Dd-wrt does not support the 5ghz card on the archer c7 hardware version v1.1. For old versions of dd-wrt after installing dd-wrt you must turn off the router and remove the 5ghz card or the router will brick. May 2, 2017 - Install the factory-to-ddwrt from this link below and than install gargoyle ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/2017/-r31899/tplink_archer-c7-v2/.
Intro
If you want to revert back to stock TP-link firmware from custom firmware, most of the time you can not flash the TP-Link firmware directly from the official TP-Link website.
The reason for this is that most of the downloadable firmware from the TP-Link website contains a so called bootloader section in front of the actual firmware.
Normally when upgrading the official (not the custom) firmware this is fine of course, the official software on the router provided by TP-link takes the bootloader into account
and handles or uses it properly so that your device keeps working.
Ac1750 Dd Wrt
However the custom firmware, like OpenWrt Gargoyle and DD-wrt (and probably others) only suspect an firmware image that doesn't contain a bootloader
and try to flash this extra data in the place of the spot in the memory where the firmware goes. That simply doesn't fit, resulting in a router that does not want to start up anymore
Because it is sometimes hard to find out how to remove the correct section of the firmware or to find and execute those instructions at all, I decided to create an unofficial
TP-link firmware download page that has no boot loader part anymmore. This means that the image can be flashed without worrying if there is still a bootloader within the image or not.
On most custom firmware variations out there the image downloaded from here can be flashed trough the webinterface, however some versions (like DD-wrt) need some extra steps that
are explained on the DD-wrt website.
Downloading & Unpacking
Find the correct router model and version, simply click on the link to download the zip archive. After you have downloaded it you have to open the zip archive and extract it's contents.
Inside the archive you find 3 files:
- readme.txt
- md5sum.txt
- The firmware image
The readme.txt includes a short description and what portion has been removed.
The md5sum.txt includes the md5sum of the image file, you can test if the firmware image has been damaged or not while downloading (optional)
And the firmware image, this image you can use to restore the official TP-link software on the router.
Latest firmware
On a regular bases I check if there are new firmware images that can be added from the official TP-link website, also when I do that I also check if there are newer versions of already
listed firmware images. If that is the case I replace the existing ones with the newer ones, so that this list has the latest firmware and new devices.
Updated on
Tp Link Dd Wrt
01:27 AM (GMT) - 01 August 2017
Archer C1200 Dd Wrt
So I’ve recently relocated for work, and have moved across the States for a bit 🙂
As part of the transition, I’ve had to get a new apartment, and took the opportunity to re-work my internet stack. I had a really poor experience with my last cable modem, the Motorola SB6141 – it kept rebooting every 45 minutes or so, and after reading numerous threads full of people having similar issues, I don’t think I was the only one – so I decided to jump ship on the Motorola modems and try something new.
I found the Zoom 5370 after I had used the older model to replace my failing SB6141 at my previous residence. I don’t *need* the extra overhead (The model I just bought is 16×4 channels instead of 8×4) as my plan will likely be one of the lower service tiers to keep cost down, but I figured I’d get it anyway to future-proof my purchase 🙂
So far, the modem has been spectacular! It’s the stability I’ve come to know and love from the Zoom modems, at a price point that’s competitive. It reminds me of what I *used* to know the Motorola Surfboards for, it’s just a bit of a jump for a lot of people who had come to trust the Motorola brand. I *highly* recommend giving this a shot if you’re in the market for something new and have a supported cable provider (Comcast or Time Warner I can personally vouch for, not sure who else this works with).
Beyond that, I went with a router that I’ve had a great experience with before, the TP-Link Archer C7. While the last time I bought this and used it I kept the stock firmware on there, I decided that this time I was going to flash it with OpenWRT and use that, despite the fact that there is a known slowdown from WAN -> LAN ports. I followed these instructions, which were spot on but used a different TFTP server as I was doing this from a windows box.
After the first flash attempt, the router never successfully rebooted. I saw the successful transfer of the OpenWRT firmware, but then things kinda stopped. It would reboot, but instead of coming back up fully, I’d just get the power light, and the single ethernet port light that my cable was plugged into. The TFTP firmware update method worked like a charm, despite it looking like I had just bricked my brand new router, and I was able to use that same process to get the stock TP-Link firmware back up and running :). I was disappointed that things didn’t work the first try, I was  but I was determined to make this work.
After a frustrating few hours, I finally got fed up with trying every stable version OpenWRT (Most recent version is Chaos Calmer 15.05.1) or DD-WRT (I tried these just in case) and went off to download a nightly build of OpenWRT. To my amazement, it loaded and worked the very first time! Of course, I had to ssh to the router and install LuCI, the OpenWRT GUI, but otherwise the setup was flawless. Had I read the ‘notes’ in the Quickstart Guide on the OpenWRT wiki first, I would have seen that newer versions of the Archer C7 have a new flash chip that requires a nightly build of OpenWRT, instead of the most recent ‘stable’ build. Live and learn I guess 🙂
Oh, one last thing! To get 5ghz WiFi working you’ll also need to install the ath10k drivers and firmware. You can do it via SSH by typing:
Dd-wrt Download Firmware Upgrade
opkg update && opkg install kmod-ath10k ath10k-firmware-qca988x
Or by installing the two packages – kmod-ath10k and ath10k-firmware-qca988x – from the LuCI GUI in the admin console, then rebooting.
Just thought I’d post and get some good info out there as a google search during my unsuccessful flashing didn’t yield any meaningful results. If your TP-Link Archer C7 isn’t rebooting properly after a flash with OpenWRT, at least you’ll know what’s up 🙂