Unbrick WRT350N
Wow, so last night I tried to flash an unsupported ddwrt image on my WRT350N & I bricked it 
. I would have been golden, except for some reason boot-wait wasn’t working. I spent about 30 minutes looking what new router I should purchase, when I thought, ah there are no good routers out that will accept DD-WRT; I’ll just unbrick my current router…
Well to start I had to figure out how to open the darn thing. I ended up ripping off the top & bottom plastic where some nice torx security screws greeted me… Well a few came out with some nice twists of my torx driver. Yet a couple actually had the center pin proper height. Easy way to get around this, is to find a small phillips screwdriver. I was able to easily unscrew them with a phillips.
After removing the screws I was now able to access the board; most importantly the serial header:
From Left to Right (Yellow = 3.3V; White = Tx; Red = Rx; Black = GND)
I used my handy dandy CA-42 Serial to USB adapter:
It also has colored wires, and I should have matched them up, but I kinda just plugged some alligator clips in & plugged them into the right wires for the CA-42. The CA-42 layout is like this (Black = GND ; White = Rx ; Green = Tx ; Red = +V)
After connecting everything up, you should be able to see “output” & be able to hit Ctrl-C to be dropped into CFE>
nvram set boot_wait=on nvram commit reboot
Now prepare to copy the image over. I had three windows open. A window with the serial output, a window pinging 192.168.1.1, and a window to execute my push command. I would also recommend that you set (IP Address = 192.168.1.10 ; Subnet = 255.255.255.0; Gateway = 192.168.1.1) Once you receive a ping after rebooting run the following command:
echo -e "nmode binarynrexmt 1ntimeout 60ntracenput dd-wrt.v24_mini_generic.binn" | tftp 192.168.1.1
where ‘dd-wrt.v24_mini_generic.bin’ is the image you would like to flash (it took me about 6 different images until this one worked [ this is the web flash image on the wrt350n page])
After running the following you should get something that looks like this:
If everything went as planned, then you should end up with a working router 
Yay!
There are plenty of resources on the internets. I found this wonderful link: http://dg.cascade.dyndns.org/wrt350n.html which perfectly outlines EVERYTHING I needed to do. It was very helpful in this process.
Yeah. That is awesome. I wish I had your skillz!
Hi, I brick my route last week :S and searched everywhere, but i dont know how to hack a CA-42 and connect to the router.
You can help me? I have alligator clips and CA-42 Serial to USB adapter. You cut the USB port like http://www.flickr.com/photos/68444690@N00/4384883733/in/set-72157623377212337/ but, how i connect the other end?? as a serial port?
If you have a some pic or a tutorial in how to do it would very grateful to you.
I do not understand, I found this https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=22620 and this http://buffalo.nas-central.org/index.php/Use_a_Nokia_Serial_Cable_on_an_ARM9_Linkstation but as you can see, they cut the Pop-Port (phone connector).
thanks in advance,
JJ
Oh hai,
That is unrelated, you DO NOT need to cut open the CA-42. Just get some alligator clips & clip them to their respected places on the router motherboard, and then connect those to the correct wires of the CA-42.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68444690@N00/4385664594/
Router: From Left to Right (Yellow = 3.3V; White = Tx; Red = Rx; Black = GND)
Ca-42: (Black = GND ; White = Rx ; Green = Tx ; Red = +V)
I would take a look at this link also: http://dg.cascade.dyndns.org/wrt350n.html
Let me know if you need any more help…
Hey tranks men,
Ok, I know how to connect the CA-42 to the board with alligator clips, like you say. I already seen that page but I still doubt. (http://dg.cascade.dyndns.org/wrt350n.html)
1) The question I have is the following:
If I strip the USB connector (like you pic) and use the alligator clips with the board. How connect the other end (Pop-port) to the computer?
2) Another question. I can use the wires of the Pop-Port (phone connector) with alligator clips to the board and then connect USB port to the PC?
Thanks
JJ
Hello,
I already made the connection with the cable to the router and I can see the booting but when I write something only strange characters appear or letters that do not match the letters you press in CFE mode.
any advice?
regards
Hi Jonny,
O connected the cables, but it does nothing on screen (screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200), just a cursor blinking. On /var/log/messages I got this message: “usb 1-3.3: ark3116: don’t know how to do software flow control”
any clue?
thanks for your time.
And this how to is very helpful
Did you try 9600 baud? Also did you match tx correctly with rd on your cable? Reply with a pic so I can check it out.
I got a cheap ca-42 cable from eBay, it has SIX wires, it also uses the … Arkmicro Technologies Inc. ARK3116 chip , who ever heard of that one?
So I cut it (and my finger) open to find the pads where the wires are soldered (on the ca-42, not my finger). This one is odd…
green = Rxd
white = Txd
orange = 3.3v
red = gnd (that’s just weird!)
yellow is labeled ‘aci’ WTF is that?!
blue = RI sounds like eye, and no it is not r1 (one) that resistor is at the far end of the board
in addition there are some unpopulated pads near where the wires are soldered ..
R6 , R5, R3, R4, and finally Q1, which is 3 pads, obviously for a transistor
I have WRT350N V1 bricked. I am able to get serial console up and this is what I am getting. Basically it cannot find drivers for ETHERNET any ideas? How can I send a new firmware if I cannot get my eth0 up. I would greatly appreciate any help.
VFS: Mounted root (squashfs filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 128k freed
Please be patient, while OpenWrt loads …
Algorithmics/MIPS FPU Emulator v1.5
- preinit -
Press CTRL-C for failsafe
diag: Detected ‘Linksys WRT350N’
roboswitch: Probing device eth0: No such device
roboswitch: Probing device eth1: No such device
roboswitch: Probing device eth2: No such device
roboswitch: Probing device eth3: No such device
switching to jffs2
mini_fo: using base directory: /
mini_fo: using storage directory: /jffs
- init -
Please press Enter to activate this console. roboswitch: Probing device eth0: No
such device
roboswitch: Probing device eth1: No such device
roboswitch: Probing device eth2: No such device
roboswitch: Probing device eth3: No such device
b43-phy0: Broadcom 4321 WLAN found
Broadcom 43xx driver loaded [ Features: NLR, Firmware-ID: FW13 ]
PPP generic driver version 2.4.2
ip_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team
nf_conntrack version 0.5.0 (1024 buckets, 4096 max)
Looks like you have the totally incorrect firmware, I would verify that you have the right firmware, then continue.