Articles and Guides

NETGEAR GS605AV Home Theater and Gaming Network Switch

These days with all the networked devices in the home you can run out of the standard 4-5 LAN ports available on most routers.  I found myself in this situation with my WNR3500L.  Here, I had a 1.0 Gbps capable router and more devices to connect to it than it had ports!

How to Hard Reset Your NETGEAR WNR3500L

One question that I have seen come up frequently on the forums, and also needed myself, is how to "properly" reset my NETGEAR open source router in the event of a lockup of some kind.  This happened to me on an experimental install of DD-WRT, and I thought that there was no hope short of debricking the router using a special cable.  However, after speaking with some experts, I discovered there are other methods to try first.

Installing USB Support on WNR3500 and Tomato (BETA) Firmware

If you saw my post here about the new Tomato Beta firmware for the WNR3500, you may want to give it a try for yourself.

I did, and then ran the USB support through it paces. From my testing, it not only works well but is extremly simple to setup and configure.

Here is how to set it up.

Turn On USB Support

1) Click on USB and NAS in the left hand column.

2) Click on Core USB Support

3) Turn on or off the 1.0/2.0, Printer and file system support as needed.

4) Click on Save

5 ) After saved click on Reboot in the left hand column.

Why Do You Need A Special Serial (USB-TTL) Cable to Debrick Your Router?

I have been asked a few times if there is a way to convert a basic USB cable to allow it to connect to your WGR614L/WNR3500L.

The answer is basically no - allow me to explain.

How To Reflash Factory Firmware on the NETGEAR WRN3500L Without A Serial Cable

When you upgrade to DD-WRT on your WNR3500L, you'll find that the new firmware requires a file that ends with the BIN extension, if you ever want to upgrade or change your firmware from that point.

So, if you decide, for example, to revert back to the original NETGEAR firmware - you can't because that firmware has a filename that ends in CHK.

As such, this makes it harder to change back. One way to do it is to use a serial console, but if you don't have one... here's a way to accomplish it in Windows without one.

Fortunately, included in the DD-WRT firmware is an erase utility that will wipe the firmware and allow you to upload a new one.

Easy Serial Cable Connection Hack for WNR3500L

I like to play around quite a bit with the fimrware on my WNR3500L router and more than once I have bricked it and had to turn to the directions shown here.

But I have taken it a step further and made it so I can plug the special USB cable directly into the router. Now I don't have to have wires hanging out or leave the case open for easy access.

Here is what I did.

NETGEAR Press Conference at CES 2010

Didn't get a chance to see NETGEAR's press conference at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in sunny Las Vegas?  NGTV1 comes to the rescue with full YouTube video coverage of the event.  Watch all three parts below and see what exciting new products and innovations NETGEAR has in store for the new year!

You can watch more videos at MyOpenRouter's Videos page!

Using NETGEAR WGR614L (with DD-WRT) As A Wireless Client Bridge

Updated 01/12/2010 by BrandonC.

Introduction

A wireless client bridge is needed to connect two LAN segments with a wireless link. The two LAN segments will be in the same subnet. In this article, we will show the steps to configure the NETGEAR WGR614L with DD-WRT firmware (downloadable by clicking here) as a client bridge.
Please note that when a router is working as a wireless client bridge, we cannot connect wireless clients to it .

How to Install OpenWRT Firmware on NETGEAR WNR3500L

Once you get your hands on the NETGEAR WNR3500L, you'll probably be pretty tempted to start hacking away; unleashing the power of this brand new open source monster.  Along with other builds of ready made firmware, a BETA version of the OpenWRT firmware is available.

How To Install Tomato Firmware on NETGEAR WNR3500L

Once you get your hands on the NETGEAR WNR3500L, you'll probably be pretty tempted to start hacking away; unleashing the power of this brand new open source monster. Along with other builds of ready made firmware, a BETA version of the ultra-stable Tomato firmware is available.

What is Tomato Anyway?

Besides actually being a fruit, rather than a vegetable, Tomato is a router firmware with a reputation for being super stable and useful. It features an easy to navigate GUI, bandwidth monitoring features, as well as a whole host of other useful bits. Read more about the Tomato firmware at the official site.

How to Debrick/Restore your WNR3500L with a USB-TTL Cable and Mac OS X

Mac users are often no strangers to playing around with Terminal windows and custom software.  Although Mac OS X isn't open source, it's built upon BSD and Unix, and thus can be used to recover your WNR3500L in case something goes wrong... with the aid of the Developer tools and some third party open source packages.

Frankly, even for a Mac nerd like myself, it took quite a while of digging around on multiple articles, sites, and forums to find a combined solution for recovering a bricked WNR3500L - but I have managed to complete it successfully.  Apple fans, rejoice that you can save yourself hours of Internet searching with my easy-to-follow tutorial!

Installing and Getting Started with DD-WRT on NETGEAR WNR3500L

Once you get your hands on the NETGEAR WNR3500L, you'll probably be pretty tempted to start hacking away; unleashing the power of this brand new open source monster.  Fortunately, the WNR3500L already has several distributions of DD-WRT that are easy to install and use, and are perfect for either a first step into open source networking, or as a powerful solution for Linux junkies.

Pages