Shame I guess it suffered from a kernel panic after some time, rebooted then did the same again?
I sent an email to the guy I've been talking to at Asus, asking if (for the sake of argument) their R&D team are able to release a tool/update to change the CFE... I haven't heard anything back yet. Will post as and when I do...
The CFE shouldn't cause a kernel panic if the router is up and running, it might just cause a problem and reset to defaults (or crash with reboot loop, even reset_gpio is stored in nvram!) on power up if it doesn't like what it sees then. What's more likely to be a problem when running is the Broadcom binary kernel modules, they are known to make low level nvram requests not using the user-space apps. If they use the value of the #define NVRAM_SPACE that was valid when they were compiled, or use their own 'static copies' of the nvram routines then easy to see how they could they could corrupt running nvram.
My router kept rebooting on it. I rolled back to the previous release even before they pulled it.
That's probably caused by the new QoS code. They use the netfilter_bridge kernel module, which would crash the router instantly when I connect to it over wifi with my laptop. That bug was introduced sometime after 116, I end up reusing the older QoS code in my custom builds, and disable that module in the kernel.
I grabbed .144 when it was posted and installed it - I cleared nvram and it's been working fine with no resets since. This is not my primary router at the moment, so it's only been me using it (not my entire family of online junkies) so YMMV.
-Peace
IMO, it would probably be best to wait until either Asus have fixed the issue with the CFE or the devs here are confident that they have fixed it by other means.
If you don't care too much for dual band, the Asus RT-N16 is also a high spec router, tried and tested on dd-wrt and solid as a rock.
I just got my RT-N66U today, and Im testing firmwares.
Loaded dd-wrt.v24-18702_NEWD-2_K2.6_mini_RT-N66U.trx as adviced in the Routerdatabase.
Re-booted ok, but reported NVRAM 32.04kb/32Kb
That could not be good, so I resat to Factory Default settings in the DD-WRT web guid. => DEAD ROUTER!!!!!
I am now trying to recover (tftp) load different firmwares, but something is a mess!!!
well, the recovery program (tftp part) got a connection to the router - after pushing the reset button, and the turning on power, while still holding down the reset button for about 10s, or at lest until I saw progress in the recovery program.
Then the recovery program started counting down again (took about 3-4 minutes - had a stopwatch running)
And now the router is rebooting
Well, using the ASUS recover utility I seemed to be able to load several different firmwares, but non of them seemed to want to re-boot properly - until.... I started using the WPS button to get som hard_reset-to-defaults.
Well, its running TomatoUSB shibby 095 at the moment.
Very glad to be able to ping it again, and being able to see a web interface again!
Well, its nice to see TomatoUSB running, but where is the page with all the nice connection strength info I get on the frontpage of DD-WRT?
Well, on to trying DD-WRT again, this time I'll try the latest initial file: dd-wrt.v24-19342_NEWD-2_K2.6_mini_RT-N66U.trx
It upgrades fine from the web interface, and counts down 30 seconds and 50-60 seconds. And I wait another 4 minutes before I reset the router.
Bummer. No ping, no web interface, no blue blinking lights.
For now, my RT-N66U will be running other firmware, so I can get my RT-N16 freed for other testing, like helping Tornado with the 32k -> 60-64k fix on the RT-N16, which hopefully will lead to a similar fix for the RT-N66U