SOLVED ...ea8500 Missing Wireless tab in GUI.....

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ramblin
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PostPosted: Sat May 21, 2022 22:28    Post subject: Reply with quote
Here are inside pics and putty data from both ea8500s for comparison.
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ramblin
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Joined: 03 Nov 2015
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Location: Florida, USA

PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2022 0:25    Post subject: Reply with quote
mrjcd wrote:


I would flash stock back to see iffin anything changes.
might as well try

from that build you can easily flash back to DD-WRT

Well that is what I did and it easily reverted back to factory. I tried to set it up and it gets NO connection. ( It was plugged in to a WDS Station which is the only connection I have here ) but it still says no connection. It does NOT broadcast. Maybe it would if I could finish setup. I then updated to factory to DDWRT r48897. Again, No wireless tab. I will go back to Linksys factory and
take it home and try an ISP connection tonight, but I expect the same results. If you guys think its bad hardware I will just call it a loss. I won`t try and return it. I`ve soldered on a header and had a dozen different builds on it. Thoughts ??
blkt
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PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2022 3:31    Post subject: Reply with quote
Most likely failing hardware, but maybe as servicetech mentioned corrupt or missing factory calibration data.
the-joker
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PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2022 9:17    Post subject: Reply with quote
If hardware failure, its up to you how you proceed. since you have soldered the header returning it may be problematic, but flashes aside they wouldn't be able to tell how many builds you flashed as long as it had the stock firmware flashed into it.

And I doubt they would even notice you soldered the headers at all, unless you damaged the casing while opening it and it was obvious.

Up to you really. Since you likely got a dud to begin with unless you confirmed everything worked fine on both routers before the hacking begun to get dd-wrt into it.

Me unless it was obvious that the device was opened, I would return it. Especially if it was some retailer, as they will send it to some service point.

And I dont know if these were already used machines, so if they were then send the faulty one back anyway.

From the attached info, I can see they are different hardware revisions 305 vs 205.

Where different revisions are concerned, could be either that, there are no technical differences or there are, I think (at a glance) there are since the uboot versions are different. 1.0.9 vs 1.0.12.

The good device has these lines at the top

PCI0 Link Intialized
PCI1 Link Intialized

The Bad is missing them. So clearly somethings up.

To fully determine the interchangeability of uboot and other chip's flashes one would have to examine the boards and determine the changes and then look at hardware addressing.

If you determine they are interchangeable (flash wise) this is where Brainslayers input would be helpful) then if you write the bad router off as a matter of course, you could dump uboot from good machine change the mac addresses to the ones from bad machine and dump the bad machine uboot as backup and then flash the modded uboot from good machine into bad machine.

But only if you are now on an academic search to experiment and they are interchangeable. Then see if the bad one spring to live. Since you made a backup of the bad machine uboot, it can be reverted easily.

Does that make sense?

Ill pong Brainslayer again.

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servicetech
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PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2022 9:54    Post subject: Reply with quote
blkt wrote:
Most likely failing hardware, but maybe as servicetech mentioned corrupt or missing factory calibration data.


There is one "art" partition at flash listed, a board_config partition is not listed, assume calibration data is stored in "art". I remember if the calibration is bad the atheros wlan interfaces (both bands) are missing after boot (and the settings in GUI).
the-joker
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PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2022 10:16    Post subject: Reply with quote
@servicetech

You recon its worth trying to flash the bad router with the good routers partitions contents?

I mean, HW revisions are different, there is a risk if they are substantially different it will bork the bad one further, but assuming one has backups from the outset, its fully reversible in theory.

BS said what already was determined.

brainslayer wrote:
dont know what to say. the bad router is damaged / broken. the bootlog shows that there is no wifi card connected to the pci bus, so its scrap


So in this case, depends if the OP is willing to try Frakenstein this out or not. Or if it will ever make a difference is the HW is actually dead, then no amount of Frankensteining will fix it.

thoughts?

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servicetech
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PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2022 15:02    Post subject: Reply with quote
the-joker wrote:
@servicetech

You recon its worth trying to flash the bad router with the good routers partitions contents?

...]

So in this case, depends if the OP is willing to try Frakenstein this out or not. Or if it will ever make a difference is the HW is actually dead, then no amount of Frankensteining will fix it.

thoughts?


If the hardware was received in working condition with factory firmware (the first post does not say anything about wlan with factory or kong build), it went dead with the flashing. I assume there is no possibility for exchange/money back if it was in working condition.

If the hardware is not usable and not returnable, money is already "lost" and that piece of hardware is now trash. Wifi could not get worse if ramblin is able to backup existing art and flash a backup from other identical working device (assume the art partition has same size by comparison).
lexridge
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PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2022 17:57    Post subject: Reply with quote
One of my EA8500s is the version 305 (XD). I can use DD to rip the contents of the art (/dev/mtd8) partition if needed. Not sure exactly how to write that data back however without a bit of research.
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Linksys EA8500 (Internet Gateway, AP/VAP) - DD-WRT r53562
Features in use: WDS-AP, Multiple VLANs, Samba, WireGuard, Entware: mqtt, mlocate

Netgear R7800 (WDS-AP, WAP, VAP) - DD-WRT r53562
Features in use: multiple VLANs over single trunk port

Linksys EA8500 WDS Station x2 - DD-WRT r53562

Netgear R6400v2 WAP, VAP 2.4ghz only w/VLANs over single trunk port.

OSes: Fedora 38, 9 RPis (2,3,4,5), 20 ESP8266s: Straight from Amiga to Linux in '94, never having owned a Windows PC.

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ramblin
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PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2022 21:25    Post subject: Reply with quote
My seller has agreed to ship me another ea8500 even after I fessed up to tampering with it. (Didn`t seem to care....Wants me happy... I`m HAPPY !) Didn`t say anything about returning this one so it may be come FREE to anyone who want to play with it. Thanks to the many here who helped me on this thread. Specially mrjcd for his outstanding tutorials. See you on the new builds threads.
the-joker
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PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2022 6:42    Post subject: Reply with quote
That is a rare occurrence to me outside of the UK.

Well make sure you test the hell out of it before flashing DD-WRT making sure al components are operating and hope it is something that is DD-WRT able. All though the wiki is generally outdated, it mentions some newer revisions that have made it further more difficult to serial flash.

Let us know how that goes.

I would still try to reflash the art partition with lexridges dump, just for the hell of it. At least you have something you can keep for spares.

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lexridge
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PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2022 13:12    Post subject: Reply with quote
Here is the mtd8 (art) image file if you decide to try it. It will decompress to a little over 1.3 mb.
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Linksys EA8500 (Internet Gateway, AP/VAP) - DD-WRT r53562
Features in use: WDS-AP, Multiple VLANs, Samba, WireGuard, Entware: mqtt, mlocate

Netgear R7800 (WDS-AP, WAP, VAP) - DD-WRT r53562
Features in use: multiple VLANs over single trunk port

Linksys EA8500 WDS Station x2 - DD-WRT r53562

Netgear R6400v2 WAP, VAP 2.4ghz only w/VLANs over single trunk port.

OSes: Fedora 38, 9 RPis (2,3,4,5), 20 ESP8266s: Straight from Amiga to Linux in '94, never having owned a Windows PC.

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the-joker
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PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2022 14:48    Post subject: Reply with quote
shameless ping @servicetech

I had sent you a pm a while back, I see you haven't read it. Sad

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blkt
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PostPosted: Thu May 26, 2022 5:15    Post subject: Reply with quote
It is advisable to back up all contents of partitions before any write experiments, but also for comparisons.
ramblin
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PostPosted: Fri May 27, 2022 1:52    Post subject: Reply with quote
I haven`t given up on this idea and I am anxious to try. My replacement will be here in a few days and I don`t know if it will come with a return label. The seller has not shown any interest in getting it back and I asked. As soon as I know I own it for sure I will need a little tutoring on back up and flashing. Never did this before but I have nothing to loose.
the-joker
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PostPosted: Fri May 27, 2022 7:26    Post subject: Reply with quote
Well, with your new machine ensure its all working before you touch it, and when you do make sure you dump everything as a backup.

Also I wonder.... When you initially soldered the header on this router, if you applied too much heat and it may have dislodged something else on the other side of the board or a trace was damaged that affected the PCI where the radios are connected or something like that. (shit happens, Ive done it)

I would check this out and then run continuity tests on the circuits. TBH I would check the complete circuitry and components for any signs of operation outside the expected values.

And then repair traces or replace whatever.

Outside of that, you should always backup all your boot code and partitions before doing anything. I have these clips that bite/slot into the contacts on the board and make a solid connection as opposed of soldering headers as long as there is no movement it works, there are different types available, anyway...

Keep us updated. Wink

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