Hi, I received from my ISP a TP-Link Archer C7(US) v5 as a gift for 3 years. It has has openwrt installed.
It is locked so I can't login and anyway I don't like what they did and would like to flash it by myself.
tftp check
john@laptop:~$ ls /var/tftpboot -la
total 16156
drwxrwxrwx 2 nobody root 4096 Jan 13 14:58 .
drwxr-xr-x 15 root root 4096 Jan 13 05:51 ..
-rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 4194481 Jan 13 09:21 ArcherC7v5_tp_recovery.bin
-rwxrwxrwx 1 nobody john 3 Jan 13 08:13 a.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 4194481 Jan 13 09:21 tp_recovery.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 john john 8126464 Jan 13 09:25 wdr4300v1_tp_recovery.bin
john@laptop:~$ tftp 192.168.0.66
tftp> get tp_recovery.bin
Received 4225721 bytes in 0.1 seconds
tftp> get ArcherC7v5_tp_recovery.bin
Received 4225721 bytes in 0.1 seconds
tftp> q
john@laptop:~$
Did power off. After few seconds, pressed Reset and without releasing pressed power. Released Reset after 20-25 seconds.
Nothing worked. Tried both files:
openwrt-18.06.1-ar71xx-generic-archer-c7-v5-squashfs-factory.bin
openwrt-18.06.1-ar71xx-generic-archer-c7-v5-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
to put into the root of tftp as a pair ArcherC7v5_tp_recovery.bin & tp_recovery.bin
I connected using serial to that device and nothing looks like it attempts to flash itself from tftp.
Initially had issues with pinouts. Ground identify was easy, then I mesured voltage and 1 pin was 2.9V other had some mV. So I
thought that the one which has 2.9V is 3.3v which is the first. 2nd pin was ground. When I connected just 4th pin I saw output in the Putty(for Ubuntu). So, I believe they go 1th-3.3V, 2nd-GND, 3rd-RX, 4th-TX. Once again I saw out when I had
1 - GND
2 - RX from CP201x
I see in the output it asks
Setting 0x181162c0 to 0x41822100
Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0
## Booting image at 9f0c0000 ...
Tried to press any keys no luck. I also copied "tpl" into clipboard. After the start once this "Hit any key to stop autoboot" appears I pressed quickly Ctrl+V few times. Also tried press it many times from the start nothing worked.
I did a loopback test for CP201x, by shorting TX & RX and I saw in the terminal symbols I have typed. I also soldered again a 3rd pin suspecting that I have not soldered it well.
I was connected using normal(normally used to connect pc to switch/router) 5 meters ethernet cable from my laptop to the first LAN port.
What did I do wrong what else should I try?