I bought a lovely expensive router several months ago with the intention of using it in my dorm room because i busted the ethernet port on my mac (cheap solution, I know). Anyway, so I thought it would be nice to ugrade the firmware to something more useful. I looked at Tomato, but it didnt seem to support my version. DD-WRT had lots of options and did support my router. Excellent.So here are the instructions on how to flash your router without (hopefully) bricking it.

How To Flash the WRT54G v8
Part 1

1. Configure your local lan ethernet address to 192.168.1.100, subnet 255.255.255.0, gateway 192.168.1.1 and connect your local ethernet to your WRT54Gv8 on one of the 4 switch ports (note that the tftp step below may not work unless you are plugged into port 1).
2. Unplug the power cord from the WRT54Gv8.
3. Push the reset button while plugging in the power cord and hold the button for about 20 seconds.
4. Open your browser and open http://192.168.1.1
5. Use the firmware upgrade dialog to flash
6. vxworkskillerGv8.bin.

Part 2

1. You will see a dialog to Reboot the device. Power cycle the router by unplugging the power cord, then plugging it in.
2. Wait for about 1 – 2 minutes.
3. Unplug the power cord again and plug it back in (power cycle unit).
4. You will not be able to browse to the WRT54 at this point, and the power light may be off. You should be able to ping 192.168.1.1 however.
5. If you are not able to ping 192.168.1.1 after this point, do the following.
   1. Manually configure your IP address
   2. IP – 192.168.1.100
   3. Subnet -255.255.255.0
   4. Router/Gateway -192.168.0.1
   5. Ping the router again at 192.168.1.1. You should get a response.
6. If you are STILL not able to ping 192.168.1.1 it may be bricked, follow the steps written here. Now you are good to go.
7. Now it’s time to flash the DD-WRT firmware using TFTP
   • If you’re on Windows, enter at your cmd shell
     tftp -i 192.168.1.1 put dd-wrt.v24_micro_wrt54gv8.bin
   • If you’re on Linux, enter at your shell
     tftp -m octet 192.168.1.1 -c put dd-wrt.v24_micro_wrt54gv8.bin
   • In Ubuntu Linux its a little different
     [code]$ tftp
     tftp> connect 192.168.1.1
     tftp> verbose
     Now in Verbose Mode.
     tftp> binary
     Setting mode to octet.
     tftp>put
     (file) dd-wrt.v24_micro_wrt54gv8.bin[/code]
   • If you’re on OSX, enter
     tftp -e 192.168.1.1
     At the prompt enter
put dd-wrt.v24_micro_wrt54gv8.bin
8. The file will now be transfered to your router and be flashed. After this is done, dd-wrt will automatically boot, the power light will be on, and you can browse to your router at http://192.168.1.1.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 17th, 2008 at 2:36 pm and is filed under Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.