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Topic: OpenWRT Kamikaze on TP-link tl-wa501g?

The content of this topic has been archived between 31 Aug 2014 and 5 May 2018. Unfortunately there are posts – most likely complete pages – missing.

On this topic we discuss near the cheapest WiFi capable hardware that can run OpenWrt to solve our custom needs. Extremly small flash and ram.  If somebody need a router - of course there are many 11n-s around with little bit higher prices.
Baron3k look PM

I have a micronet access point outdoor device.
i am sick and tired of this device.i want to  overwrite tplink 510g firmware on it.is this possible,,,
i am a begineer to this stuff.. kindly help

What is inside your micronet? I mean chipset and all other hardware. Good internal photos will be very helpfull. And it is not clear for me. Are you already run tplink firmware on it and want to flash Openwrt on it?

Hi Thanks for your reply.to be pricise its board is some what like mentioned in page 4 photo.
Actually when i had purchased from the vendor,it was edimax pcba but mirconet firmware was loaded on it.Out of few i had purchased i updated 1 with edimax firmware as per version and model number printed on it.I was sucessful.
But when i tried updating it with tplink 501g firware it gives an error as invalid file format.
My question is being it was orginal edimax pcba,it had firmware of micronet..  that means overwriting another firmware is possible.
As you mentioned i want to flast openwrt on it.. yes i want to know how to do so.
Pls help.

May I download somewhere the micronet firmware that you use ?
Do you have a redboot Boot-Loader on that thing of yours ?

Could you tell what chips you have, could you tell also the numbers of memory and flash chips you have ?
Could you also add some photos of pcba of your device ?

(Last edited by Baron3K on 31 Dec 2010, 12:13)

Hello Baron,
technically speaking i am jst a beginner to this stuff.i cant tell the chips and memory and flashchips on it.Bt if you want a photo you can view page number 4 of this forum.The pcb photo shown on it is some what the same.Can you guess upon it.Can you guide me the process to flash new firmware of tplink 501g on it.
Thanks

What firmware are you running. WHat is the name of the device you use. Can i somehow somewhere obtain yuor firmware for testing. ?

i am using both tplink-501g and edmiax-7206APG and micronet basic model.Bt i have good results of tplink compared to edimax and micronet.i am trying to flash tplink firmware on micronet and edimax firmware.you can download tplink 501G firmware  on http://www.tp-link.com/support/download … =TL-WA501G using TL-WA50xG V1 080909 to download firmware.

Well I'am not intrested on Tp-Links firmware. More likely I would be intrested in Micronet firmware. Could you tell me where I can download a firmware for you micronet device which you said looks like that PCB on page number 4.


TP-Link and other devices cross-over. (Tp-Link has an VxWorks firmware and my PCB board have RedBoot). Flashing Tp-Link firmware on devices that have RedBoot as for bootloader might be a problem)

BTW: Edimax EW-7206APg it's based on Realtek - http://store.freenet-antennas.com/image … inside.jpg

(Last edited by Baron3K on 1 Jan 2011, 12:02)

wht is redboot and how can i know that the pcb have redbot on it.Well i can upgrade micronet firmware on micronet pcb.
As discussed earlier,i want to flash tplink firmware on mircnet pcb.
How do i flash new firmware ?

Well, playing along with a hardware that you don't know anything about, flashing with 3rd party, other producers firmware might be riski. You can brick your device to unrecoverable point if specyfication, bootloader, memory configuration do not match from source to copy.

thanku for the advice.nyways can you tell me how to flash with 3rd party.what kind of software is used.

There is no easy answer to your question. Maybe for a unknown hardware first of all I would use some kind of sniffer, packet capturer. (like wireshark). Monitor the interface which is connected to your device to see if is there any traffic (ARP) in between device and connected computer. Besides you still have to know your hardware specyfication. (memory, flash, cpu, ethernet phy)

Hi boys. Before few mounts a write hire i and after flashing with readboot ii kill my tl-wr542g2 board. Last few days i have little time and make max232 adapter. When connect it to the board i see red boot is ok but cant initialize flash , and booting finish with kernel panic. Where is log.
When i go in risque mode where is a log. Hardware of wr542g look like same with post #68. How to be more useful ?

Neo2SHYAlien wrote:

Hi boys. Before few mounts a write hire i and after flashing with readboot ii kill my tl-wr542g2 board. Last few days i have little time and make max232 adapter.
...
How to be more useful ?

This is known behavior with unsupported flash chip. Please read your 8pin flash chip marking (on post #68 it is atmel 25df161) and post it here. When i'll have little bit more spare time  i will add support for it in MicroRedBoot, RedBoot, and Linux kernel (Yes, this is triple time job).

PS. Somebody says that hardware of the tl-wr542g has 16 Mb of ram. This statment needs confirmation. Please post here RAM chip marking also.
Anyway, good job Neo2SHYAlien, thank you. Stay tuned.

thanks for nice words xssa. I dont have enough good digital photo camera but i read all over chips
Flash -
CST 25vf016b
sd 4c s2af

Ram
Elpida
ds1216agta-75-e

If isnt enough i will ask one friend  photographer make me good photos.

DS1216AGTA-75-E (Elpida 128 Megabit) - 16Mb RAM on tl-wr542g confirmed

Hi,

I was able to run openwrt Backfire 10.3 for TL-WR542-G, but after replacing the RAM with 16Mb (2MB) to 256Mb (16MB) and replace the flash with 2MB to 4MB Macronix MX25L3205

Future I plan to try MX25L12805 128Mbit memory (16MB)

Of course, under these parameters I have properly compiled MicroRedboot from DD-WRT

TL-WR541 and TL-WR542 and TL-WR543 is the same HW version with different RAM size

like killing of WA501G VxWorks
specific information where to begin
I've been following this post almost a year and not give up that is not possible to install openwrt on this device

Hello, sorry to reactivate a very old thread... Well, im curious about the WA500G firmware running on a WR340G... I've tryied to get a backup of the SPI flash, but SPIPGM fails (I have to add some buffers). However, I would like to flash directly the WA500G firmware, because I've readed that xssa mentioned "WA500G firmware runs natively on WR340G". Of course, that needs some header tweaks of the new firmware. Anyone knows how to do that? I've compared 2 o 3 firmwares (.bin from TP-LINK website) and I can't get a header structure.
Also, I want to add, that I have the following data:
Firmware running by default:
4.7.7 Build 100825 Rel.65237n
And what the firmware says about the board:
WR340G v5 0815311C

Oh, I forgot to say, the WEBUI says that the .bin (previously posted here, the vxkiller stuff) is wrong. A little of help there would be awesome.

Thanks

(Last edited by coco_arg on 11 Jun 2011, 04:50)

Is there anyway to implement a repeater /client bridge function in this
router by using this image

Router
wr340g v2.26

CPU is a atheros ar2317-ac1a
flash is a mx 25l1605 (2mb)
ram is esmt m12l64164a- 8mb

ps i just want the wireless to function as a repeater everything else can go..... (firewall etc)

thanks in advance

Update - new Tplink firmwars have changed firmware tags and they support newer hardware versions (v3.1 on back stiker, with Atheros ar8236 switch chip instead on Marvel one on older versions, v2.24 in sticker) So you can not downgrade this newer firmwares with older ones, and they even remove them from their official support page. Vxkiller image also does not support this ar8236 chip found in this new hw versions - LAN/WAN ports will not work. For the same reason modified Tl-WA500 firmware will not work on this newer hardware.
But there is solution for those who have older hardware with newer firmware -  you can downgrade fw with special image and then go as usual. Mail me who are interested in.

i am trying to upgrade this router with the wr340v5_linux file but keeps on giving the error

Upgrade unsuccessfully because the version of the upgraded file was incorrect. Please check the file name.

i recently updated the  original firmware of this router so i don't know what is the problem

please help Ive been through this post already a billion times with no luck

my router is a wr340g v2.26 with the the marvell switch

thanks in advance

(Last edited by drekthar on 5 Jul 2011, 16:15)

i am not able to save changes i changed the settings in the /etc/config/wireless and saved changes by issuing the command :wq
and opened doubled checked with the command less wireless the settings where there........ but after reboot the settings reverted by itself to the default  i googled this and some one told that it might be a because of the squashfs file system or becauseod an old build....... The build is  KAMIKAZE (8.09.2, r18801)



thanks for your help

(Last edited by drekthar on 10 Jul 2011, 07:20)

Probably you did not leave free space for jffs overlay at the end of the rootfs partition.