[kwlug-disc] Router dying?

[CrankyOldBugger]

Well last night was an adventure...

I bought the TL-WDR4300, which is essentially the 3600 with another
antenna.

I downloaded the openWRT firmware while I was at work so that I would be
ready.  For safety, I also downloaded the latest version of TP-link's
firmware, just in case.

Booted up the new router, went straight into installing openWRT.  It
dropped in without any problems.

But for the life of me, I couldn't get the router to talk to the cable
modem for the internet.

I spent several hours tinkering but to no avail.

So I grabbed the tp-link firmware and found that, while this was the latest
version, you couldn't install it for some wild reason.  Instead, you have
to take the version I d/l'd and actually trim it down, using:

dd if=orig.bin of=tplink.bin skip=257 bs=512

I had to find this out by surfing on my cellphone.. Life without internet
can be so frustrating!

This trimmed version of the factory firmware installed without too much
hassle.

So, long story short, I can get some clients out to the internet now.  Some
clients just won't talk to me at all (like the Synology NAS, for example),
but that could be IP or firewall issues.  I will continue to beat it with a
sledge tonight until it surrenders.

On the positive side, I now have a good reason to redraw all my DHCP
reservations, VNC port redirects, etc., into a more "planned out" look,
instead of the current haphazard arrangement.






On Fri, 19 Jun 2015 at 12:36 Bob Jonkman <bjonkman at sobac.com> wrote:

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> I have a TL-WDR3600 with 2 USB ports, &c.  Rocksteady since I plugged
> it in.
>
> I got this just before SFD last year, and intended to flash OpenWRT on
> it. But the stock firmware is actually pretty nice, so I haven't done
> that yet.  It's acting as an internal WiFi access point, so it hasn't
> been exposed to the Internets directly...
>
> I've also installed another TP-Link router (TL-WR741ND, $22) that I
> did flash with OpenWRT,  but it needs the ocassional reboot. Not sure
> if that's hardware or firmware related.  I got the one-antenna model,
> but I believe current units have internal antennas.
>
> Both routers came with a printed GPL, which impressed me to no end!
>
> - --Bob.
>
>
> On 18/06/15 02:51 PM, CrankyOldBugger wrote:
> > OK, thanks for that.  I'm leaning toward the TP-Link 4300 at this
> > point, however, as the Asus is not supported by openWRT.  I'm an
> > openWRT fan.
> >
> > And as you pointed out, the Asus is twice the money.  Budget is a
> > little tight right now!
> >
> > But I'm glad to hear that the 4300 is doing well in the reviews.  I
> > got that impression too.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thu, 18 Jun 2015 at 14:25 William Park <opengeometry at yahoo.ca>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 03:55:32PM +0000, CrankyOldBugger wrote:
> >>> While I said that I like Netgear, at this point I'm not seeing
> >>> any
> >> Netgear
> >>> offerings that are getting good reviews online.  Bad year for
> >>> Netgear?
> >>>
> >>> At this point I'm looking at:
> >>>
> >>> Linksys WRT1900ac ($250) TP-Link WDR4300 ($80)
> >>
> >> Going by reviews, top 2 Wireless-N routers are - Asus RT-N66U
> >> ($155) - TP-Link WDR4300 ($80) Both are dual-band, DD-WRT
> >> supported (probably Open-WRT too), and top of Wireless-N line
> >> from their respective companies.
> >>
> >> I bought TP-Link WDR4300 first because it was cheaper, but it
> >> went flaky.  I now have Asus RT-N66U, and no problem with its
> >> stock firmware. If I had gone with Asus in the first place, I
> >> would've saved some money. So, I recommend Asus RT-N66U which is
> >> the top of the line, by reviews and by price. -- William
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________ kwlug-disc
> >> mailing list kwlug-disc at kwlug.org
> >> http://kwlug.org/mailman/listinfo/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________ kwlug-disc mailing
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> >
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