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Topic: Netgear Wireless Router DGND3800B

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Hi all,

guess this is my first post here. I would like to know if anyone has experience with the mentioned Netgear Router and if yes: Did you make openWRT work on it?
I couldn't find any reference to it in the wiki or repo, so I thought: What about asking the guys? smile

I'm still trying to setup and have a look into the device... got standard telnet access for it working.
It's a dualcore device (one core for the xDSL stuff and the other for the rest), so it differs a lot (in hardware) from the WNDR3800.
Some info on the hardware: Dualcore (à 400Mhz), 128MB Flash, 128MB RAM

The installed firmwares are:
B2pvC035g.d23k <- for xDSL Modem
V2.0.0.14_2.0.14 (Linux version 2.6.21.5 (finerain@CPEII-SW-Team) (gcc version 4.2.3) #2 Thu Dec 29 12:58:35 CST 2011) <- for the rest (and where I can telnet to)

So, here's some output of the device specs:

~ # cat /proc/cpuinfo 
system type             : 96368MVWG
processor               : 0
cpu model               : BMIPS 4350 V3.1
BogoMIPS                : 398.95
wait instruction        : yes
microsecond timers      : yes
tlb_entries             : 32
extra interrupt vector  : no
hardware watchpoint     : no
ASEs implemented        :
VCED exceptions         : not available
VCEI exceptions         : not available

unaligned exceptions            : 77867364
~ # cat /proc/version 
Linux version 2.6.21.5 (finerain@CPEII-SW-Team) (gcc version 4.2.3) #2 Thu Dec 29 12:58:35 CST 2011
~ # version
Release version : Netgear Wireless Router DGND3800
                  U12L14411/V2.0.0.14/2.0.14
           Time : Dec 29 2011 12:58:56
    CFE version : N/A
~ # cat /proc/mtd 
dev:    size   erasesize  name
mtd0: 01e1ff00 00020000 "rootfs"
mtd1: 01e20000 00020000 "fw_upgrade"
mtd2: 00020000 00020000 "SP"
mtd3: 00020000 00020000 "MISC"
mtd4: 00020000 00020000 "DPF"
mtd5: 00020000 00020000 "T_Meter1"
mtd6: 00020000 00020000 "T_Meter2"
mtd7: 00020000 00020000 "ST_Turkey"
mtd8: 00020000 00020000 "ST_Russian"
mtd9: 00020000 00020000 "POT"
mtd10: 00020000 00020000 "ST_German"
mtd11: 00020000 00020000 "ST_Other"
mtd12: 00020000 00020000 "ST_English"
mtd13: 00020000 00020000 "ST_Portuguese"
mtd14: 00020000 00020000 "board_data"
mtd15: 00020000 00020000 "nvram"
mtd16: 02000000 00020000 "whole_flash"
mtd17: 00351000 00351000 "Physically mapped flash"
mtd18: 08000000 00020000 "storage"
~ # cat /proc/meminfo 
MemTotal:       126120 kB
MemFree:         86744 kB
Buffers:          3516 kB
Cached:          12592 kB
SwapCached:          0 kB
Active:          16220 kB
Inactive:        10248 kB
SwapTotal:           0 kB
SwapFree:            0 kB
Dirty:               0 kB
Writeback:           0 kB
AnonPages:       10384 kB
Mapped:           2888 kB
Slab:             6896 kB
SReclaimable:     1336 kB
SUnreclaim:       5560 kB
PageTables:        404 kB
NFS_Unstable:        0 kB
Bounce:              0 kB
CommitLimit:     63060 kB
Committed_AS:    21208 kB
VmallocTotal:  1032148 kB
VmallocUsed:      3256 kB
VmallocChunk:  1027820 kB

Any help or pointed fingers would be highly appreciated! smile

I know that the DGND3800 can be equipped with openWRT by using the built-in web-interface. This might also apply to this router, but I haven't tried yet.

Nevermind... will send it back.
It's a piece of crap... unfortunately.

Just for my interest. Whats so crappy about it?

Don't know either. But, I took the unit apart... 
I've started a support page for this device and already posted some findings, check here.

It's got 32 MB FlashRom, not 128 MB. It does have 128 MB RAM.

When examining the bootloader, some things are noticeable:
- used bootloader is from DGND3700
- ability to load firmware image from remote host with ip address '192.168.1.100' where the firmware file should be something like 'vmlinux'

Am a bit new to this reverse engineering part, but seems to me we're able to safely experiment with custom firmware images when booted from the remote host.

(Last edited by hvandrie on 10 Jul 2012, 00:04)

dvzrv wrote:

It's a dualcore device (one core for the xDSL stuff and the other for the rest), so it differs a lot (in hardware) from the WNDR3800.

Netgear(or any router company I've found) makes their model numbers completely meaningless in terms of how closely related they are. Even the same models, just differing in revision, can be vastly different. DGND's are almost all Broadcom 63x8 based, due to the integrated xDSL modem. the WNDRs are a couple of different ones.

I'd still be interested in seeing how this system pans out. You said you can get it to boot kernels and ramdisks/root filesystems via uploading them to a certain IP address? How is that coming along

edit - What is that slot in the image on the page for? Was there a wireless radio there or was it empty?

(Last edited by tului on 10 Jul 2012, 06:45)

The wireless radio is in the mini-pci slot... I removed it for better overview of the pcb.
I'll post the pic on the support page.

If you go to the support page I created, you'll see the bootloader output... when you examine that, it says boot from host (flashrom) or remote. And, I think that instead of 'sending' the firmware image to the router, like you say, it will actually 'download and run' the firmware image from the ip address, what I suggested.

hi, I have a DGND3700. It has the same CPU, can i help you? i really want openwrt on this devices because they have good hardware. 128MB flash and 128MB ram can be really usefull!

Edit: i think it has another CPU but they are quite similar

(Last edited by roaman on 12 Jul 2012, 17:30)

I do not have any experience with Netgear DGND3800B but you can search other forums, online posts to get the necessary informations.

Is internal VDSL Modem supported and useable by OpenWRT for this Router?

(Last edited by lipkegu on 3 Dec 2015, 13:29)

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