Netgear xr500 your experiences with this router.

[RMerlin]

It’s an R7800 with NetDuma software additions basically. Same hardware.

And same base software (OpenWRT). NetDuma's features sit on top of it.

 

[Find the Door]

And same base software (OpenWRT). NetDuma's features sit on top of it.

Is it inevitable that it will some day be flash able to Open?

 

[Killhippie]

It’s an R7800 with NetDuma software additions basically. Same hardware.

I find it odd though that on firmware the updates for the XR500 it does not mention incompatibilities with Intel and HT160. So either they forgot to mention that (possible) or somethings else has changed (maybe)

 

[avtella]

I find it odd though that on firmware the updates for the XR500 it does not mention incompatibilities with Intel and HT160. So either they forgot to mention that (possible) or somethings else has changed (maybe)

Same QCA9984 WiFi firmware they probably just forgot to copy and paste the issue note. HT160 works with the 9260ac (9260ac supports HT160) and it doesn’t cause dropouts on the 8265ac. Only the 7260ac had the drop out issues when HT160 was enabled.

 

[RMerlin]

Is it inevitable that it will some day be flash able to Open?

Doubt it, since Qualcomm is generally quite opensource-hostile. OpenWRT requires that the wireless driver be available open source.

 

[avtella]

It (R7800) works fine on OpenWRT at least in my experience, QCA9984 and other Qualcomm firmware are usually updated by Kavalo if I am not mistaken. Granted some proprietary features won’t work. Candela Tech also have modified Qualcomm firmware. Newer Broadcom chips on OpenWRT don’t even have proper WiFi function as that company seems far more obstructive than Qualcomm according to devs. DD-WRT however has contacts Broadcom I believe which may allow usage of their proprietary WiFi chip firmwares.

For the XR500, all you need to do is make changes to the DTS file to accommodate for flash layout and change the board ID via telnet to the R7800 and it will work with LEDE firmware that was meant for the R7800, pretty sure it should be the same for DD-WRT. I’m too lazy to look into the required DTS changes but there are helpful people on the LEDE (OpenWRT) forum who can probably help you with that.

 

[e38BimmerFN]

You can flash XR500 to R7800. One posted this file over on myopenrouter. Seems to work very well.

 

[XVortex]

Yeah. If you want to test dumaos before buying xr500 you can do it on r7800.
very interesting system, not very stable/fast yet (voxel’s is way better), but time will tell.

 

[Killhippie]

Yeah. If you want to test dumaos before buying xr500 you can do it on r7800.
very interesting system, not very stable/fast yet (voxel’s is way better), but time will tell.

As in the port is not stable? DumaOS is fast and stable in the XR500. The version on the r7800 I believe is different to take into account the smaller anount of flash nand in the r7800. Avtella I think knows more about that.

 

[Killhippie]

You can flash XR500 to R7800. One posted this file over on myopenrouter. Seems to work.

I’ll avoid the 400 errors and QoS blank pages on the r7800 firmware it’s been happening ever since netgear did a security update with certain configurations. Last version before those issues started was 1.0.2.38 Hopefully that will be fixed sooner rather than later. Once again I think Avtella knows more about this too.

 

[e38BimmerFN]

As in stable FW. I loaded this on mine. No issues seen. Plenty of resources left. I still have to test wireless. There is another acquaintance whos loaded it on his. Maybe he'll post his wireless results.

As in the port is not stable? DumaOS is fast and stable in the XR500. The version on the r7800 I believe is different to take into account the smaller anount of flash nand in the r7800. Avtella I think knows more about that.

 

[e38BimmerFN]

I've already posted this to NetGear Guy who knows about all this. Were still waiting for the AP mode problem to be fixed as well. Has been no movement on the NG front though. Yes the last good working version of FW seems to be v.38 or prior.

Its nice to have alternatives though.

I’ll avoid the 400 errors and QoS blank pages on the r7800 firmware it’s been happening ever since netgear did a security update with certain configurations. Last version before those issues started was 1.0.2.38 Hopefully that will be fixed sooner rather than later. Once again I think Avtella knows more about this too.

 

[avtella]

As in the port is not stable? DumaOS is fast and stable in the XR500. The version on the r7800 I believe is different to take into account the smaller anount of flash nand in the r7800. Avtella I think knows more about that.

You can change board ID and flash but the flash memory layout changes would cause issues if you use the XR500 firmware on the R7800. Granted the XR500 doesn’t use all the flash, but there are changes in the partitions if I am not mistaken.

 

[XVortex]

My R7800 DumaOS port has proper flash layout and do not require to change any ID’s. You can flash it directly from the GUI and return to stock if necessary.
Overall stability is good, but dumaos binaries are compiled by NG with outdated gcc and without specific hardware optimisations keys so it has not best perfomance.

 

[avtella]

My R7800 DumaOS port has proper flash layout and do not require to change any ID’s. You can flash it directly from the GUI and return to stock if necessary.
Overall stability is good, but dumaos binaries are compiled by NG with outdated gcc and without specific hardware optimisations keys so it has not best perfomance.

Nice that you ported without need for ID change.
Our test R7800’s came with changed board ids during the XR500 test and we had to change it back to use stock R7800 firmware post test. We recieved modified XR500 firmware post test which I assume was just DTS file changes to accommodate last minute flash increase. It’s the same board effectively just id changed on the XR500. The underlying firmware (ie WiFi chipset and switch) other than the Duma stuff is the same so don’t expect WiFi performance differences by switching to this firmware. Though XR500 trades 5Ghz performance for 2.4 GHz performance which I’m guessing is due to minor differences with the antennas.

 

[rbird2]

As in stable FW. I loaded this on mine. No issues seen. Plenty of resources left. I still have to test wireless. There is another acquaintance whos loaded it on his. Maybe he'll post his wireless results.

 

[rbird2]

OK these posts got me interested so I gave it a try on my R7800.

I like the interface and QOS features much better than standard Netgear and it ran very well on my R7800.

The only problem I found was I could not get access to my eSATA drive via Readyshare. I'm sure this is due to the fact that the Netgear xr500 does not have eSATA, only two USB 3.0 ports.

If the eSATA drive had worked, I would be tempted to keep it installed. Back to Voxel's excellent R7800 Firmware.

 

[Killhippie]

I've already posted this to NetGear Guy who knows about all this. Were still waiting for the AP mode problem to be fixed as well. Has been no movement on the NG front though. Yes the last good working version of FW seems to be v.38 or prior.

Its nice to have alternatives though.

I have sent my R7800 to a friend that needed it but does not use QoS, I reported issues to Netgear Guy too. But several versions later and it still had the same issues, 1.0.2.46 did nothing to fix the 400 errors and blank pages in QoS. Similar issues have appeared with other Netgear routers I have noticed I'm, guessing that was a security issue with Netgears interface possibly and they had to make a wide sweeping change which left issues with parts of the GUI orphaned possibly, this should have been caught once again in QA.

 

[pege63]

Yeah. If you want to test dumaos before buying xr500 you can do it on r7800.
very interesting system, not very stable/fast yet (voxel’s is way better), but time will tell.

Does is work just in Router mode, i have it in AP mode and i have the ip to it but its just goes on and on?!

 

[XVortex]

Seems your issue is not new. It was discussed here
idk that it was solved or not.
try to clear the browser cache first.