Hi all,

I have the Archer C7 for a week now and 5GHz is very unstable, so bad that I'm better of with 2.4GHz. Using together with a 15" Late 2013 MacBook Pro, so 802.11ac.

Just installed the 140127 beta firmware hoping the issue would be solved, upgrading from the stable firmware (130729). I haven't thoroughly tested yet but the connection is still unstable, always showing a fine transmit rate and connection but then pages won't load. I'm using WPA2/AES encryption and UPnP is enabled.

I may be doing some more tests with my older MacBooks which only have 802.11n, to see if they also experience problems.

I'm hoping this will be resolved very soon, since 5GHz is too unreliable to work with which means a fallback to the much slower 2.4GHz is necessary.

Where do I get firmware 140127?

At least on the official homepage the latest one is from 2013...

webwude wrote

Where do I get firmware 140127?

At least on the official homepage the latest one is from 2013...

It's one page back, see this post.

In the meantime I have made some more observations, after updating to the latest beta firmware. I have not yet seen the transmit rate drop to 7Mbps, whereas that was always a problem before so that seems to be fixed.

The connection though is far from stable. I tried it with my 2008 MBP with 802.11n and it has the exact same issues, so it has nothing to do with the ac standard, nor OS X Mavericks since that Mac still runs 10.6.8. I am able to load some pages when the connection is broken, but not others (and I'm quite sure this is not an effect of browser caching). Also, the connection is broken for all devices at the same time.

I'm pretty sure this is a problem of inoperability between the Archer C7 and broadcom-based wireless cards on the 5ghz chunk of spectrum when AES in enabled.

The only device I have that has this setup is my laptop from work. I can confirm that the newest beta firmware didnt fix anything. Connection still there after a while, but no traffic gets through. Disabling AES on the connection and using MAC filtering isn't a good option, as it is not secure.

They said they knew there was a problem per an article posted on smallnetbuilder some time ago and that a fix was in the works. Still waiting...

slask111 wrote

Did you try with latest firmware 140127?

N standard 5Ghz AES, WPA2 works fine for me with new Bios. Been doing that for days now.

I think it's good on my end as well - Samsung Galaxy seems stable with the new firmware.

Maybe disabling IPv6 will solve the problem. (In IPv6 Support -> IPv6 Setup -> first checkbox)

I tried this today and my Macbook Air 2013 now connects to W-Lan ac at full 867Mbps. Is still have WPA2/AES enabled. There are a few slowdowns though but only for a second or two and only down to about 300Mbps.

aprz wrote

Maybe disabling IPv6 will solve the problem. (In IPv6 Support -> IPv6 Setup -> first checkbox)

I tried this today and my Macbook Air 2013 now connects to W-Lan ac at full 867Mbps. Is still have WPA2/AES enabled. There are a few slowdowns though but only for a second or two and only down to about 300Mbps.

Just tested but unfortunately it doesn't make a difference.

I too am having regular 5G hangs or disconnects with the Archer C7 which I have had for a about a month. Latest firmware, checked all the settings and suggestions in this forum. Sent a note to TP-Link today asking about any new firmware coming soon but I don't put out too much hope as this post has been going for months. Also, the router web interface seems erratic, not fully displaying pages or hanging, anyone else having that issue? So much for "top of the line"!

Anyone having performance issues with both 2.4Ghz as well as 5Ghz?

After initial setup, my laptop worked fine and performance was great, but my wife's Macbook Pro kept dropping internet connection (LAN access still worked). 5Ghz did not work at all. Additionally, I wasn't getting an IPv6 gateway address from my ISP (Comcast).

I tried upgrading to the latest beta. That appeared to fix the IPv6 gateway issues, but the Macbook keeps dropping its internet (but not LAN) connection on BOTH 2.4 and 5 GHz. I also have a tablet with Broadcom Wifi that has the same thing happen.

What's worse, the one device that was working great, my laptop with an Intel wifi adapter, is now terribly slow over wireless. File transfers from wireless to wired are around 1 MB/s and speedtest.net receive rates are around 5 Mbps! On wired file transfers across the LAN (to another wired system) are 30 MB/s+ and speedtest.net receive rates are 20-30Mbps.

I really like the features built into this router, but it looks like I'm going to have to return it. I'm pretty skeptical that they'll be able to support DD-WRT on it.

Dominick wrote

Hm... I'm not sure then. I haven't experienced any of the issues I was experiencing before. Perhaps it's because I'm not using the AC network? Since I only have a mid-2012 MacBook Pro.

Hi Dominick, what's the OSX version are you using? Have you updated the OSX and SMC and EFI? Is the mid-2012 MacBook Pro with retina display? Thanks!