Please consider ath10k (non-ct) drivers instead of ct

[Thomas Reiser]

Discussion is here: https://forum.openwrt.org/t/please-consider-ath10k-non-ct-drivers-instead-of-ct

*** I was directed to the mailing list and kindly ask you to have a look, Thank you! ***

Hi,

I've now waited a long time to observe why my Archer C7 v2 and v5 units got bad performance on 2.4 GHz and sometimes complete crash of the WiFi drivers while the LAN interfaces are still working.

It all seems to boil down to OpenWrt's decision to include ath10k-ct drivers instead of ath10k (non-ct) drivers since 19.07.x releases.

Since then, many users including me according to the below referenced topics have the same issues, e.g.:

2.4 GHz download speed is capped around 10 MBit/sec.
ath10k driver crashes, requiring "rmmod ath10k-pci; sleep 10; insmod ath10k-pci;" or "reboot" to make the router work again.
5 GHz max bandwidth is a lot slower than with non-ct drivers, but still okay
the feeling "of less WiFi range", because devices that are further away seem to have trouble connecting at 1st try. For me, standing at the exact same distance, I've observed my devices connecting fine.
It's a "mysterious" story since then, because I've read a lot of threads here (and participated myself), I feel like 80% of the feedback I got for my "ath10 non-ct builds" was "hey, my WiFi problems with the Archver C7's were solved thank you." and the rest like "not sure - or it's the same like with ct drivers".

This leads me to kindly ask you to consider including ath10k (non-ct) drivers in the next upcoming major OpenWrt releases. It would save me and other people the effort to build a new OpenWrt image ourselves whenever a new official stable commit is available as release. I'd hope to use the official built images again in the future and also advise other people to use them. You are really doing great work on OpenWrt!

Thank you.

Kind regards

References:

https://forum.openwrt.org/t/archer-c7-v2-bad-wifi-range-5-ghz-since-19-07-0/
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/archer-c7-v2-massive-problems/
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/tp-link-archer-c7-v2-poor-wifi-performance
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/archer-c7-v5-tx-power-changes-and-candela-tech-drivers
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/ath10k-pci-000000-0-swba-overrun-on-vdev-0-skipped-old-beacon
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/state-of-archer-c7-v2-in-mid-2020/
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/archer-c7-2-4-ghz-wireless-dies-in-24-48-hours/