Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2011 7:39 Post subject: DIR-615 C1 - revert r16454 to r16214 killed wireless
DIR-615 C1 worked fine with r16214. I tried flashing to 16454 from firmware management page and it gave me an upgrade failed message. So, I went to the firmware flashing window you get with 30/30/30 reset. I flashed via IE8 to 16454 using factory to ddwrt file and it looks like flash takes, lights indicate reboot occurs, but then after reset the router won't respond to ping and no wireless signal detected by laptop. However, lights on front look like everything is OK (including wireless light is on.)
So, I revert to D-Link firmware ver 3.13NA to try flashing to 16454 from that. It works but I noticed that the wireless light is off on the front of the router and no wireless connections happen. Wireless options in the GUI pages are present and state that it is turned on.
I try flashing to 16454 with factory to ddwrt file again with same result as above (and wireless light is on.)
So, I flash back to the original 16214 and everything works EXCEPT wireless. Not only do I not have wireless connections but all of the screens in DD-WRT GUI for wireless have disappeared. It is as if the firmware now thinks that I have a wired router with no wireless capability.
I searched and didn't find anything regarding this problem. Does anyone have any ideas on how to restore wireless functionality?
Sorry, I should have mentioned that before. I reset the 16214 build to defaults before flashing. When I tried to flash to 16454 build from firmware flash window in dd-wrt I selected to reset to defaults (but upgrade failed.) When I flashed 3.13NA I reset to defaults to see if that would fix wireless not coming on, it didn't. And finally, when I flashed back to 16214 I did 30/30/30 reset which resets firmware to defaults and I also did it from within dd-wrt for good measure.
Are there any other ways that I can get a better reset to defaults? Maybe that clears some other area of nvram that might be causing a problem? On http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Hard_reset_or_30/30/30 I read about using the commands 'erase nvram' and 'reboot' from SSH or telnet window. I have SSH set up and can try that but I'm hesitating to try this now because of the warnings listed about how on some routers it causes more problems than it fixes. Has anyone used those commands on a DIR-615 C1 successfully?
I went ahead and tried the 'erase nvram' and 'reboot' commands from a telnet window. The 'erase nvram' command works fine on DIR-615 C1; it seems to just do the same procedure that restoring factory defaults does from dd-wrt GUI. However, it did not restore my wireless function. GUI still does not have any wireless functionality; all settings are gone, bandwidth plot for wireless gone, etc.
For good measure, I tried again to restore to defaults before flashing 16454 and I still get the 'Upgrade failed.' message.
I tried flashing with the following firmwares to see if any would "wake up" the wireless capability; they are listed in order of flashing. Resetting to factory defaults was done before and after every flash.
dd-wrt b16212, dd-wrt b14896, D-Link 3.13NA, D-Link 3.12NA, D-Link 3.11NA, D-Link 3.10, then back to dd-wrt b16212. For all of the firmware everything works except the wireless.
With D-Link firmware the wireless options show up in the GUI but wireless doesn't work. Wireless is always enabled by default; all but one time I also saw wireless radio enabled in device info. One time it showed wireless radio off in device info (with it enabled); I went through wireless setup and then it showed enabled but still did not work.
With dd-wrt firmware all of the wireless options are gone in the GUI. No wireless setup, no wireless status, no wireless bandwidth. Even though the tab for it did not show up; I did try going to http://192.168.1.1/Status_Wireless.asp and here is what was shown:
MAC Address (was correct)
Radio Unknown
Mode AP
Network NG-Mixed
SSID Newton
Channel Unknown
TX Power 4547928 dBm
Rate Disabled
ACK Timing0µs (0m)
Encryption - Interface ath0 Enabled, WPA2 Personal
PPTP Status Disconnected
It has my SSID because I restored the settings I had saved for this particular build. Shouldn't the settings restore also have reset the other settings?
Here is specific info for my router:
Model - DIR-615
Part # - BIR615ANA....C1
H/W Ver - C1
FCC ID - KA2DIR615C1
IC - 4216A-IR615
I opened the router and the two Atheros chips are AR9130-BC1E (CPU) and AR8216-BH1A (switch).
Does anyone have any suggestions on anything else to try to restore wireless capability? Maybe some Unix level commands? Or have I had a hardware failure of the wireless circuit after flash to b16454?
Tried one more thing - I tried going to http://192.168.1.1/Wireless_Basic.asp but all I get is the three buttons at the bottom: Save, Apply Settings, and Cancel Changes. So, I can't try to set these values to something more reasonable like the 20 dBm I had for transmit power (default value).
Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 18:07 Post subject: same problem here
Just went trough a similar process and now the wireless radio is disabled on my DIR-615 C1. No matter what firmware I flash (dd-wrt/openwrt/DLink) the wireless radio shows no activity.
The wireless icon does briefly flash during startup but won't produce a signal.
Is it possible that the latest firmware has somehow cooked the wireless radio?
Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 5:30 Post subject: Re: same problem here
juandiablo wrote:
Is it possible that the latest firmware has somehow cooked the wireless radio?
Not cooked the radio but it has probably overwritten the board_config partition in flash which contains factory radio configuration. Radio won't work without that data. _________________ Kernel panic: Aiee, killing interrupt handler!
Well, you need someone with a working DIR-615 C1 to dump his caldata (aka board_config) partition then flash it on your own.
There are several problems though:
- The person with the working router must find where his/her partition is. It could be different depending on what firmware is currently installed on his/her unit. Assuming he/she's running dd-wrt, they can find out the correct partition from the kernel log and dump from /dev/mtdXro (where X is the partition number). For example, the output of my kernel log contains:
There are 8 partition in total numbered from 0 to 7 (redboot is 0, fullflash is 7). Therefore "board_config" is partition 6 and can be dumped from /dev/mtd6ro
- The person with the working router must have access to command line tools like dd to create the dump.
- The person receiving the dump will get his wifi MAC address changed to that of the sender's. If you want your original MAC back, you'll have to hex edit the dump before flashing.
- The person with the dead router has to go through the same process to determine destination partition and also have access to command line and dd tool.
The destination partition is /dev/mtdX (without "ro" this time).
I'm assuming you've read and understood the manual of dd, you know that you can read the kernel from dmesg, and that you know how to use an hex editor (that step can be skipped though).
Here is a board_config that has the mac addresses set to 00:00:00:00:00:00. they are at the end of the file in plain text. first one is your LAN/Wireless MAC, Second WAN MAC.
Experiencing an identical problem on a 615 C1 this morning. No wireless functionality under any firmware, including factory.
Can anyone post more specific instructions for fixing missing board_config information? I have a functioning telnet connection to the router with DD-WRT installed and logging enabled, but am not sure how to identify the right partition or how to dump the contents of the file.
The attachment I added has no mac addresses and needs the hexedited in(see above post). I believe it has it printed on the bottom of the router. Haven't looked at mine in a while, Just use it.
1. Telnet in.
2. # dmesg|less
2a. look for RedBoot. Redboot=0 so board_config should = 6
[ 0.410000] Creating 8 MTD partitions on "ar7100-nor0":
[ 0.410000] 0x000000000000-0x000000030000 : "RedBoot"
[ 0.420000] 0x000000030000-0x0000003e0000 : "linux"
[ 0.430000] 0x0000000fe000-0x0000003b0000 : "rootfs"
[ 0.430000] mtd: partition "rootfs" must either start or end on erase block boundary or be smaller than an erase block -- forcin
g read-only
[ 0.440000] mtd: partition "rootfs" set to be root filesystem
[ 0.450000] 0x0000003b0000-0x0000003e0000 : "ddwrt"
[ 0.460000] 0x0000003e0000-0x0000003f0000 : "nvram"
[ 0.460000] 0x0000003f0000-0x000000400000 : "FIS directory"
[ 0.470000] 0x0000003f0000-0x000000400000 : "board_config"
[ 0.480000] 0x000000000000-0x000000400000 : "fullflash"
3a. to dump to file named "board_config"
# dd if=/dev/mtd6ro of=board_config
3b. to write file "board_config"
# dd if=board_config of=/dev/mtd6
there are at least a couple of ways to get board_config onto router, wget and scp, are the 2 I know.
wget will connect to a webserver and retrieve a file.
scp will use secure-shell to copy the file.
Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 0:08 Post subject: No wireless
I flashed my Dir 615 c1 to DD-WRT and lost wireless I see your instructions above and I am a little confused where do you place the board_config file once you SCP into the router? Do you just copy it over the dump that you created?