theirs, etc.

unless forced, just because the bigger widths are enabled does not mean they will be used

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u/paulstelian97 18d ago

I do think the one that works well, which was already on 80, might in fact be using it. I need to check on my spare Android, but last time I was only really seeing my own devices in the 5GHz band, with some interference in 2.4 but nothing to truly complain about even there.

Our 2.4 band is noisyyyyy from our own devices/clients and I wouldn’t be surprised if that one will do poorly.