It looks like I did an excellent job of bricking my R7000. But then what could be more fun than bringing it back? I would like some ideas on how to proceed, now that I have tried many of the de-bricking tutorials without success.
Started out with a perfectly good new R7000, flashed the first level wrt, then one of the latest versions. No problemo. I went back and forth between wrt and the factory firmare a couple of times to get more familiar with what all the wrt features are. The last time I failed to clear out my settings to defaults and did a flash. It did not come back. There I said it.
I never changed the router IP, it remained at 192.168.1.1. Using ping (Windows 8.1) there is no response. My NIC is set to 192.168.1.2 and connects normally with my DSL modem, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this!
So, following Kong's de-bricking tutorial, I purchased a serial cable, got the drivers installed and started PutTty, which recognized the interface just like it is supposed to do. I am able to start the router, press ^C and it stops at the CFE prompt as it should. (I even let it run to the end and it eventually loads Linux, and tells me that the IP is still 192.168.1.1. I can then start the ftp deamon TFTPD and the "Reading" prompt comes up. I am stuck at that point. Below is a description of what happens.
I now follow the de-brick guide for the WMR-3500 which is suggested for my R7000. Using an admin command window, I execute (or try to execute) an tftp command using the Windows built in version of the program. The command I use is supposed to load the factory firmware which I have placed in C:\ since for some reason it doesn't like to see it anywhere else? The command:
tfpd -i 192.168.1.1 put FACTORY_FIRMWARE.chk That is the suggested form of the command in the tutorial. After a while I'm thrown back to the prompt and it says can't access. If you look at tftp -h it says that the SOURCE should come after the -i and the destination should come AFTER the file. This is a finicky program. If I fill out the command completely, then the command prompt comes right back without any error messages and repeats the help file. Neat! Then I tried tftp2.exe and started it after receiving the "Reading::" message from the router. 12 tries later, nothing has happened, power LED on router is blinking, but the port LED stays lighted and does not blink.
One more thing I tried, in my ignorance, is I let the bootup messages finish until I got a command prompt from the router. I then executed an NVRAM ERASE and NVRAM COMMIT, having read that suggestion in a number of places. OK, I'm not a whiz at this. Ping -t 192.168.1.1 while trying to load the firmware has never produced any results. The router can't be reached at this point. It does, however look fairly official and blinks the LED's when booting up or after doing a 30-30-30 reset. There you have it. What comes next???
Thank you!!!
spaceX
Success.
Very briefly, the critical ingredient here is the use of XP instead of Windows 8.1 to do the flashing. Sickening! Something in the later Windows versions makes the flashing process almost impossible due to timing issues between the ftp program and the router's boot loader. Figures!
Use the XP environmment or Linux. Flash the MINI dd-wrt file first, then the larger file of your choice. You are wasting your time trying to do this on anything later than XP.
For those who want to run dd-wrt on their 7000 and similar routers, get the FTDI cable in advance - the version with the stereo plug which is TTL-232R-3V3-AJ. Install a stereo jack on the back of the router and have the wires all ready for the de-bricking you will most certainly be doing at some point along the way. Download the tools and files that you will need when the router stops working.
spaceX
To continue, for those who are in the same situation, I find a couple of new inexplicable facts. Changing from factory firmware to dd-wrt again on Windows 8.1, using FireFox there were problems. Note that at the beginning of the saga, a number of flashes were successful using this setup. Until it was bricked.
After recovering, as above into the factory firmware and setting the defaults and rebooting and also doing the 30-30-30 routine the update process started normally, but stopped immediately after about 2 seconds and displayed the error message: "connection reset" or something similar. Multiple tries produced the same results.
Just for interest's sake, I tried the update process using IE instead of FireFox and everything worked smoothly. More dark mystery. There are a lot of software layers between a web browser and that little nvram chip inside your router. Proved once again that Windows excels in putting multi-colored dancing mushrooms on your screen and little else.
Another vote for the Linux command line.
spaceX
not sure if this will help, but have you cleared caches and cookies on FF? Also do note that a 30-30-30 has no effect on ARM-based routers
Good point about clearing the cache, but never saw any mention of clearing cookies from the browser - scratching my head on that one. Glad that I won't have to do the 30-30-30 on this. It is still creepy to have different things happen while repeating the same procedure.
spaceX