I'm just another disappointed WNDR4500v3 purchaser. Gotta run this back to the store before the grace period is up at closing tonight (glad I never opened the box!)
Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2017 2:24 Post subject: Looking for supporte dd wrt firmware for Netgear WNDR4500v3
Hi
I have also bought my Netgear router model WNDR4500v3. I am also looking for supported dd-wrt firmware. Looking towards developer of dd-wrt. Please support for WNDR4500v3 firmware.
Please help me to get DD-WRT firmware for my router. Hoping for supported firmware soon from developers.
As a preliminary before sending a router off you can do the following:
First, open the device and take high quality, high resolution pictures of the device. Some preliminary work on this has been done here https://wikidevi.com/wiki/Netgear_WNDR4500v3 and on the earlier hardware versions here https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/netgear/wndr4500
The goal of this is to determine if it's possible to hook up a serial console cable that works. There are some posts in various forums I've seen that indicate people may or may not have done this. Some seem to indicate the serial port is output-only.
If you can get a read-only serial connection then boot the router and post the output. If you can get a read/write serial connection then a critical test is to see if you can break out of the boot and issue a command to re-load the factory firmware
For an advanced user, figure out jtag and connect that.
Next you can try to see if you can access the telnet interface. Start here https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/netgear/telnet.console Read that thoroughly and search for other info on this router you might find.
If you can telnet in you can run some commands like cat /proc/mtd to look at the flash layout.
Next you need to figure out and identify the sequence for tftping, or if there is one. That is, can you tftp a factory firmware image to the router during it's pre-boot sequence as an emergency recovery?
It simply isn't possible to port dd-wrt or any other firmware to a router that has no way to de-brick it. And manufacturers are NOT above switching stuff around. For example I just picked up a used Netgear WNR2000v3 - it's an Atheros chipset just like yours and has a dd-wrt wiki and all of that - but - NONE of the recovery procedures in the dd-wrt wiki for it work. I was very very careful with this and did indeed get dd-wrt on it (I updated the wiki) but if I had made one single mistake I would have had a brick with no way to de-brick it short of taking it apart.
A non-developer regular user with no programming experience can figure out and write-up debrick procedures. A router that lacks any way of debricking is going to get zero attention from the developers. And figuring those out is a lot of time.
Last if you want to try your own hand towards porting to this device, the first step is re-building the manufacturers firmware. You can get the source to this here: https://kb.netgear.com/2649/NETGEAR-Open-Source-Code-for-Programmers-GPL According to the README it uses Ubuntu 10 to compile - that's K2.6 code. What you do is setup a build environment and compile the Netgear-supplied source into an *.img file. Then flash that to the router and see if it works.
Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2017 6:49 Post subject: Router support
It is not supported at the moment but support should be fairly easy because it uses the same SoC as the TP-Link Archer C7 v4 (but not the same wl1 chip), which is supported. Most likely you just need to get some info from the serial console and some decent board pics.
Get a USB-TTL 3.3V serial device and hook it up. Make sure to check the voltages with the router on before hooking up the serial connection. First find 3.3V and ground, the other 2 are TX and RX, if you don't get a connection, just switch TX and RX.
When you have done all that, open a ticket on the SVN timeline and post the info there or link to it here.
JTAG on Atheros is not necessary, I have never used it on Atheros, just serial and TFTP.
The main problem is that the combination of those two chips is not supported, both chips are supported in other routers, but not together.
=== IMPORTANT ============================
Please enter your account and password,
It's the same with DUT GUI
------------------------------------------
telnet account:admin
telnet password:
=== IMPORTANT ============================
Use 'passwd' to set your login password
this will disable telnet and enable SSH
------------------------------------------
BusyBox v1.4.2 (2018-03-09 10:17:15 CST) Built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.
_______ ________ __
| |.-----.-----.-----.| | | |.----.| |_
| - || _ | -__| || | | || _|| _|
|_______|| __|_____|__|__||________||__| |____|
|__| W I R E L E S S F R E E D O M
KAMIKAZE (bleeding edge, r18571) ------------------
* 10 oz Vodka Shake well with ice and strain
* 10 oz Triple sec mixture into 10 shot glasses.
* 10 oz lime juice Salute!
---------------------------------------------------
root@WNDR4500v3:/#
root@WNDR4500v3:/# cat /proc/mtd
dev: size erasesize name
mtd0: 00040000 00010000 "u-boot"
mtd1: 00010000 00010000 "u-boot-env"
mtd2: 00010000 00010000 "caldata_backup"
mtd3: 00010000 00010000 "config"
mtd4: 00010000 00010000 "traffic_meter"
mtd5: 00010000 00010000 "pot"
mtd6: 00160000 00010000 "reserved"
mtd7: 00010000 00010000 "caldata"
mtd8: 00120000 00020000 "kernel"
mtd9: 017e0000 00020000 "rootfs"
mtd10: 00b20000 00020000 "rootfs_data"
mtd11: 01900000 00020000 "firmware"
mtd12: 00200000 00020000 "language"
mtd13: 00020000 00020000 "mtdoops"
mtd14: 064e0000 00020000 "reserved"
root@WNDR4500v3:/#
I had an update go bad, so I know that TFTP recovery works. I'm willing to try compiling DD-WRT for this device, as the stock firmware is getting really sluggish.
Is there any news on DD-WRT firmware for this router? I am surprised such a popular model is not being supported yet.
I went out to purchase a new router last week which would be DD-WRT supported but the ones available in the shops in my area are newer versions not yet supported. And as several people have already experienced here, I do not want to order online lest I should receive an unsupported version.
Posted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 18:45 Post subject: OpenWrt
It should've been available soon, since OpenWrt now supports the v3 starting version 21.02.0 on 2021-09-02. OpenWrt doesn't support v1 and v2 for some reason.
Joined: 08 May 2018 Posts: 14249 Location: Texas, USA
Posted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 20:19 Post subject:
Did anyone ever donate hardware? No hardware donation, no fullflash dump, no firmware support. Hardware donation is preferred. It's like people don't get this basic concept.
Joined: 06 Jun 2006 Posts: 7492 Location: Dresden, Germany
Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2022 4:01 Post subject:
as soon as i receive a testunit or a donated unit i can provide a port within 2 days. but so far nothing received. porting it blind is risky. the device has 2 flash chips which is very unusual. so i need to work with a serial console to ensure that all is working and nothing gets unrecoverable bricked _________________ "So you tried to use the computer and it started smoking? Sounds like a Mac to me.." - Louis Rossmann https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL_5YDRWqGE&t=60s
funny I find this before I was about to start sending emails asking about donating routers.
This will now be another router being added to the few number of other different models ill be trying to donate.
Dont hold your breath on it though. "There are many points of failure this firmware has to cross to getting on this router". _________________ For people who are new to the dd-wrt forums >> http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#rtfm
barryware wrote:
It takes a "community" to raise a router..
Internet Connection 1
Some Techicolor modem > Linksys WRT3200ACM
Internet connection 2
Ubiquiti Powerbeam Gen 2 > Netgear R9000
Official (but not really) dd-wrt General Discussion element/matrix chat