Overclocking RT-AC56U

[RMerlin]

650Mhz in an Asus Merlin N66u
Anyone else overclocked this router?

Overclocking the RT-N66U requires CFE 1.0.1.3 or newer.

Are you positive it's really running at that speed? Check the bogomips:

cat /proc/cpuinfo

Also, basic benchmarking tool:

openssl speed aes-256-cbc

 

[RMerlin]

It won't prove much since VPN use one core only. You would have to disable HW acceleration and max out the router's WAN speed (240Mbit) downloading huge files all the time. But as you have 10x slower WAN it is not possible. I am on 200Mbps so won't stress it enough as well...... or perhaps I could run VPN excluding some devices, disable HW acceleration and max out WAN speed on excluded devices, while on the other max out VPN speeds

I implemented OpenVPN so that client1 uses core 1, and client 2 uses core 0. So if you set up two clients (or two servers), they will each use a different core.

 

[RMerlin]

Also if you run "top", the CPU column will tell you which core runs what. Asus is forcing Samba on core 1 so that way disk sharing will use a different core from a lot of the other services which will sit on core 0. I believe routing itself might mostly be tied to core 0 (but don't quote me on this, we'd need a Linux kernel expert to confirm that).

A lot of the rest is spread across both cores. Asus has been spending a good amount of time fine tuning the firmware for SMP support. There's still potential room for improvements, but they aren't just blindly letting the kernel run anything randomly at least.

 

[cvx01]

Overclocking the RT-N66U requires CFE 1.0.1.3 or newer.

Are you positive it's really running at that speed? Check the bogomips:

cat /proc/cpuinfo

Also, basic benchmarking tool:

openssl speed aes-256-cbc

On N66U, looks like it has no effect. The bogomips did not change. 299.82 BogoMIPS before and after. Although, the sysinfo tab says 650 MHz, which may just be reading the NVRAM variable. I'm guessing since we're already running at max proc speed, we can't go above 600.

 

[oversim]

On N66U, looks like it has no effect. The bogomips did not change. 299.82 BogoMIPS before and after. Although, the sysinfo tab says 650 MHz, which may just be reading the NVRAM variable. I'm guessing since we're already running at max proc speed, we can't go above 600.

Yes
Yesterday I changed nvram value, but I did not realize I had to take a look at bogoMIPS value...
In fact I don't notice any speed improvement, so I asked in this 3ad if anyone changed clock of N66U...
Ok ok.. No overclock for us

 

[Sky1111]

Overclocking the RT-N66U requires CFE 1.0.1.3 or newer.

Are you positive it's really running at that speed? Check the bogomips:

cat /proc/cpuinfo

Also, basic benchmarking tool:

openssl speed aes-256-cbc

I run first command on mine and I got the following:

Processor : ARMv7 Processor rev 0 (v7l)
processor : 0
BogoMIPS : 2398.61

processor : 1
BogoMIPS : 2398.61

Features : swp half thumb fastmult edsp
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 7
CPU variant : 0x3
CPU part : 0xc09
CPU revision : 0

Hardware : Northstar Prototype
Revision : 0000
Serial : 0000000000000000

what does that all mean?

 

[Sky1111]

and for benchmark:

Doing aes-256 cbc for 3s on 16 size blocks: 5298660 aes-256 cbc's in 2.98s
Doing aes-256 cbc for 3s on 64 size blocks: 1473282 aes-256 cbc's in 3.01s
Doing aes-256 cbc for 3s on 256 size blocks: 380765 aes-256 cbc's in 3.00s
Doing aes-256 cbc for 3s on 1024 size blocks: 95997 aes-256 cbc's in 3.00s
Doing aes-256 cbc for 3s on 8192 size blocks: 12042 aes-256 cbc's in 3.00s
OpenSSL 1.0.0j 10 May 2012
built on: Sat Aug 24 22:13:38 EDT 2013
options:bn(64,32) rc4(ptr,char) des(idx,cisc,16,long) aes(partial) idea(int) blowfish(ptr)
compiler: arm-brcm-linux-uclibcgnueabi-gcc -fPIC -DOPENSSL_PIC -DOPENSSL_THREADS -D_REENTRANT -DDSO_DLFCN -DHAVE_DLFCN_H -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -DTERMIO -O3 -Wall -DOPENSSL_BN_ASM_MONT -DSHA1_ASM -DSHA256_ASM -DSHA512_ASM -DAES_ASM -DGHASH_ASM
The 'numbers' are in 1000s of bytes per second processed.
type 16 bytes 64 bytes 256 bytes 1024 bytes 8192 bytes
aes-256 cbc 28449.18k 31325.60k 32491.95k 32766.98k 32882.69k

again - what does that mean?

 

[RMerlin]

type 16 bytes 64 bytes 256 bytes 1024 bytes 8192 bytes
aes-256 cbc 28449.18k 31325.60k 32491.95k 32766.98k 32882.69k

again - what does that mean?

It means that when calculating blocks encrypted with AES-256, it's able to process 28449 x 1000 bytes per second. That is obviously CPU-dependent, so it allows you to compare at different clock rates.

 

[RMerlin]

I run first command on mine and I got the following:

Processor : ARMv7 Processor rev 0 (v7l)
processor : 0
BogoMIPS : 2398.61

processor : 1
BogoMIPS : 2398.61

Features : swp half thumb fastmult edsp
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 7
CPU variant : 0x3
CPU part : 0xc09
CPU revision : 0

Hardware : Northstar Prototype
Revision : 0000
Serial : 0000000000000000

what does that all mean?

Bogomips is a very rough approximation of processor performance. I suggested it so the user trying to overclock his RT-N66U can confirm if the number changes at all when overclocking.

 

[RMerlin]

On N66U, looks like it has no effect. The bogomips did not change. 299.82 BogoMIPS before and after. Although, the sysinfo tab says 650 MHz, which may just be reading the NVRAM variable. I'm guessing since we're already running at max proc speed, we can't go above 600.

There's also the fact as I pointed out that CFE below 1.0.1.3 will prevent you from changing clock rate, since the CFE is unable to read the value that you entered in nvram, always setting the clocks to the default values.

 

[oversim]

There's also the fact as I pointed out that CFE below 1.0.1.3 will prevent you from changing clock rate, since the CFE is unable to read the value that you entered in nvram, always setting the clocks to the default values.

So there is no way to overclock a N66U... Ok thanks

 

[RMerlin]

So there is no way to overclock a N66U... Ok thanks

There is if your router shipped with 1.0.1.3 or newer, or if you upgrade the CFE manually. There's a procedure posted on the forums by ryzhov_al, however be warned that it carries the risk of definitely bricking your router.

 

[Sky1111]

I implemented OpenVPN so that client1 uses core 1, and client 2 uses core 0. So if you set up two clients (or two servers), they will each use a different core.

Hi Merlin, I saw the setting for VPN Client 2, but was unsure... does this mean we can use two VPNs at the same time???

if yes, how it will route the internet traffic?

 

[oversim]

There is if your router shipped with 1.0.1.3 or newer, or if you upgrade the CFE manually. There's a procedure posted on the forums by ryzhov_al, however be warned that it carries the risk of definitely bricking your router.

Ok.. I'm brave I'll try to upgrade the boot loader

 

[RMerlin]

Hi Merlin, I saw the setting for VPN Client 2, but was unsure... does this mean we can use two VPNs at the same time???

if yes, how it will route the internet traffic?

Manually configuring routing will be up to you if you configure two clients at the same time.

Most common use is to have both clients configured, but you only connect with one at a time. Handy when having a backup tunnel provider, or experimenting with different configurations.

 

[oversim]

Ok.. I'm brave I'll try to upgrade the boot loader

Updated, but BOGOMips and openssl speed benckmark result are the same..

 

[Sky1111]

For N66U users, this might help with the values. Below is for the N66, so perhaps they are similar?

"where 600 (MHZ) is CPU freq, 300 - memory freq, 150 - backplane bus work frequency."

http://www.linksysinfo.org/index.php?threads/overclock-rt-n66.38326/

Does anyone know what is default frequency for backplane bus for AC56U? is it 150?

 

[dirobaro]

Link to working rt-n66u pia configuration

I'm having great difficulty getting the rt-n66u to connect with the pia servers using latest merlin firmware. Been trying a few guides found on the net. Can anyone please recommend a working guide?

 

[Sky1111]

I'm having great difficulty getting the rt-n66u to connect with the pia servers using latest merlin firmware. Been trying a few guides found on the net. Can anyone please recommend a working guide?

I will try to help later today - share my settings, etc.

 

[Sky1111]

Please see screenshots attached... works fine for me.

Once suggestion: under server address, you need to insert the one you prefer to connect (i.e. fastest speed or geographical location)

Pls. let me know it worked for you.