- #Dd wrt nighthawk r8500 serial#
- #Dd wrt nighthawk r8500 manual#
- #Dd wrt nighthawk r8500 software#
- #Dd wrt nighthawk r8500 windows 7#
The concept of a read-after-write verify on something is not new, tape drives have done that for ages (sometimes with two heads, one read, one write). Without doing this, it would start to load linux, then fail and reboot after about 30-60 seconds.Posted: Thu 13:58 Post subject: Read after write and temperature Hitting control-C during the boot sequence causes the CFE bootloader to open a prompt.
#Dd wrt nighthawk r8500 serial#
As soon as it started to boot, I saw text on the serial connection. Working with the CFE ( cafe) boot loaderĪfter setting up and connecting the serial port, I plugged the router circuit board back in and turned it on. The com port settings are 115200 kbps, 8 bits, N (no parity), 1 (stop bit). I found that the device enumerated on my computer as COM15, and I opened a serial port connection in Putty. Note that I only connected the first 3 pins on the R8500 serial connector. I used a ribbon connector to hook up the R, T, and G pins to the USB-DLP232M pins.
#Dd wrt nighthawk r8500 manual#
The connections here are based on the manual for the DLP-USB232M ( ). I hooked it up on a wireless breadboard using the USB 5V power to supply the serial connection.
#Dd wrt nighthawk r8500 windows 7#
After about 15 years, this thing is still working great, and could be installed on a windows 7 machine without too much trouble. I happened to have a DLP-USB232M serial adapter handy. I have used lots of USB-serial converters in the past. Next, I needed a physical serial port connection. The R, T, and G pins need to be connected to the serial port on the computer. The R8500 board has 4 pins labeled R (receive), T (transmit), G (ground), and V (voltage). The red arrow in the next image shows the 4 pin serial port connector. On the R8500 the serial port is near the front-left of the board. The top side of the circuit board has a large heat-sink. Then the board can be carefully lifted out of the housing, being careful to not damage the small circuit boards at the front of the box. The tape over the connectors and holding the wires in place needs to be removed. The connectors each have a number stenciled onto the PCB, so it's easy to figure out where all the wires plug back in afterwards.
All the antenna wires are labelled with the numbers of the corresponding surface-mount SMA connectors. The circuit board and antenna wires are then visible. Once the screws are removed, the bottom cover slides up a little bit toward the antennae and can then be removed. The other 4 are under the small rubber feet in the four corners. On the bottom of the router, there are 6 screws. This means opening the case, and creating a cable to connect to the board. To interact with CFE, there is a serial communication port on the circuit board of the router.
#Dd wrt nighthawk r8500 software#
This piece of software can perform diagnostics on the hardware, and allows the device to be programmed or started up. When the computer (a microcontroller) first starts, there is a software called CFE that starts up. CFE is an open source bootloader for Broadcom devices. In essence, Netgear routers have a computer running a linux operating system, and a boot loader called CFE (Common Firmware Environment). Sounded like fun to see if I could get it going again.Ī great resource was this forum page on "How to Set Up a Serial Console for NETGEAR R8000". After reading reviews and comments on the netgear forum, I realized that the issue was likely a firmware problem. A quick check showed the power brick output was correct (19.5 volts!). My initial thought was that maybe the power supply was faulty, since it was constantly rebooting (the power indicator would turn amber, flash a bit, then go back to amber, then the unit would reboot. I was curious whether I might be able to bring it back to life.
Michael Geisen (February 9, 2018) Getting started I came home from work and it had fallen victim to the "continuous reboot loop" that a vast amount of others have encountered with this product. This router worked great for about two hours and then the endless boot loop started Julio O. This router has been the bane of my existence since I bought it. On Amazon 22% of the 1,844 reviews for this model are 1 star! Some Amazon review highlights Based on reviews this router appears to have really poor longevity, and a lot of them seem to have failed in service after a short period of time. It's disappointing that for a 620$ router, Netgear only offered a 1 year hardware warranty with 90 days of support. The same reviews were pretty harsh (3/5 stars) because upfront this was an incredibly expensive router (it was originally 620$), though now the price has dropped to 130$. It has some pretty impressive specifications (dual-core 1.4GHz processor, 512 MB RAM, and a bunch of wireless connections), with reviews positively highlighting its capabilities. A friend recently gave me a 2 year old Netgear router that had failed.