Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2020 4:08 Post subject: Help - Netgear R8500 No WiFi in DD-WRT
Hello DD-WRT, I need some help to get my Netgear R8500 working again.
I have read the peacock thread and all stickies on this board. Being new in the firmware tinkering area, I followed the peacock instructions religiously.
My ISP is Comcast, I use Netgear CM1150V cable modem, Netgear R8500 router before it stopped working. Now I use my old Linksys N router while working on the R8500. I am a long-time Windows user, not familiar with Linux so this is quite a learning experience for me.
Long story short, my R8500 got in boot loop after a stock firmware upgrade (from 1.0.2.86 to 1.0.2.134). After trying all the stock firmware builds, only the oldest two could boot up, but have a lot of issues (2.4G works, but 5G not working for example). So I started looking 3rd party solutions. I did a lot of online research before switching to the DD-WRT firmware.
I was able to install the last Kong build (DD-WRT v3.0-r39960M 06/08/19) as recommended by MyOpenRouter using NMRPFlash, everything looks good except WiFi is not working. SysInfo shows radio is OFF.
In Wireless menu I can only see wl0, but not the wl1 and wl2 I also expected. However wl0 doesn’t show correct band (5GHz/802.11AC), which seems to indicate the wireless chip was not recognized properly?
And from other people’s screenshot below I can see they have extra settings between “Wireless SSID Broadcast” and “Explicit Beamforming” like “NitroQAM (QAM1024) support”, I don’t have those, another sign of wireless driver problem.
I looked everywhere in the web UI, couldn’t find a place to switch the radio on. Searched the forum, came across JHF1420's post which led to buffalo0207’s post which led to puremind’s post, the recommendation is to install the oldest build that can work and replace the CFE with a clean one and then update to latest firmware. I followed the suggestion but unfortunately the build 30260 didn’t work for me. So I started trying other old builds. Based on a few trials, it seems my router can boot on Kong dd-wrt.K3_R8500_20171101.chk, but fails on earlier build dd-wrt.K3_R8500_20170514.chk. I replaced the CFE following puremind’s suggestion. But, still no Wireless. Is the 20171101 build not old enough?
Here are the various builds I have tried so far.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Code:
Stock Firmware: V1.0.0.42_1.0.23. Boot successful.
Result: 2.4G works. one 5G band has signal but cannot make connection, other 5G band no signal
Install Kong DD-WRT v3.0-r39960M (06/08/19)
Result: LAN working, no WiFi signal, radio OFF. Only wl0 in wireless menu, no wl1 or wl2. Wl0 doesn’t show proper band (5GHz/802.11AC) as expected
Upgrade to latest DD-WRT r40559 through WebGUI
Result: same as above, no WiFi signal, radio OFF
Switching to Kong build based on some post:
Install DD-WRT factory-to-dd-wrt(11-14-2016-r30880).chk, boot loop
Install DD-WRT factory-to-dd-wrt(12-15-2016-r30949).chk, boot loop
Install Kong dd-wrt.K3_R8500_20170514.chk, boot loop
Install Kong dd-wrt.K3_R8500_20171101.chk, boot up success. Still no wireless, radio off, Only wl0, no wl1 or wl2. Wl0 doesn’t show proper band (5GHz/802.11AC) as expected
Follow puremind’s steps to replace current CFE with the downloaded one, erase nvram and reboot, after power cycle and hard reset, radio still off
Upgrade to latest DD-WRT build Firmware: DD-WRT v3.0-r40559 (08/06/19) through WebGUI, still no WiFi, radio off.
To summarize my current situation:
- I can get the 2.4GHz WiFi working if I use the 2nd oldest stock firmware, that’s the best outcome thus far.
- Newer DD-WRT firmware builds (after 20171101) can boot up, but without WiFi I got a $400 switch.
So if you are still reading, here is my question. What other troubleshooting step can I do besides aimlessly trying different old builds and hope for a miracle? So far I don't have to resort to serial connection yet, but I am willing to give it a try if there is hope.
One observation so far based on my experiments, for stock firmware only the old build could work, but for DD-WRT firmware only the newer builds could work on my router. Which at least proves Netgear gave up fixing this product long time ago. Unfortunately I have yet to find the one build that can boot up and support WiFi.
Any idea appreciated, and apologize for the long post. I want to provide the details required for people to help.
Thanks for the reply. I always do a 30/30/30 hard reset before the flash, and a power cycle followed by another hard reset after every new build based on the the peacock thread instructions. Didn't do the 7 second factory reset but I assumed 30/30/30 is even cleaner reset? To be honest I don't know the difference so I decided to go with the stronger reset to be safe.
blkt wrote:
It's probably better at this point to search for a used R7500v2, EA8500, R7800 or R9000 (offerup, mercari, craigslist, ebay).
Yes, I am keeping an eye out on the upcoming Amazon day sale, in the meantime this has been a great learning experience so I am interested in experimenting more on this router and try to see what I can salvage. At this point I have nothing more to lose, only knowledge to gain.
Thanks for the reply. I always do a 30/30/30 hard reset before the flash, and a power cycle followed by another hard reset after every new build based on the the peacock thread instructions. Didn't do the 7 second factory reset but I assumed 30/30/30 is even cleaner reset? To be honest I don't know the difference so I decided to go with the stronger reset to be safe.
30/30/30 isn't for your router, or any ARM based router for that matter. It's for ancient routers e.g. MIPSR1 based like WRT54GL and it's a bad habit that refuses to die. It can damage or brick modern routers. Peacock thread only still exists for those really old routers.
simpledreamer wrote:
Yes, I am keeping an eye out on the upcoming Amazon day sale, in the meantime this has been a great learning experience so I am interested in experimenting more on this router and try to see what I can salvage. At this point I have nothing more to lose, only knowledge to gain.
You can wait for a good deal within a tiny time window and limited model selection, or pay a fraction of any sale price with a used condition router and much less worrying about breaking things due to investment (don't be the guy who returns a bricked router lol).
30/30/30 isn't for your router, or any ARM based router for that matter. It's for ancient routers e.g. MIPSR1 based like WRT54GL and it's a bad habit that refuses to die. It can damage or brick modern routers. Peacock thread only still exists for those really old routers.
That's quite a shocker for a newbie like me. Everywhere I look in this forum I kept seeing people talking about the importance of 30/30/30 reset. You are the first person who told me the opposite. Truth be told it always felt like an urban legend to me since first time I heard about it. From engineering perspective, how does unplug power cord for 1 second any different from 30 seconds? But who am I to question a long-time ritual trusted by the gurus. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Posted: Wed Oct 07, 2020 17:38 Post subject: Serial port log captured
Ok, I gave the serial connection a try following instructions here and here. It was pretty straightforward. I actually spent more time trying to open the case without breaking anything.
So with my newly acquired tool, I captured two logs: 1. the router in boot loops (dd-wrt.K3_R8500_20170611) 2. Router boots successfully on stock firmware V1.0.0.42_1.0.23. Now it’s time to dig in and try to make some sense of what is happening. I uploaded here in case anyone interested to take a look and help me to decipher them.
Is there any article/tutorial that talks about the detailed commands or how to interpret the bootloader message?
Any advice/pointer appreciated.
Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2020 0:04 Post subject: stable version for R8500
If you get to the point where things are working again, I am using DD-WRT v3.0-r44467 std (09/24/20) on my R8500, with great success. We have 20 or so devices in the house, a mix of 2.4 and 5Ghz, everything seems to be connecting correctly.
Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2020 8:45 Post subject: Still researching
Thanks for the suggestion. I hope one day I will have a chance to try the new build. Currently researching the "wl driver adapter not found" issue. Seeing a lot of this error message through the serial link, no wonder the radios are off.
I'm running 44483 since yesterday, the wifi is stable, I had some glitches with 44467, I noticed them when doing some conference calls from my computer. _________________ Netgear R9000 main router
RAX80 as AP
