So today, a guy on our floor bricked his router. He was attempting to upgrade it to the latest linksys firmware, but it froze partway through, “bricking” it. It would show power lights and detect ethernet cords plugged into it, but would not assign IPs, had no internet functionality, and no wireless. So after alot of digging and experimentation, we found a way how… Before you start, you’ll need a replacement firmware file (Official linksys, dd-wrt, etc), a SMALL screwdriver, a computer with tftp (Standard on Mac/Unix/Linux).

Power down the router. Flip it over, and take out the 4 screws. You can use a helix screwdriver, or a SMALL regular head. After you take those out, put fingers from one hand on the ports, and the other to RIP the top plate off. Barbaric, but its the only way to open it.

Next, hook an ethernet cord to port 1, but DON’T ATTACH IT TO ANYTHING ELSE. Take a 1 foot length of insulated wire, and strip both ends. This next part is kind of tricky.

1: Unplug the router from the wall.
2: Put the wire in with the plug to the router, so it’s between the round plug and the socket it goes into on the router.
3: Plug the router into a power strip that you can quickly power on/off.
4: When it’s powered off, touch the wire to pin 16 of the below chip: (Click for larger)

While it’s still connected, turn on the power, leave it connected for about a minute, then disconnect the wire and leave the router on. The power light, should be blinking, and won’t stop.

On a computer, do the following: Turn OFF wifi, set your ethernet address to 192.168.1.1, netmask to 255.255.255.0, router/default gateway to 192.168.1.1. Plug the ethernet cable from the router. Open command line, and run…

tftp 192.168.1.1

Then, type in the following, hitting enter after each:

binary
trace
rexmt 1
timeout 90

And finially,

put firmware.bin

(Considering that firmware.bin is the firmware image). After a few, it should upload it. Give the router like 5 minutes to install it, then reboot it (Unplug and plug back in). Congrats, your router works again!

WHERE HAVE I BEEN?!

As you may know, I’ve just started college. It’s been taking up most of my time, not just the work, but between hanging out, doing things with other people from my dorm, issues with people back home, and actual work, I’ve not had much time to get creative and post something. Sorry this entry is not entertaining, but, we looked so much to find a guide for this, and couldn’t, but now there is one.

Peace.

Awesome, now there’s actually a reason to look around here! I’ve added my old PHP Image Gallery script on the downloads section, along with a demo.

Check it out!

Well I figured I start a blog, so here it is.