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Re: QOS issues

Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 4:31 pm
by frank1
Part of the problem is that I was trying to flash a US Robotics USR5461, which is a broadcom chip, but not a supported router for DD-WRT (or tomato for that matter). I had that extra USR5461 laying around, so I didn't care if I trashed it. I think I want to get a used Linksys from ebay. Maybe even put a header on it with JTAG. I need a new toy to play with.

Re: QOS issues

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 3:46 am
by scottlindner
frank1 wrote:Part of the problem is that I was trying to flash a US Robotics USR5461, which is a broadcom chip, but not a supported router for DD-WRT (or tomato for that matter). I had that extra USR5461 laying around, so I didn't care if I trashed it. I think I want to get a used Linksys from ebay. Maybe even put a header on it with JTAG. I need a new toy to play with.
It looks like OpenWRT explicitly supports your router. http://oldwiki.openwrt.org/USR5461.html

Far down in the instructions it says the firmware needs to be converted to work with the hardware.

It lists your device as having the Broadcom 5350. According to the Tomato hardware list it supports the 5352 but I couldn't find anything on the 5350. Assuming Broadcom does family of hardware like most vendors I wouldn't expect much difference between a 5350 and a 5352.

If you want to fiddle, I'd give this a shot. Try the DrayTek Router Tools method to unbrick your router. Download the latest firmware from the USR website and use DrayTek to load it. Let me know if you need help with instructions. After restoring your router, I would try the OpenWRT firmware that will work. You should try a small version. From OpenWRT you should be able to determine how much flash and RAM you have, and I would hope it should be easier to get other flavors of firmware on it as well. Maybe OPenWRT will be good enough?

Scott

Re: QOS issues

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 11:47 am
by frank1
No luck. I tried both DrayTek and the Firmware Upgrade Utility. The DrayTek utility can't find the router, and the Firmware Upgrade Utility times out.

I also found this on the internet http://www.usr.com/support/5461/5461-ug/trouble7.html and thought that would do the trick, but no luck either, tried it about 50 times with all combinations of power unplug/plug, reset button, etc.

It seems I can't get it into TFTP mode, or ping the ip address of the router. I keep getting "timeout" messages.

From what it says on the usrobotics site, the router should be going into some kind of boot loader mode the first few seconds after power on, and I should be able to quickly go into TFTP mode and flash the firmware, regardless of how corrupt the firmware is. But it doesn't seem to go into TFTP mode, and won't flash the OEM usrobotics firmware.

I set the ip address on the PC and Router to various combinations of 192.168.1.100 (PC) 192.168.1.1 (Router) - the default of DD-WRT, and 192.168.2.100 (PC) 192.168.2.1 (Router) - the default of US Robotics.

Re: QOS issues

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 3:54 pm
by scottlindner
frank1 wrote:No luck. I tried both DrayTek and the Firmware Upgrade Utility. The DrayTek utility can't find the router, and the Firmware Upgrade Utility times out.

I also found this on the internet http://www.usr.com/support/5461/5461-ug/trouble7.html and thought that would do the trick, but no luck either, tried it about 50 times with all combinations of power unplug/plug, reset button, etc.

It seems I can't get it into TFTP mode, or ping the ip address of the router. I keep getting "timeout" messages.

From what it says on the usrobotics site, the router should be going into some kind of boot loader mode the first few seconds after power on, and I should be able to quickly go into TFTP mode and flash the firmware, regardless of how corrupt the firmware is. But it doesn't seem to go into TFTP mode, and won't flash the OEM usrobotics firmware.

I set the ip address on the PC and Router to various combinations of 192.168.1.100 (PC) 192.168.1.1 (Router) - the default of DD-WRT, and 192.168.2.100 (PC) 192.168.2.1 (Router) - the default of US Robotics.
Is the power LED flashing rapidly?

Try doing the 30/30/30 reset cycle to see if that will force it back to 192.168.1.0. That's press and hold RESET with the power On for 30 seconds, without releasing unplug for 30 seconds, without releasing plug back in and hold for 30 seconds.

Scott

Re: QOS issues

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 6:52 pm
by frank1
That did it! You are the man!

I did the 30/30/30 a couple times before, but thought I'd give it one more try after your post. How I got it to take the flash was doing this:
1. A 30/30/30 reset.
2. At the end of the 30/30/30 reset, when I was ready to release the reset button, I toggled it on/off/on/off/on/off for a few seconds. Kind of a tap, tap, tap, tap on the reset button.
3. Then I unpluged and quickly repluged the cat 5 cable from the lan port.
4. Then I saw the status bar move and it flashed!

Once I got the OEM usrobotics firmware flashed, I went into the usrobotics webgui interface and went to the upgrade tab and flashed it with a dd-wrt file I downloaded from the http://oldwiki.openwrt.org/USR5461.html site. They had a file on the site that was already converted with the usr header that could be loaded directly from the usrobotics webgui upgrade page.

So now I'm up and running with the USR5461 with DD-WRT. It looks like it has a broadcom chip with 8 meg of RAM.

Re: QOS issues

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 7:25 pm
by scottlindner
frank1 wrote:That did it! You are the man!

I did the 30/30/30 a couple times before, but thought I'd give it one more try after your post. How I got it to take the flash was doing this:
1. A 30/30/30 reset.
2. At the end of the 30/30/30 reset, when I was ready to release the reset button, I toggled it on/off/on/off/on/off for a few seconds. Kind of a tap, tap, tap, tap on the reset button.
3. Then I unpluged and quickly repluged the cat 5 cable from the lan port.
4. Then I saw the status bar move and it flashed!

Once I got the OEM usrobotics firmware flashed, I went into the usrobotics webgui interface and went to the upgrade tab and flashed it with a dd-wrt file I downloaded from the http://oldwiki.openwrt.org/USR5461.html site. They had a file on the site that was already converted with the usr header that could be loaded directly from the usrobotics webgui upgrade page.

So now I'm up and running with the USR5461 with DD-WRT. It looks like it has a broadcom chip with 8 meg of RAM.
Excellent! Does it say how much Flash space you have? Does it say what Broadcom chip? DD-WRT is having troubles with QoS with the current release, but with DD-WRT on there you should have no trouble going to another type of firmware. It would be awesome if there is a Tomato build that supports your Broadcom chip. Even if the Tomato wiki doesn't list your USR model number, if it is the same Broadcom chip it should work. Now that you know how to unbrick your router, taking risks with other firmware isn't a big deal. :)

Scott

Re: QOS issues

Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 7:13 am
by frank1
These are the specs. of the router:

CPU
CPU Model: Broadcom BCM5350 chip rev 0
CPU Clock: 200 MHz
Load Average: 0.16, 0.08, 0.02

Memory
Total Available: 5692 kB/8192 kB
Free: 512kB/5692 kB
Used: 5180 kB/5692 kB
Buffers: 280 kB/5180 kB
Cached: 1572 kB/5180 kB
Active: 1228 kB/5180 kB
Inactive: 640 kB/5180 kB

Re: QOS issues

Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 3:32 am
by scottlindner
frank1 wrote:These are the specs. of the router:

CPU
CPU Model: Broadcom BCM5350 chip rev 0
CPU Clock: 200 MHz
Load Average: 0.16, 0.08, 0.02

Memory
Total Available: 5692 kB/8192 kB
Free: 512kB/5692 kB
Used: 5180 kB/5692 kB
Buffers: 280 kB/5180 kB
Cached: 1572 kB/5180 kB
Active: 1228 kB/5180 kB
Inactive: 640 kB/5180 kB
Although it does state it, from other searches I suspect you have a 2MB flash which will limit the size of the firmware you can load. The DD-WRT micro version should fit. I don't know about Tomato just yet.

Scott

Re: QOS issues

Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 10:43 am
by frank1
I'm running DD-WRT version 24 sp 2 micro, and it works fine. I'm using the router in client bridge mode, to convert a wired device into a wireless device. So, I'm not planning on doing anything more with this router.

They have a linksys WRT54GL with 16mb RAM, 4mb Flash, linux, for $49.95 on Amazon. I think I might pick one of those up to play with.

Re: QOS issues

Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 10:49 am
by scottlindner
frank1 wrote:I'm running DD-WRT version 24 sp 2 micro, and it works fine. I'm using the router in client bridge mode, to convert a wired device into a wireless device. So, I'm not planning on doing anything more with this router.
Good. As long as you aren't using DD-WRT for QoS you'll do just fine with it.

frank1 wrote:They have a linksys WRT54GS with 16mb RAM, 4mb Flash, linux, for $49.95 on Amazon. I think I might pick one of those up to play with.
I believe that is very similar to my WRT54GL. Mine is working perfectly for me using Tomato. My wife just finished making a 1 hour DVD of our son (4 months old) for Father's Day for my dad and her dad. My parents are downloading it as a Torrent right now. It's about 3.7GB in size and it is completely saturating my upload. In Tomato I set "bit torrent" to lowest priority, default to middle of the road (for web surfing and other stuff), and Ooma to highest. I called my parents to test it, zero problems at all. I am so impressed with how well QoS works once you have it set up correctly. With the radios turned off it doesn't even get warm so it has to be very low power.

I never did try the stock Linksys firmware for QoS.

Scott