Hi, I've been a total idiot with my new and now already 'broken'  router and was hoping someone could help me to get it working again.
The first thing i did was to flash it with
openwrt-ar71xx-wrt160nl-squashfs.bin which didn't complete. So then i tried
openwrt-ar71xx-generic-wrt160nl-squashfs-factory.bin which actually did complete.

However. now i cant reach the control panel anymore.
I do get an ip address and i can ping the router.
I can also connect through telnet and execute these failsafe commands:
http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/linksys/wrt160nl
or navigate in the directory structure, but with no real results.
I have little to none experience with linux or where i'd need to go to configure or reflash it this way (if that's even possible).

In the above link they also  show some pictures of a serial console, 1 internal option, and one on top of a rj45 connector
If these are just some connectors connected with some usb cable, then i have the tools and i can do this. But if there is programming involved then i would be totally lost. But at this point this is totally unclear to me. Also, those pictures don't seem to give enough information to actually know what to connect to what.

I hope someone can point me in the right direction, because i'm lost.

cd /tmp
wget ...
mtd -r write openwrt-ar71xx-wrt160nl-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin firmware

http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/linksys/wrt160nl#mtd

Perfect.
Thank you so much,
I totally missed that piece of information. So there is a way to restore it within the reach of my skills. this is very good to know.

I thought about it some more though, and decided i want such a serial connection (i bought the router for openwrt). The way i understand it, its just a serial port connector/cable, connected to the pins in the router and nothing more, which would be totally doable for me.
However, what i don't know is  how to connect it, and if the 5v needs to become 3.3 first.

router:
+3.3v
TX
TR
NC
GND

serial:
GND
+5v
GND
TD+
TD-
+12
EC
RD+
RD-
http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech … img009.gif

So if i understand it right, this is what i must make:

or

Is this assumption correct, or are these diagrams unique per routertype?

Are there more diagrams out there in case i cant find the right ic?

(Last edited by trendpoinder2 on 26 Jan 2012, 09:58)

eBay keywords, "USB TTL RS232 adapter PL2303".

http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/linksys/wrt160nl#serial
OpenWrt / ASUS RT-N15 serial console
NSLU2-Linux - HowTo / AddASerialPort browse
Serial port - NAS-Central Buffalo - The Linkstation Wiki

I was able to flash the original (upgraded) firmware with the option fiy suggested (wget from telnet), i tried to flash openwrt again, but it again didnt work.

I made the circuit from my previous post, but it didnt work (should it have?) I might have broken some components due to incorrect connecting,
is "USB TTL RS232 adapter PL2303". the same as the circuit from my post?
also, will i be able to flash the firmware that way as it is consistantly failing through the webupgrade page?