i received 2 of these routers for this program and i was told to just keep the extra one.
i would like to use it as a normal router and i have followed many many guides all of which do not allow me to get into failsafe mode.

I would be comfortable with jtaging if required as I have done this in the past with xboxes satellite receivers etc.

not sure what version of openwrt samknows is using in canada but no matter when i press the wps/reset button on the back it just boots normally.  unless i hold it down while powering on then i get just wps and power lights on.

i have set it to ping -t to the router ip address and it does show a reply for a few seconds but then give me unreachable.
i cannot telnet in regardless.

any help would be appreciated.

would love to get this going.

thanks in advance for any help.

Hi see here:
https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=54826

To get in to safe mode i hade to keep tapping the button as the router was booting

(Last edited by tapper on 11 Jul 2015, 02:43)

it will only reply to pings for about 10 seconds then i get request timed out or destination unreachable regardless of how i try to start it up.
i can hammer that wps button and it does nothing at all except boot to sys light flashing slowly or fully boot.

i have tried this over and over for hours.
no difference no matter what i do.

i would be happy to try anything i am really getting angry.

i can only successfully ping 23 times everytime i boot it up and then destination host unreachable.

try plugging in to the wan port

same thing in wan port.  23 responses exactly everytime then destination unreachable

is there a guide for jtagging that is reliable?  I have ordered a USB To RS232 TTL UART PL2303HX

Isn't this based on OpenWrt to start? Can't you just flash from the webGUI a new version of OpenWrt that is appropriate for your router?

I believe others have described serial recovery for the WDR3600/4300, which are very very similar devices. You should be able to follow those guides if that's the approach you want to take.

(Last edited by drawz on 11 Jul 2015, 20:12)

@drawz  yes it is based on openwrt but know the webgui is not enabled so it has to be done either serial or tftp and I am unable to get it into failsafe mode.

I have no idea why or if that has also been disabled.  Just want to use this router and at this point it looks like its going to be a paper weight.

power up your router, when the second green light comes on press the router reset on the back.

If this goes well the "Sun" shaped LED will flash fast and you will get ping replys

Manually set the IP address of your PC to 192.168.1.100

@ tapper  i have tried this over and over again.  when the sun shaped light comes on i press the reset button and nothing happens the router just boots up normal.
i have tried all different timings to get it right and nothing changes.
the sun shaped led never flashes fast it just flashes the same speed no matter what i do.
nothing changes.

if i try and press it over and over again i get the symptoms i described earlier.  i can ping it exactly 23 times regardless of what port im on or ip address i assign to my pc.

the network always shows an exclamation mark.
i have rebooted and tried nothing changes.

i cannot access this router no matter what i do.

i am waiting for the cable to arrive and hopefully someone will direct me to a guide for using it so i can try that.
I don't know what firmware i should try loading on to it either as i read about avoiding ones that say boot in the title.

At this point i would be happy with stock firmware just so i could use it.

have you tryed TFTP this way?

At least some revision 1.5 routers contains bootloader recovery TFTP client. To activate it press and hold WPS/Reset Button during powering on until WPS LED turns on. Connect computer to LAN1. Using TCPdump, you should see ARP requests from router having address 192.168.0.86 looking for address 192.168.0.66.
# tcpdump -ni eth0 arp
ARP, Request who-has 192.168.0.66 tell 192.168.0.86, length 46
Set up your computer to address 192.168.0.66, netmask /24 (255.255.255.0).
# ip addr add dev eth0 192.168.0.66/24
Using TCPdump, you should now see request for new firmware image:
# tcpdump -npi eth0 udp
IP 192.168.0.86.2195 > 192.168.0.66.69:  44 RRQ "wdr3600v1_tp_recovery.bin" octet timeout 5
Rename factory image to given name and put it into TFTP server root. → generic.flashing.tftp
:!: In case you are flashing back original firmware, make sure original firmware image name does not contain word boot

I use Gargoyle on mine and they have just aded adblocking and a email plugin.
https://www.gargoyle-router.com/index.php

latest ver here if you ever get it working.
https://www.gargoyle-router.com/phpbb/v … amp;t=7227

ok so i finally got around to trying this.
using win 7 and microolap tcpdump
have the wps led on when i sent this command.

C:\>tcpdump -ni eth0 arp

*******************************************************************
**                                                               **
**         Tcpdump v4.5.1 (Nov 20, 2013) for Windows             **
**    Win98/ME/NT4/2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008/Win7/Win8/Win2012     **
**                                                               **
**      built with Microolap Packet Sniffer SDK v6.1 and         **
**   Microolap WinPCap to Packet Sniffer SDK migration module.   **
**                                                               **
**                  (c) Microolap Technologies,                  **
**                  Khalturin A.P. & Naumov D.A.                 **
**                   http://www.microolap.com                    **
**                                                               **
**                         Trial license.                        **
**                                                               **
*******************************************************************

tcpdump: listening on eth0
tcpdump: eth0: Error opening adapter: Overlapped I/O operation is in progress. (
997)

Then i ran wireshark to see what was going on and this is what i keep getting.

1    0.000000000    ba:be:fa:ce:08:41    Broadcast    ARP    60    Who has 192.168.0.66?  Tell 192.168.0.86
2    0.000018000    AsustekC_28:26:9b    ba:be:fa:ce:08:41    ARP    42    192.168.0.66 is at f4:6d:04:28:26:9b
3    0.000353000    192.168.0.86    192.168.0.66    TFTP    86    Read Request, File: wdr3600v1_tp_recovery.bin, Transfer type: octet, timeout\000=5\000

then this continues over and over until i get another broadcast message who has

This is far beyond my scope.  am i doing anything right here?

I just want to use the router.

Still waiting for my jtag cable to come in.

anyone???

got it using this.  but used gargoyle instead of original firmware!

was also getting bind error and it turned out that ms security essentials was the problem also.

1- Download original firmware TL-WDR3600

2- Removed boot with hex editor, saved and rename firmware to wdr3600v1_tp_recovery.bin

3- Download tftpd32 version 4.50 TFTPD32 (is very important! if you have a firewall software, grants all permissions to tftpd32 and especially open port 69.

4- Change your PC/Laptop ip address to 192.168.0.66, Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0

5- Connect you computer to the LAN port 1 on the router (WAN port won't work for this)

6- Open tftpd32, in TFTP Server select server interface 192.168.0.66

7- Hold down the WPS/Reset button on the router.

8- Power on the router.

9- After approximately 7 seconds release the reset button.

10- In tftpd32=>tftp server, in current directory, browse and select folder with firmware edit and rename (in step 2)

11- The router will now download the firmware from your server and upgrade. (patient and do not interrupt the process)

12- after the router reboot, in your browser go to 192.168.0.1, user and pass is admin, connect WAN port and setting, on your pc reverse and change the IP manually to obtain an ip address automatically.

hope this helps someone else.

happy this is a good router for free.

Hi glad you got it working. I think they may of changed the firmware as mine did not work like that. How you liking the new gargoyle  with adblocking?