WNDR3800 radio won't turn on

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groupie
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 09 Aug 2014
Posts: 24

PostPosted: Tue Jul 19, 2016 23:05    Post subject: WNDR3800 radio won't turn on Reply with quote
got a Netgear WNDR3800, started off working a-ok with the original Netgear firmware. installed dd-wrt with the instructions here

https://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Netgear_WNDR3800

first flashed it to factory-to-ddwrt_27506_WNDR3800CH-NA(Kryptex - North America).img, then flashed it to wndr3800-webflash29440(April-11-2016).bin

the DLNA didn't work, file sharing sort of worked, and the WiFi button on front didn't work. so I flashed it back to the stock Netgear 1.0.0.16

in order to do that, I had to use PuTTY and the ar700> prompt to reset the board_hw_id and board_model_id values... and mac addresses, and wps pin, etc. because they had all been corrupted.

got it flashed successfully, but now the radio won't turn on.

tried putting it back to dd-wrt to see if the radio works again, but now the admin GUI doesn't even show any pages related to wireless. it's gone.

apparently this happens because something called caldata has been corrupted, and you get the trashed settings and the radio stops working.

the solution is to re-load a backup of caldata. I found a procedure on how to do that, but I don't have a caldata backup to re-load.

anybody got one?

or is there some other way to fix it?
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tatsuya46
DD-WRT Guru


Joined: 03 Jan 2010
Posts: 7568
Location: YWG, Canada

PostPosted: Tue Jul 19, 2016 23:53    Post subject: Reply with quote
this is a wndr3700 v1 caldata, orignally from brainslayer's wndr3700 v1 years ago, i used it myself on mine when i had it, after i backed up my original caldata, then proceeded to delete the backup i just made for whatever reason. it worked fine.

since wndr3700 v1 & 3800 have the same radios, it should work (cant make it any worse, ur caldata is already dead), but will have different macs. theres tutorial on how to change the macs but when i tried it they wouldnt change no matter what

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LATEST FIRMWARE(S)

BrainSlayer wrote:
we just do it since we do not like any restrictions enforced by stupid cocaine snorting managers

[x86_64] Haswell i3-4150/QCA9984/QCA9882 ------> r55488 std
[QUALCOMM] DIR-862L --------------------------------> r55460 std
▲ ACTIVE / INACTIVE ▼
[QUALCOMM] WNDR4300 v1 --------------------------> r50485 std
[BROADCOM] DIR-860L A1 ----------------------------> r50485 std


Sigh.. why do i exist anyway.. | I love you Anthony.. never forget that.. my other 99% that ill never see again..

groupie
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 09 Aug 2014
Posts: 24

PostPosted: Wed Jul 20, 2016 1:05    Post subject: Reply with quote
the instructions were to telnet into 192.168.1.1 and run these commands:

cp /mnt/sda1/caldata /tmp
cd /tmp
mtd unlock caldata
mtd -r write caldata caldata


where the caldata backup was named "caldata".

so I suppose I should enter:

cp /mnt/sda1/caldata /tmp
cd /tmp
mtd unlock caldata
mtd -r write boardconfig.bin caldata



however, the first line got me this error:

cp: can't stat '/mnt/sda1/caldata': no such file or directory
groupie
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 09 Aug 2014
Posts: 24

PostPosted: Wed Jul 20, 2016 1:19    Post subject: Reply with quote
do you have a different procedure to backup/restore caldata?

and, is caldata a folder or a file?
tatsuya46
DD-WRT Guru


Joined: 03 Jan 2010
Posts: 7568
Location: YWG, Canada

PostPosted: Wed Jul 20, 2016 2:01    Post subject: Reply with quote
https://www.dd-wrt.de/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=969189&sid=35feabfc57d4ccf472ae43aae34b2e00

try putting openwrt on it then try flashing again

_________________
LATEST FIRMWARE(S)

BrainSlayer wrote:
we just do it since we do not like any restrictions enforced by stupid cocaine snorting managers

[x86_64] Haswell i3-4150/QCA9984/QCA9882 ------> r55488 std
[QUALCOMM] DIR-862L --------------------------------> r55460 std
▲ ACTIVE / INACTIVE ▼
[QUALCOMM] WNDR4300 v1 --------------------------> r50485 std
[BROADCOM] DIR-860L A1 ----------------------------> r50485 std


Sigh.. why do i exist anyway.. | I love you Anthony.. never forget that.. my other 99% that ill never see again..

KrypteX
DD-WRT Guru


Joined: 18 Jan 2014
Posts: 2411

PostPosted: Wed Jul 20, 2016 6:57    Post subject: Re: WNDR3800 radio won't turn on Reply with quote
groupie wrote:
got a Netgear WNDR3800, started off working a-ok with the original Netgear firmware. installed dd-wrt with the instructions here

https://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Netgear_WNDR3800

first flashed it to factory-to-ddwrt_27506_WNDR3800CH-NA(Kryptex - North America).img, then flashed it to wndr3800-webflash29440(April-11-2016).bin

the DLNA didn't work, file sharing sort of worked, and the WiFi button on front didn't work. so I flashed it back to the stock Netgear 1.0.0.16

in order to do that, I had to use PuTTY and the ar700> prompt to reset the board_hw_id and board_model_id values... and mac addresses, and wps pin, etc. because they had all been corrupted.

got it flashed successfully, but now the radio won't turn on.

tried putting it back to dd-wrt to see if the radio works again, but now the admin GUI doesn't even show any pages related to wireless. it's gone.

apparently this happens because something called caldata has been corrupted, and you get the trashed settings and the radio stops working.

the solution is to re-load a backup of caldata. I found a procedure on how to do that, but I don't have a caldata backup to re-load.

anybody got one?

or is there some other way to fix it?

Alright, let's clear up some things. First of all, you don't have a WNDR3800, but a WNDR3800CH, which you repeatedly failed to mention in your previous thread http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=303188
Not only that, but you seem to have the North American version of WNDR3800CH, so basically WNDR3800CH-NA.
The firmware header is different for CH version and also for the NA version. You used all kinds of firmwares as I saw here http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1039873#1039873 , even flashing from DD-WRT directly to stock firmware, which is a big no-no and as mrjcd said, it's a big mess. You should have asked me before doing anything (as you might have noticed that I own a similar router and variants of it for a long time now...).
I also see you've got duped by a 3rd party website as you outlined in http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1039910#1039910 , which in all honesty only worsened the entire problem and unfortunately got linked into the dd-wrt wiki, even though I warned the author not to complicate things with the board_id modification of WNDR3800CH... but he still did. So yeah, it really is a big mess and it's even official - as official as any wiki can be.

Before doing anything else that might further worsen the situation of caldata corruption, please confirm what exact model/variant of router you have. Is it really WNDR3800CH-NA or not ? Where was it bought, can you provide a snapshot of the label on the back of router ?

You've probably noticed from my signature that I actually own a WNDR3800, a WNDR3800CH (European) and a WNDRMACv2 (which is in fact a WNDR3800) so I can try to provide proper caldata for you. I don't think it's a good idea to use caldata from WNDR3700v1 as recommended above... that router is quite different in some aspects and you really might end up with a permanent brick.

Also, please notice that I created functional WNDR3800CH factory-to-ddwrt mods for both the European and North American versions before anyone else did, I've tested them several times - they're working: http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=983666#983666
- the files in question are:
factory-to-ddwrt_27506_WNDR3800CH.img
factory-to-ddwrt_27506_WNDR3800CH-NA.img

Additionally, I also modified a WNDR3800-to-WNDR3800CH firmware (which, btw, was a stupid move from Charter to rebrand regular WNDR3800, but which ONLY works for WNDR3800 headers, and doesn't for WNDR3800CH headers). So I modified to have a proper WNDR3800CH firmware with Charter header here: http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1039840#1039840
Thing is, I only attached the European versions of the files, but I definitely have to mod them for NA variants too (which I didn't need for my router in the first place). However, if you have an NA version, you WILL need it at one point.

I would like to ask you to please detail as much info as possible and I will try to guide/help you with this, if you want. I think it's fixable, but we need to know more before doing anything...

*Note: Another thing I forgot to mention: I hope you realized that all builds after 29230 have increased size on WNDR3800/WNDR3700v2 from ~8MB to ~15MB, since BrainSlayer was very kind to add certain missing modules (Radius, Torrent, DLNA, Webserver etc) for these units at my request. So the builds after 29230 might fail to flash because of big size (15 MB) and may be quite slow to upload (flashing speed on WNDR3800 is 100 kB/s and can take a lot of time and even fail due to timeout). So you have to use builds pre-29230 to TFTP, that's why I modifed build 27506, which is still small enough for TFTP.

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groupie
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 09 Aug 2014
Posts: 24

PostPosted: Wed Jul 20, 2016 15:58    Post subject: Reply with quote
okay let's start with a clean sheet of paper.

here are pictures of the router and the sticker on it.

I have set these parameters:
board_model_id = WNDR3800.
board_hw_id = 29763654+16+128.
I don't know what they were before but I can change them to whatever is needed.

I know how to use TFTP, PuTTY, telnet, and have a USB-TTL cable.

tell me what to do.
groupie
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 09 Aug 2014
Posts: 24

PostPosted: Fri Jul 22, 2016 19:51    Post subject: Reply with quote
waiting...
groupie
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 09 Aug 2014
Posts: 24

PostPosted: Sun Jul 24, 2016 17:44    Post subject: Reply with quote
waiting...
Doppel-D
DD-WRT User


Joined: 13 Jul 2014
Posts: 215
Location: Germany

PostPosted: Mon Jul 25, 2016 17:10    Post subject: Reply with quote
A big 'thank you' to kryptex would be a good start ;- )
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