Bricked after installing tomato

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Adambomb
Adambomb's picture
Bricked after installing tomato

Hi, I was having some problems with my WNR3500lv2 dropping irc and torrent tracker connections and after trying multiple OFW versions I decided to install tomato-Netgear-3500Lv2-K26USB-1.28.RT-N5x--105-AIO.chk and was only able to login to the router once after installing it.. now I can't login and get a server not found error when trying to. Not sure whats going on since it logged in correctly once and now won't do anything.. any suggestions?

KJ4EED
KJ4EED's picture
Suggestion:

Suggestion:
Cycle power on router.
Is "Power, TOP" LED blinking green at a steady state? ( about 2Hz )
Set computer ip, mask, gateway, DNS etc... (no DHCP).
From computer run tftp in binary mode to 192.168.1.1.
tftp --> Put "whatever_firmware.chk".

Maybe no need for USB Serial port 3.3V TTL converter or Torx 6 screwdriver to taking apart the WNR3500Lv2.
Just a thought.
KJ4EED

oSN!
oSN!'s picture
I had the same problem and

I had the same problem and knowing the green blinking power LED telling you it's not enough bricked to be forced to use the "USB Serial port 3.3V TTL converter" was good news for me.

Using windows 7, do like this:
- activate tftp in "control panel -> programs and features -> Turn Windows features on or off"

- do the 30-30-30 reset.

- download a firmware that fits for the router. I downloaded tomato_Netgear-3500Lv2-K26USB-1.28.RT-N5x--109-AIO.chk and did put it into the root folder of c:

- Now connect a TP network cable to port 1 (not WAN)
- Set your IP to static and choose: 192.168.1.x where x=your favorite. Netmask: 255.255.255.0 and gateway to 192.168.1.1 (this is the default IP of the router).

- open the commandline (cmd) and type:
tftp -i 192.168.1.1 put tomato_Netgear-3500Lv2-K26USB-1.28.RT-N5x--109-AIO.chk

You will get some kind of result. Mine was something like:
Transfer successful: 994942 bytes in 7 second(s), 1421320 bytes/s

Give the the router time to reboot. It may take a while.
Suddenly the LEDs started to blink as it should again.

I hope this will be for help to some one. Thank you KJ4EED for adding the post making me understand that I probably did not have to buy that USB Serial port 3.3V TTL cable. I thought my interupted udate had totally bricked my router.

MrVodinn
MrVodinn's picture
oSN! Thank you very much!

oSN! Thank you very much!

KJ4EED
KJ4EED's picture
I am glad to share and help.

I am glad to share and help. This forum has helped me.
Disclaimer: I worked on 3 tier embedded firmware systems 15+ years ago.
The following is a guess and not intended to insult anyone...

The WNR3500Lv2 embedded firmware appears to have a 2 tier firmware system.
The 1st tier will blink the POWER LED if the 2nd tier has a checksum failure.
Otherwise the 1st tier jumps to 2nd tier. (USB-2-TTL cable needed)
The user is only allowed to update the 2nd tier firmware.
There can be instances of good checksum but still bad 2nd tier firmware.

Please reboot your router before backing up configuration and updating.
KJ4EED

adriano
adriano's picture
Hello All,

Hello All,
after trying to upgrade to the latest shibby version tomato-Netgear-3500Lv2-K26USB-1.28.RT-N5x--124-AIO from v105 and my wrn3500lv2 router died.

i tried to connect to jtag/232 as (1[vcc][rx][][][tx][gnd] - 115200@8N1) and i see that looping as:

CFE for WNR3500Lv2 version: v1.0.9
Build Date: Fri May 6 11:54:17 CST 2011
Init Arena
Init Devs.
Boot partition size = 262144(0x40000)
NFLASH Boot partition size = 524288(0x80000)
Found a Samsung NAND flash with 2048B pages or 128KB blocks; total size 128MB
Decompressing...done
â??Found a Samsung NAND flash with 2048B pages or 128KB blocks; total size 128MB
Decompressing...done
Found a Samsung NAND flash with 2048B pages or 128KB blocks; total size 128MB
Decompressing...done
Found a Samsung NAND flash with 2048B pages or 128KB blocks; total size 128MB
Decompressing...done
Found a Samsung NAND flash with 2048B pages or 128KB blocks; total size 128MB
Decompressing...done
Found a Samsung NAND flash with 2048B pages or 128KB blocks; total size 128MB
Decompressing...done
Found a Samsung NAND flash with 2048B pages or 128KB blocks; total size 128MB
Decompressing...done

...looping to the infinite...no way to see any other different message.

Any Crtl+C or 30-30-30 was not succesfull.
There is any possibility to recover it?
thank you.
br
adrian