Hi

I want to port openwrt to the smc 7804wbrb, but there is a problem with the serial connection:
I can read the router's boot messages without problems, but I cannot send anything.

There is no serial port on my computer, so I decided to use a cut off DKU-5 cable with the PL2303 (USB-to-TTL33).
First, I connected VCC and GND to the appropriate pins in order to power the PL2303.
After that, a loop back test worked (cable-tx <--short--> cable-rx).

Then, I connected router-tx to cable-rx. Also works.
I can now read the router's boot messages.

Amongst them there is: 'Press any key to enter boot menu', so I briefly connected router-rx to ground, just to see if I had identified the correct pin, and that worked also.
The boot menu showed up.

Now I thought it would be obvious: connect cable-tx to router-rx ...
...but this does NOT work. As soon as I do this, the connection seems dead.
No sending, no receiving, nothing.

Does anybody _please_ have any clues?

I was going to say "turn off hardware flow control", but if both sending and receiving stop when you connect up the router-rx, I don't know...