Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2012 14:20 Post subject: Re: RT-N66 Replacement
LOM wrote:
This has nothing to do with the kernel running on the routers cpu.
The microcontroller internal to the wifi/radio chips is not part of the linux kernel and is btw not user programmable.
Thanks - and apologies for OT - I remember now the drivers include the microcode for the wifi, hence the use of the "cutter" to extract in Linux desktop tools. But wouldn't be surprised with ARM taking over routers in the future - just like it has in mobiles and I just received a Raspberry PI with its Broadcom SOC with ARM core....
Posted: Sun Jun 10, 2012 22:58 Post subject: back with another dumb question
regardless of what firmware i'm using (stock or dd-wrt), if i connected 2 n66u's WIRED, would I need any sort of special setups on either router in order to allow for both routers to send out the same ssid and allow wireless connectivity to both?
Joined: 31 Aug 2009 Posts: 2448 Location: Third Rock from the Sun
Posted: Sun Jun 10, 2012 23:36 Post subject: Re: back with another dumb question
furlonghokie wrote:
regardless of what firmware i'm using (stock or dd-wrt), if i connected 2 n66u's WIRED, would I need any sort of special setups on either router in order to allow for both routers to send out the same ssid and allow wireless connectivity to both?
Hmmm. That is annoying. It is only $20 more than the RT-N66U. Which arrived two days ago. I ignored it because I had seen posts about how expensive it was.
Would it be possible to get a wiki on hiw to install dd-wrt on this router? I've seen a couple write ups in this post but I would feel a lot more confident if it came from an "official" source.
Maybe someone is planning to, just waiting on Asus to fix the nvram issue first?
I would like to see the nvram issue fixed, however looks like the asus camp is working on 802.11ac, I hope that router has more than 32k nvram... Its been a quiet month from them
Has anyone heard any update from ASUS as to when they might be able to release a new firmware? I had my RT-N66U lose all the settings the other day and I am guessing it was an NVRAM issue.
I am also interested to find out if Asus are going to fix this (properly).
I am going to be in the market for a new router in the next couple of months and I have been following this thread for some time now. I went through the DD-WRT supported list for quite some time researching the right router and eventually arrived on Asus. I'm a long standing Netgear user and have used DGTeam on my DG834. At first, I was thinking about the N16.. which would probably suit me fine, but it's not dual band. Then I moved onto N66U but now with the announcement of the AC66U, i'm not sure :/
Hopefully this NVRAM issue will get sorted soon... and also I hope the AC66U has 64K out the box....
"The implementation of 64KB NVRAM is not done via CFE. The CFE remains 32KB because only the firmware restore is done there so if we changed it, it would fail. The CFE being 32KB shouldn’t cause a problem though as far as I know. If there are any particular concerns you have regarding the CFE, let me know and I’ll check with our R&D.
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: Physically mapped flash: CFI does not contain boot bank location. Assuming top.
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: number of CFI chips: 1
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: cfi_cmdset_0002: Disabling erase-suspend-program due to code brokenness.
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: Flash device: 0x2000000 at 0x1c000000
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: Creating 5 MTD partitions on "Physically mapped flash":
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: 0x00000000-0x00040000 : "pmon"
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: 0x00040000-0x01f40000 : "linux"
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: 0x0013b400-0x01280000 : "rootfs"
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: 0x01f40000-0x01fe0000 : "jffs2"
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: 0x01fe0000-0x02000000 : "nvram"
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: Found an serial flash with 0 0KB blocks; total size 0MB
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: sflash: found no supported devices
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: _nvram_init: allocat header: 2280914944, size= 32768
The NVRAM is allocated to 32768...
I'm not familiar with everything involved but it appears it's creating partitions in the flash... seems you could just increase the partition size but surely it's not that simple
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: Physically mapped flash: CFI does not contain boot bank location. Assuming top.
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: number of CFI chips: 1
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: cfi_cmdset_0002: Disabling erase-suspend-program due to code brokenness.
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: Flash device: 0x2000000 at 0x1c000000
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: Creating 5 MTD partitions on "Physically mapped flash":
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: 0x00000000-0x00040000 : "pmon"
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: 0x00040000-0x01f40000 : "linux"
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: 0x0013b400-0x01280000 : "rootfs"
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: 0x01f40000-0x01fe0000 : "jffs2"
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: 0x01fe0000-0x02000000 : "nvram"
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: Found an serial flash with 0 0KB blocks; total size 0MB
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: sflash: found no supported devices
Dec 31 19:00:06 kernel: _nvram_init: allocat header: 2280914944, size= 32768
The NVRAM is allocated to 32768...
I'm not familiar with everything involved but it appears it's creating partitions in the flash... seems you could just increase the partition size but surely it's not that simple
I have posted on this before: hacking the kernel to see more than 32k if the CFE doesnt support it is bad... Here is what happens:
Jun 19 21:05:19 Panic: Error writing to block 0x010e01ea
Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception in interrupt
Joined: 31 Aug 2009 Posts: 2448 Location: Third Rock from the Sun
Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2012 16:44 Post subject:
ellnic wrote:
I just got an email from Asus:
"The implementation of 64KB NVRAM is not done via CFE. The CFE remains 32KB because only the firmware restore is done there so if we changed it, it would fail. The CFE being 32KB shouldn’t cause a problem though as far as I know. If there are any particular concerns you have regarding the CFE, let me know and I’ll check with our R&D.
The AC66U does have 64KB NVRAM."
Of coarse there is a problem, there is not enough of it for this router. _________________ Peacock Thread-FAQ -- dd-wrt Wiki
Asus released the GPL sources for the RT-AC66U firmware (3.0.0.4.140). I only had a few mins to browse through it before leaving for work, but I noticed a new build option that's enabled by default:
NVRAM_64K=y
Interesting note: target.mak sets this option by default for both the RT-N66U and RT-AC66U. Makes me wonder if the AC66U wouldn't also have its CFE configured for 32K, and be entirely relying on the firmware part to address the whole 64K.
In theory, a 32K CFE shouldn't be an issue as long all the hardware-related settings in nvram are found in the initial 32K. Just like, for example, old PC boot loaders couldn't boot an OS if the partition was beyond the first few gigs of disk space, but the OS was fully capable of addressing the whole disk space.
For third party firmwares, this would probably require to look at Asus's code to figure out how they handle the nvram extension. It's possible they locate the partition signature, and extend that to 64K instead of 32K to determine the end location. I'll probably know more once I get the chance to study the build 140 sources more in depth.