I imagine I could make my own cable from a USB cable, no? I could solder on small alligator clips and isolate/insulate the pins with a bit of electrical tape.
Anybody know the wire colours/functions in a USB cable?
My unit is a v1, so I don't know specifics for v2. That said -
The quickest, easiest way to interface with the bricked unit will be using the USB to RS232 adapter. If you live near a store that has one on the shelf, you can buy it for about $10 US. This method works.
I spent a long time, made a few variations of homemade USB to serial cables and had very little success - I was able to make some sort of connection with the device, but was unable to properly address and reconfigure the bricked unit until I used the adapter I bought.
There are other threads on here that have pictures of the pinout configuration on the router board. To my knowledge, the pinout for USB is standard, and there are also threads on here with that info, but a web search will return the same info, probably more easily than searching all the threads on this bulletin board.
As to which build to install after debricking, I followed tsynik's advice, which is to flash using Kong's initial build - its a small size and that does matter - then flashed to Kong's 24200 build and had no problems.
Good luck. _________________ General Beringer: Goddammit, I'd piss on a spark plug if I thought it'd do any good!
I later had time to do some reading when not in such a rush and got it a little more sorted. I do not know of any place in the Greater Toronto Area that carries the RS232 adapter, so I ordered one from eBay - less than 2 bucks shipped. It'll take two weeks or so, but will give me something to do over the holidays. As well, even if I could locate the part locally, driving around here is so hideous now that ordering stuff online just makes sense.
Once I get the device, I am going to have to figure out how to do what you did on OS X Terminal rather than the hyperterminal you used, but that's small details.
I will do the sequence of builds to get me going again. This has been a good lesson in "slowing down to speed up" a mantra we use in my business that I forget in my own life.
I finally got my USB-ttl cable Thursday or Friday, and this afternoon set out to see about reviving this WNDR4500V2.
I attached it to my wife's Win7 laptop (OS X instructions are hard to come by.)
In Hyperterminal, with fiddling, I got it to communicate. However, it won't do much, if I understand what's going on, it boots, loses communication, boots again. See the terminal log below - there are several iterations of this in a row. What's next?
CFE for WNDR4500 version: v1.0.4
Build Date: Mon Jan 14 16:04:19 CST 2013
Init Arena
Init Devs.
Boot partition size = 262144(0x40000)
Found an ST compatible serial flash with 32 64KB blocks; total size 2MB
Found a Samsung NAND flash with 2048B pages or 128KB blocks; total size 128MB
et0: Broadcom BCM47XX 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet Controller 5.100.138
CPU type 0x19749: 600MHz
Tot mem: 131072 KBytes
Device eth0: hwaddr E8-FC-AF-8C-44-B6, ipaddr 192.168.1.1, mask 255.255.255.0
gateway not set, nameserver not set
Checking crc...Loader:raw Filesys:raw Dev:nflash0.os File: Options:(null)
Loading: ....... 4166348 bytes read
Entry at 0x80001000
Closing network.
Starting program at 0x80001000
Linux version 3.10.60-rc1 (root@localhost.localdomain) (gcc version 4.1.2) #1 We
d Nov 19 11:02:08 IST 2014
CPU revision is: 00019749 (MIPS 74Kc)
Found an ST compatible serial flash with 32 64KB blocks; total size 2MB
found nvram at 1F0000
something wrong here. do not remap
Determined physical RAM map:
memory: 07fff000 @ 00000000 (usable)
Zone ranges:
Normal [mem 0x00000000-0x07ffefff]
HighMem empty
Movable zone start for each node
Early memory node ranges
node 0: [mem 0x00000000-0x07ffefff]
Primary instruction cache 32kB, 4-way, VIPT, I-cache aliases, linesize 32 bytes.
Primary data cache 32kB, 4-way, VIPT, cache aliases, linesize 32 bytes
Built 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping on. Total pages: 32511
Kernel command line: console=ttyS0,115200 root=1f05 rootfstype=squashfs noinitrd
init=/bin/sh
PID hash table entries: 512 (order: -1, 2048 bytes)
Dentry cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
Writing ErrCtl register=80000f50
Readback ErrCtl register=80000f50
Cache parity protection enabled
Memory: 125064k/131068k available (3123k kernel code, 6004k reserved, 668k data,
296k init, 0k highmem)
NR_IRQS:128
CPU: BCM5300 rev 1 at 600 MHz
bcm947xx_clockevent_set_mode: 1
bcm947xx_clockevent_set_mode: 3
console [ttyS0] enabled
Calibrating delay loop... 299.82 BogoMIPS (lpj=1499136)
pid_max: default: 32768 minimum: 301
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512
NET: Registered protocol family 16
bio: create slab <bio-0> at 0
PCI: Initializing host
PCI: Reset RC
PCI: Initializing host
PCI: Reset RC
PCI: scanning bus 0
PCI host bridge to bus 0000:00
pci_bus 0000:00: root bus resource [io 0x0000-0xffff]
pci_bus 0000:00: root bus resource [mem 0x00000000-0xffffffff]
pci_bus 0000:00: root bus resource [bus 00-ff]
PCI: Fixing up bus 0
pci 0000:00:05.0: bridge configuration invalid ([bus 00-00]), reconfiguring
pci 0000:00:06.0: bridge configuration invalid ([bus 00-00]), reconfiguring
PCI/PCIe coreunit 0 is set to bus 1.
PCI: Fixing up bridge
PCI: Fixing up bridge
PCI: Enabling device 0000:01:00.1 (0004 -> 0006)
PCI: Fixing up bus 1
PCI/PCIe coreunit 1 is set to bus 2.
PCI: Fixing up bridge
PCI: Fixing up bridge
PCI: Enabling device 0000:02:00.1 (0004 -> 0006)
PCI: Fixing up bus 2
Switching to clocksource MIPS
NET: Registered protocol family 2
TCP established hash table entries: 1024 (order: 1, 8192 bytes)
TCP bind hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 1024 bind 1024)
TCP: reno registered
UDP hash table entries: 256 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
UDP-Lite hash table entries: 256 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
NET: Registered protocol family 1
R6300 GPIO Init
squashfs: version 3.0 (2006/03/15) Phillip Lougher
msgmni has been set to 244
alg: No test for stdrng (krng)
io scheduler noop registered (default)
HDLC line discipline maxframe=4096
N_HDLC line discipline registered.
Serial: 8250/16550 driver, 4 ports, IRQ sharing disabled
serial8250: ttyS0 at MMIO 0x0 (irq = is a U6_16550A
serial8250: ttyS1 at MMIO 0x0 (irq = is a U6_16550A
brd: module loaded
pflash: found no supported devices
found WNDR4500 / R6300
try to find cfe size up to 2097152
no filesys. assume nflash devices
bootloader size: 2097152
nvram size: 65536
Creating 2 MTD partitions on "bcmsflash":
0x000000000000-0x000000200000 : "cfe"
0x0000001f0000-0x000000200000 : "nvram"
Found a Samsung NAND flash with 2048B pages or 128KB blocks; total size 128MB
NAND device: Manufacturer ID: 0xec, Chip ID: 0xf1 (Samsung NAND 128MiB 3,3V 8-bi
t), 128MiB, page size: 2048, OOB size: 64
Bad block table found at page 65472, version 0x01
Bad block table found at page 65408, version 0x01
nand_read_bbt: bad block at 0x000000040000
nand_read_bbt: bad block at 0x000002d00000
nand_read_bbt: bad block at 0x000004400000
Creating 2 MTD partitions on "brcmnand":
0x000000000000-0x000002000000 : "linux"
0x000002000000-0x000007f00000 : "ddwrt"
lookup_nflash_rootfs_offset: offset = 0x0
found trx at 0, len =17629184
scan filesys at 17C000
Creating 2 MTD partitions on "nflash":
0x000000000000-0x000002000000 : "nandimage"
0x000002000000-0x000008000000 : "rootfs"
mtd: partition "rootfs" set to be root filesystem
add netgear bosrddata for pflash if exists
add netgear bosrddata for sflash if exists
Creating 1 MTD partitions on "bcmsflash":
0x0000001e0000-0x0000001f0000 : "board_data"
tun: Universal TUN/TAP device driver, 1.6
tun: (C) 1999-2004 Max Krasnyansky <maxk@qualcomm.com>
PPP generic driver version 2.4.2
PPP BSD Compression module registered
PPP Deflate Compression module registered
PPP MPPE Compression module registered
NET: Registered protocol family 24
Broadcom Watchdog Timer: 0.07 initialized.
GACT probability NOT on
Mirror/redirect action on
Failed to load ipt action
Simple TC action Loaded
netem: version 1.3
u32 classifier
Performance counters on
input device check on
Actions configured
Netfilter messages via NETLINK v0.30.
nf_conntrack version 0.5.0 (1954 buckets, 7816 max)
nf_conntrack_rtsp v0.6.21 loading
xt_time: kernel timezone is -0000
ip_set: protocol 6
gre: GRE over IPv4 demultiplexor driver
nf_nat_rtsp v0.6.21 loading
ip_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team
TCP: bic registered
TCP: cubic registered
TCP: westwood registered
TCP: highspeed registered
TCP: hybla registered
TCP: htcp registered
TCP: vegas registered
TCP: veno registered
TCP: scalable registered
TCP: lp registered
TCP: yeah registered
TCP: illinois registered
NET: Registered protocol family 17
Bridge firewalling registered
8021q: 802.1Q VLAN Support v1.8
startup nvram driver
found nvram
List of all partitions:
1f00 2048 mtdblock0 (driver?)
1f01 64 mtdblock1 (driver?)
1f02 32768 mtdblock2 (driver?)
1f03 97280 mtdblock3 (driver?)
1f04 32768 mtdblock4 (driver?)
1f05 98304 mtdblock5 (driver?)
1f06 64 mtdblock6 (driver?)
No filesystem could mount root, tried: squashfs
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(31,5)
Rebooting in 3 seconds..Please stand by while rebooting the system...
Decompressing...done
CFE for WNDR4500 version: v1.0.4
Build Date: Mon Jan 14 16:04:19 CST 2013
Init Arena
Init Devs.
Boot partition size = 262144(0x40000)
Found an ST compatible serial flash with 32 64KB blocks; total size 2MB
Found a Samsung NAND flash with 2048B pages or 128KB blocks; total size 128MB
et0: Broadcom BCM47XX 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet Controller 5.100.138
CPU type 0x19749: 600MHz
Tot mem: 131072 KBytes
Device eth0: hwaddr E8-FC-AF-8C-44-B6, ipaddr 192.168.1.1, mask 255.255.255.0
gateway not set, nameserver not set
Checking crc...
As soon as you boot it up, tap control + c to stop the cfe.
Then type tftpd, have tftp2.exe ready with the stock firmware, hit enter in putty, then hit upload on tftp2. _________________ I am far from a guru, I'm barely a novice.
Sorry missed the part where you said hyperterminal. Putty is just another tool like hyperterminal. _________________ I am far from a guru, I'm barely a novice.
It's been months since I last visited this thread. Busy with work.
A few days ago I took another shot at this router.
I can get CFE mode pretty well every single time now with Putty, but for the life of me I cannot flash the thing, using TFTP.exe on my kids PC. No luck whatsoever on my MAC. I am trying to get back to stock to start again.
Can someone talk real slow and tell me how to get from CFE prompt to successful flash on a PC?? I have read all the threads I could find, but nothing is clear enough to break thru my duncity.
As soon as you boot it up, tap control + c to stop the cfe.
Then type tftpd, have tftp2.exe ready with the stock firmware, hit enter in putty, then hit upload on tftp2.
_________________ I am far from a guru, I'm barely a novice.
Tried and tried on a PC every which way. Gave up and started trying on the Mac. Have to learn how to do it with OS x terminal. Looked up some stuff this morning.
I have put too many hours into reviving this thing to be sensible. I should just buy another router. Now I am doing out of sheer bloody-mindedness.
is a U6_16550A
