I have installed OpenWrt per the instructions on a WAX620, which installs as the backup software on the device. Any time the unit loses power it reverts to the primary netgear software (it’s back up by a UPS, not sure why it lost power/reverted this last time).
Is there any way to prevent his behavior? It’s not the end of the world, just mildly annoying.
brada4
November 7, 2025, 6:43am
2
main ← skramstad:main
opened 03:57PM - 21 Aug 23 UTC
Netgear WAX620 AX3600 Wireless Access Point, is wall or ceiling mountable. It ca… n be powered via PoE, or a 12 V adapter.
The majority of the code is based on [Netgear WAX218 PR](https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/pull/11959).
```
Specifications:
* CPU: Qualcomm IPQ8072A, SoC Version: 2.0, Quad core Cortex-A53 1.6896 GHz
* RAM: 1 GiB of DDR4 600 MHz
* Flash: NAND 2x256 MiB (Macronix MX30UF2G18AC)
* 4 RGB LEDs: Power, LAN, 2.4GHz and 5GHz
* UART: Two 4-pin unpopulated headers under the LEDs.
Use the header closest to LED 4 and 5.
They are marked with a white stroke.
TX RX GND, beginning from "4". 115200n8.
Lan:
* One 100/1000/2.5GBASE-T Gigabit Ethernet (QCA8081)
Wlan:
* 4x4 in 2.4GHz: 802.11b/g/n/ax
* 4x4 in 5.0GHz: 802.11a/n/ac/ax
* OFDM and OFDMA
* Bidir and MU-MIMO
* Internal antenna 3.1/4.3 dBi (2.4GHz/5GHz)
Power:
* PoE+ 802.3at/af 25.5W
* DC 12V 2.5A
```
## Installation: serial connection
```
Note: The OpenWrt image is setup with DHCP and not a static IP.
1. Download the OpenWrt initramfs image. Copy the image to a TFTP server
2. Connect to console on the AP, and connect the LAN port to your LAN
3. Stop auto boot to get to U-boot shell, interrupt the autoboot process by pressing '0' when prompted
4. Set active_fw in env
# setenv active_fw 1
5. Transfer the initramfs image with TFTP
# setenv serverip 192.168.1.10 (IP of TFTP server host)
# setenv ipaddr 192.168.1.1 (IP used by the router for getting the image, must be in the same subnet as the TFTP host)
# tftpboot openwrt-qualcommax-ipq807x-netgear_wax620-initramfs-uImage.itb
6. Reboot and load the image
# bootm
7. SCP factory image to the AP
# scp openwrt-qualcommax-ipq807x-netgear_wax620-squashfs-factory.ubi root@192.168.1.1:/tmp/
8. Connect to device using SSH (use the LAN port)
9. Flash squashfs-factory.ubi from within the initramfs instance of OpenWRT
Before you flash, please check your mtd partitions where mtdX is the right mtd rootfs partition.
# cat /proc/mtd (To check MTD partitions)
# ubiformat /dev/mtd19 -y -f /tmp/openwrt-qualcommax-ipq807x-netgear_wax620-squashfs-factory.ubi
10. Set active_fw to 0
# /usr/sbin/fw_setenv active_fw 0
11. Reboot the AP and your done
# reboot
```
Signed-off-by: Kristian Skramstad <kristian+github@83.no>
What is in fw_printenv ?
Add the following line to /etc/rc.local so that it resets the counter on every reboot and doesn't revert to stock firmware after five reboots.
# Put your custom commands here that should be executed once
# the system init finished. By default this file does nothing.
fw_setenv boot_count 0
exit 0
1 Like
Thank you both for your replies, i should have time tonight or tomorrow to impliment