Hi all,

I was flashing my WL-500gP V2 today with different firmware (started with Oleg's firmware from wl500g.info, created a chroot OpenWRT environment, then used this to put OpenWRT as the main firmware). This worked fine, until I decided to flash this file: http://downloads.openwrt.org/kamikaze/7 … uashfs.trx, because I needed a 2.6 kernel. I said to use this one instead of building my own, but after mtd finished writing, the reboot command didn't work, and I got I/O errors. I said this is normal, because after all I've overwritten the filesystem I was running from. I left it alone for a minute, then I cut power to the router and powered it back on. It didn't come back on

I tried the recovery procedure that I found in various posts, but no luck. It doesn't respond to either the configured IP or the default IP, and there's no traffic that tcpdump can sense from the router. My first idea was that this image doesn't have the network drivers for the wl500gPv2, but I don't know how valid this affirmation is. The other is that the image is plain incompatible.

Can anyone help me restore functionality? Or has it become an expensive paperweight?

This information may help me not brick a second unit that I'm getting tomorrow, or at least get it into a recoverable state.

Thanks.

i think you cut the power too soon. the actual flashing is done after transfering the file..  it takes 3-4 minutes...

i guess you need a jtag cable.

you can try and power it on with the reset button pressed then try to tftp it... don't know.. i've been playing a lot with  wl500gp v1 and bricked it and unbricked it a lot of times. it's not a dead end by all means.

(edit: anyway, the 7.09 kernel 2.6 firmware you used, it's HIGHLY UNSTABLE! i highly recommend you compile latest svn yourself or try the snapshots from http://downloads.x-wrt.org/xwrt/kamikaz … m47xx-2.6/ )

(Last edited by dlbogdan on 21 May 2008, 07:39)

I have bricked this many times to say w/ confidence that you can recover. Keep the restore button pressed and swtich the power on. While the power led is flashing tftp your .trx file again.. go for a 15 min walk and it should work.

For some reason, I can't get the router to respond on either the IP I set when using Oleg's firmware, nor the default IP, even though it's in diag mode. I have another router, a version 1, and I'm happily flashing it using this method without any problems whatsoever. Anyway, I'm making a serial cable, and I hope to be able to recover that router from the CFE, or see if I can use diag mode from the serial port for the same purpose.

The second router got bricked today. And I didn't do anything out of the ordinary this time. I flashed the firmware as I usually do, and... it no longer starts after reboot. It won't even go into diag mode so I can upload new firmware by TFTP. Any idea why?

I tried again the first router with the firmware restoration tool, because that one goes into diag mode. The firmware restoration doesn't find it on the network. The serial cable adapter is on the back burner right now.

Both are v2 routers. I have a v1 which, so far, works without a glitch.

IIRC the WL-500g Premium v2 is only supported in recent trunk revisions. Means, best is if you compile by yourself.