Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2015 12:31 Post subject: Cheapest DD-WRT router with external antennas?
Im looking for the cheapest DD-WRT router with external antennas. Its actually to extend a wireless bridge between itself so we can connect wirelessly to our personal equipment when visting a client.
I own two TP-LINK TL-WR841N and use one for my main router and the other as a bridge for more than 3 years and still work flawlessly. Besides this it is very very cheap, has external antennas and works great with dd-wrt.
Source: http://www.mbreviews.com/tp-link-tl-wr841n-wifi-broadband-router-300mbps-n/
Do either of these routers support a factory image restore in case of a bad flash?
For example, I have an airlink AR670w and despite it being a budget router it contains a barebone permanent firmware image essentially making it brick-proof.
For example, whenever I get a bad flash or I flash to a faulty version of ddwrt that doesn't work with it, I can always activate the factory image by pressing and holding the reset button while plugging the AC cable back in. From there I just navigate to 192.168.1.10 and I just flash back to a known good firmware from there.
Do any of these routers support this essential feature?
Posted: Mon May 25, 2015 4:09 Post subject: No more rebates for me ;-)
I counted the time invested on the last rebate and it was about 6 hours for $15. First of all I did all the paper work, then months later waiting for it and calling, the bank said "we sent your gift card but it must have been lost in the mail". Then I dialed in waited my turn and complained. They took my history and would investigate. The second one arrived 2 weeks later (with me watching for it each day), a few months later I entered the number in Newegg when I needed something and surprise, the card had "expired"! Then there was the time the 6 months with no interest that I let the due date slip and ended up paying $150 in interest for a $325 item. No more contests for me, thanks .
wow sorry you got burnt.
It really took you 6 hours?
Usually rebates these days are just a web form, print, sign, attach upc, attach invoice/receipt, and off to the mail it goes.
e-z-p-z
Staples definitely has the easiest, most can be done online, nothing to mail.
I've only had problems with 2 rebates.
1 of them was for a hi-val CD-RW drive 2x
back in 98
The drive it self have quite a story.
but the rebate took 9months to finally get and it came in the mail mangled.
Of course the drive and company was absolute garbage so no surprise about the rebate, I think they finally went under, first and last hival product I bought.
anyway I've got a n12 I got on BF 2013 for 10, and 2 N10P's I got for 5 bucks BF 2014, no problem with the rebates.
I be wait'n for them to go back on sale at that price.. very nice at that price.
Yes I love my N12's and N12Bs, nice little devices. The white ones don't seem to be made any longer. Interested to see how these Ds turn out. The 4m to 8m upgrade will be welcomed I am certain, but I'll wait to see how they perform. I have set up about 7 of the previous (A) and B models and they seem to be good performers. Still as you have pointed out, the 4m is a limitation to the bare minimum of features.
Regarding the rebate thing, the whole objective is a psychological method to get you to buy something you wouldn't normally buy at the regular price and then lose track of it while they make the process so tedious that you somehow never get the money back. They use the formula of an unending series of obstacles, otherwise the thing would simply go on sale as a manufactures incentive delivered as a retailer kick back, right? It's a scam. First of all it takes a long time passing before you receive it (6 weeks or more), plus it comes in an envelope that looks like advertizing that most people toss in the trash, then it comes as a gift card with an expiration date. Gift cards are just one more piece of plastic you have to lug around and if you have several of them, the balance gets lost in your head and "poof" expired. Many ways to fail and much time invested and thus wasted. For me and from now on, if I spend one more minute wondering when, if or why my rebate is not here, wondering if it is lost or what is going on with it, that's a minute I plan on never spending again for the rest of my life. (Have been playing the game way too long) Anyway, for those who enjoy the game, please keep on enjoying it but for me, the entertainment value of this rebate charade has left the building.
The TP-LINK TL-WR842ND N300 Multi-function Wireless Router, 2.4GHz, 802.11n/g/b, 1 USB port, 2 detachable antennas, VPN, 4 SSIDs is only $25.99 and the primary advantage to the 842 is that it comes with 8Mb memory instead of 4Mb, which means you can load the mega feature set of dd-wrt into the 842 instead of the mini feature set, which the 841 uses because of its limited memory capacity.
Also I noticed in the comments on the youtube link inaccurately stated that the 841 provides OpenVPN as part of dd-wrt. This is not accurate. The stock "mini" firmware for any router does not include OpenVPN but it does come with the PPTP client/server which is a still a VPN but with only minimal security, comparatively speaking. Note that most VPN service providers accept both OpenVPN/PPTP, assuming you are setting up this router to ensure all the clients that connect to it are connected to your subscribed VPN service. Note that PPTP sends many credentials over the wire which are not encrypted, so therefore it is not all that secure, where OpenVPN is very secure. Also note that many VPN services online charge a little more per month for OpenVPN than they do for PPTP.
OpenVPN software is an integrated part of the "mega" version of dd-wrt and included in multiple firmwares distributed for multiple devices, all of them required to have a storage capacity of 8Mb or larger. The one exception to this is that there is sometimes available a "openvpn small" version of dd-wrt firmware that can be utilized on many devices having only a memory capacity of 4Mb; however this varies from device to device because the size of the available memory space is not always the exact same for all hardware and on some there is room and others there is not. In general, if you see an "openvpn small" version of the firmware you are looking for, labeled as the hardware level you have inside your rouer, and there is some name of your router associated with the name of the bin/trx file, and the file size of your choice is less than the stated size of the router memory at that hardware version you are working with, then there is a good chance you can install this "openvpn small" without "bricking" the device.
To understand better what features are available in the various builds, this chart should be referred to: https://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/What_is_DD-WRT%3F (Be sure to page down to the version your hardware is calling for, for example "V24_pre_sp2 K24 build features".) Trade-offs are generally only a consideration when dealing with the 4Mb versions of various hardware. As a courtesy, the dd-wrt support staff provides several versions of the "mini" build and each with some integral part missing, hoping you can still utilize the popular 4Mb devices and get the features that you absolutely have to have.
The next step before looking for firmware for your device is to find the model number you are considering purchasing and figuring the hardware version being sold inside that model. This can be as easy as seeing it published in the online specs or as difficult as coming here and asking what HW Ver was received from some other user who speaks about recently purchasing one of the identical model from a retailer.
It's important to note here that what you see is not always what you get when you order a particular model of router. Anyone who has been in the electronics industry for any time knows you can't judge a book by its cover, meaning, often totally different hardware is substituted for the "insides" of a device that keeps getting sold year after year in the same exact case, the same exact shape and color and with the same exact model number. That is why without cracking open a device, the little sticker on the bottom with "hardware revision" is the only clue as to "what's in the box". (And you don't want to follow the same tune of disappointment that rhymes with your "brick in a box", red ribbon on top and all )
A good way to always "brick" one of these routers (load a firmware version that causes them to go to sleep permanently) is to load a firmware that is larger in size than the memory of the hardware of the device.
In the above referenced youtube video, the importance of the hardware version is not stressed as much as I would hope, but it is critically important. For example, if you will refer to https://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Devices and search on "WR841ND" you will see that HW version 8.x defines a box with the same outside and identical plastic shell, matching all the rest of the WR841NDs sold over recent years, but inside there is an Atheros chipset number AR9341 which runs at 535Mhz. For the HW version 9.x, the "insides" are totally different, likely not even the same printed circuit board. In the 9.x HW Version of this same router with the same case, you will see a Qualcomm chip # QCA9533 running at 550Mhz, so basically this swap in version numbers means the insides of the two identical models are vastly different on the inside and loading the wrong firmware in either will likely "brick" them, rendering them a boat anchor (and non-recoverable for all but the most skilled technician).
Now from the rule of thumb if you have a 4Mb device you should go with "mini" firmware for the device hardware version and if you have a 8Mb or larger flash memory in a device, you go with "mega" firmware for it. Still you will see there are often several versions of firmware available for the same device, and often several different sizes. This is true particularly if the device comes with the small 4Mb memory. What happens if you have only a 4Mb device memory and want a firmware version that has a feature missing from the "mini" build? For that need there are often multiple versions found in an under 4Mb file size package. Items such as "OpenVPN small" or "QOS" or other names come to mind and can be seen and noted at a file size of under 4Mb. These multiple builds for 4Mb devices are a courtesy of the development team and each allows a few of the features to be swapped in an out while hoping that the general user of a small memory device can pick the right combo to obtain the feature-set needed and therefore not have to go to a 8Mb device which historically (but not so much today) was a lot more expensive than a 4Mb device.
Another word of caution: Today the structure of dd-wrt is in change. There are many things going on with it, porting it to new base Linux software, fixing Heartbleed virus in OpenVPN and the popularity of the new commercial offering of dd-wrt taking off for retail sold routers such as many in the Buffalo line. For this reason, going to the "beta" list is somewhat dangerous. Yes the idea of stepping back a couple of releases is a good rule of thumb but by the same token you may download two releases prior to the most current in the "beta list" and that version may very well have some quirk in it and much worse than the most current. Quirks I have seen over the years include such things as , access menu stops responding, one of the lights or more on the front or back panel stop working, reset not working, replacement firmware load not working, and any one or more of the infinite features not working. A good rule of thumb on any release of "dd-wrt" is to first use Google to search on the words "Router Model" (where this is the device you will be working with), the number of the firmware you are interested in "27909" and the word "working", or simply e.g. "WR842ND dd-wrt firmware working" and you'll likely find someone who says something like "version working fine, problem with xyz seems to be gone" and that's a good place to start.
Other considerations are the many versions of available firmware available, This includes as you saw in the youtube video, both those listed in "the router data base" https://www.dd-wrt.com/site/support/router-database and those on the beta directory of the server. Still if the firmware can be found at all in "the router database" it's often a good start for an initial firmware download. This is true particularly for any old old "G" router you may find on eBay and want to enhance the feature set with dd-wrt.
Another issue seen with this router database is if OpenVPN is in the picture. OpenVPN has historically been very difficult to configure, especially OpenVPN server running inside your box. Years ago to configure it required putting code in the admin panel to do console output to files to dummy up things, and that's the only way it would work. It was so complicated about the only one who was ever able to get it working was the elite of the elite with massive network knowledge. Today it's a lot better than it used to be. There are still about 6 IPTable commands that have to be entered on the Admin/Command page, but in general all the menus seem to work recently without too much finagling. I hope it continues to become more streamlines and eventually the IPTABLE commands will be integrated into starting the server as well. So in short, a more modern version of a "mega" running OpenVPN is always desired the most. That is until, enter Heartbleed virus! The dd-wrt releases "any build before 19163 is safe, and any build after 23882 is safe". Now Heartbleed only affects a router that has OpenVPN configured and running. For all the other implementations of dd-wrt other than OpenVPN, it is a non issue.
So, this is just a background I felt compelled to share with the community after I realized for the past years I had only taken but had nothing to give with my limited understanding of the real internal operation of the software. So tonight, I say maybe that's not right, so I present to you the basic starting point of figure out how to get on board with dd-wrt and hopefully you can use the video to actually walk you through using this knowledge you gain here. Unfortunately dd-wrt today is at a crucial point. All this expansion of use, plus the fact only a handful of very dedicated and hard working people are supporting it for basically free, plus the fact that its popularity is skyrocketing as people learn the potential of it, all this leaves it appearing somewhat in limbo. The "router data base" which before all the massive recent changes in past years kept pretty much up to date with what version should be installed on which device. Add to this that some people who work long and hard on this project can forget sometimes that we don't all have their same background and experience and with that it is often easy to feel a little lost.
But hang in there. It's best to get your feet wet with a $17.99 router before trying it on that $299 power house. Practice, and you will be perfect while minimizing your potential loss. Good luck to you all.
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No fishing allowed in this empty pond.
If I'm rude it's obviously because I've been doing this too long. Blow me a kiss.
I take it that to get OpenVPN with the TP-Link the TL-WR842ND still remains the best affordable option, right? Don't think newer WR841s have been upgraded to 8MB.
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