Here is my 5 year old Linksys router:
I was trying to make my WRT54G router to become a repeater, or an extender of our current signal here in our house because my other router, WRT160N’s signal can’t still get through our thick walls, using a third party software DD-WRT.
This router brings back a lot of memories, including the first-wireless-setup, WEP-hacking, accidentally-pushing-the-reset-button, DynDNS setup, blocking certain social networking sites, and blocking-my-siblings-MAC-address-when-they-are-pissing-me-off and lots of other memories. It was still fully functional yet I broke it. I haven’t even fully explored and tried the different features to reconfigure this router because I don’t have enough knowledge yet about networking.
You may notice that my router is opened, via this video from Youtube on how you can open yours. The reason it’s open is that I’m trying to unbrick/debrick it, physically – sort of a last resort.
As soon as I’ve heard about the DD-WRT firmware, credits to my EE 298 class, a firmware with lot more of built-in tools and features not featured in the Linksys default firmware (a Linux-based firmware for several wireless routers, most notably the Linksys WRT54G (including the WRT54GL and WRT54GS)). I tried to “flash” and install it my router. But flashing the said firmware isn’t just uploading the firmware through the default 192.168.1.1 -> Administration -> Firmware Upgrade. There are certain steps to followed, you can just wiki or Google it for version 5. Unfortunately, there are a lot of downfalls and risks to be considered first before flashing. And I am included, with the unfortunate ones, who made a mistake, and have a permanent hardware-failure router. As you can see in the image, it’s already opened trying out the last resort by grounding the 16th pin.
At step 16 of this step by step of this procedure – flashing a DD-WRT firmware, no error was encountered, even though I waited for 20 Earth minutes. Just right after power-cycling it, the power light just never stopped blinking – which is a sign of faulty flash.
I tried a lot of steps by:
- turning it off and off quickly, so that the whatever’s in the NVRAM would reset
- 30-30-30 hard reset
- Grounding pin 16.
- following the steps in dd-wrt forums, help page
- Also, the instructions at my friend’s blog
No more solutions found. Well, I haven’t tried using the J-tag cable solution yet, but I don’t any more want to waste my resources and time that still has only a slight chance of unbrick-ing my router.
So this is a goodbye, well it was just playing, trying to learn, exploring lot of options, experimenting, and UNLEASHING THE POWER of my router. According to Wiki, version 5 isn’t really compatible with most of the 3rd part softwares, and DD-WRT has a special page dedicated to the said version, it must have been a clue to me that a great amount of risk will be present upgrading my router to another firmware!
Long-live WRT54Gv5 router!
