Bricked Linksys WRT54G repair instructions
What you need:
1 bricked Linksys WRT54G router with boot_wait=off
1 corkscrew
optional:
1 bottle of wine
If you have to take courage first, the bottle of wine could help!
What to do:
Unscrew the antennas and open the router and look for the Intel flash chip. The chip has 48 pins. You can find the numbers on the edges of the chip 1 .. 24 .. 25 .. 48. Time for a big slug of wine! Now use the corkscrew to shorten pin 16 and 17.
I have the Linksys WRT54G v2.2, on some older routers you have to shorten pin 15 & 16.
Now plug in the power cable and your Linksys should be ping-able now. You can send the firmware using tftp:
tftp 192.168.1.1
binary
rexmt 1
timeout 60
trace
tftp> put firmwarefile.bin
GlaDiaC @ January 17, 2007
My WRT54g is almost 4 years old and, appears to have fritzed. Happened during the nite. Only the “diag” lite appears-and that is dim..I tested the power adapter and it is in “OK” shape.. Not having much luck with my search for a repair shop..Can you help with any suggestions?
Thanks,
Knute.
No sorry
I was able to use this same method to recover a dead BEFW11S4v4.
The data sheet for the flash (29LV800, TSOP package) indicates that pins 16 and 17 are A18 and A17, the topmost address lines - so there’s no point in shorting them.
However, pin 15 is the ready/!busy signal, while pin 16 is A18, the top address line. Shorting these together pulls the ready signal down, indicating the device is busy with a program or erase operation, and cannot be read - so the broken firmware cannot be loaded. The device can then be recovered as described.
However, while the firmware was broken, the NVRAM was not - and it wouldn’t let me tftp the new firmware without a password - until I did “put firmwarefile.bin /” - ie, with a / (meaning, in the root directory).
Then, without powering off, I was able to load http://192.168.1.1 and recover all the settings.
Thanks for the tip!