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Topic: Bricked Buffalo WZR-HP-G450H, Help!

The content of this topic has been archived on 4 May 2018. There are no obvious gaps in this topic, but there may still be some posts missing at the end.

Hello, after trying to move from DD-WRT to OpenWrt 12.09, I bricked the router.

At first the router only blinked continuously red diag led. I tried tftp recovery, and i tried several firmware:  openwrt-ar71xx-generic-wzr-hp-g450h-jffs2-sysupgrade.bin
openwrt-ar71xx-generic-wzr-hp-g450h-squashfs-factory.bin
openwrt-ar71xx-generic-wzr-hp-g450h-jffs2-tftp.bin, and even the official buffalo firmware (enc extension), but it only got worse. Now, the red diag led is solid, without flashing upon boot.

I tried connecting via usb-ttl serial cable, but no response at all from the serial port.

TFTP still works for the first 4 seconds (at least I could send a tftp image by using arp and issuing tftp -i put xxxx)

Any ideas what can I do next?

Thanks.

i got the red light before on buffalo router when the image I wrote to it was corrupted, it certainly doesnt seem like bricked as it has light and even responds to tftp upload. Do you start the tftp as soon as the router is powered, i find that works best for buffalo. Also do you often succeed is using this method of writing via tftp, have you manually configured ip address`s Im assuming your using windows did you add the router as neighbor thus cercomventing the time delay needed for an arp process to take palce, and of course firewalls are off and  and other network cards are disabled. Is there any chance the router was subjected to repeted power failure, did you check the voltage on the power supply to make sure its good preferably on a load or simply try an other power supply.

Thanks, tftp returns something like xxxx bytes transferred in yyy seconds, so I assume that tftp was successful - sometimes the timing is tight and I get tftp timeout, but after some retries, I eventually get tftp successful. But no matter which firmware I uploaded, the router always stayed with the solid red diag light on (not blinking). Connecting a serial cable to the serial pins revealed nothing, pressing CTRL+C or ENTER repeatedly, I don't get anything - I am afraid that the serial console is either dead or something is wrong with uboot.

Any suggestions to fix this problem? Many thanks!

Hi,

I've fixed the problem. Actually tftp did work, but somehow, after the new firmware, the red diag light stayed solid and on all the time (firmware bug?). Pressing the reset button for 10-15 seconds after boot, I managed to enter failsafe mode and do a clean sysupgrade and my router was back to life. However, I can't still turn off the red diag light. I tried setting /sys/class/leds/buffalo\:red\:diag/brightness to 0, but it didn't work. The remaining lights did work, though. Maybe the red light was dead? No idea.

Anyway, I still have my router working happily. Hope this message can help others who encounter the same problem. Conclusion: Try tftp, failsafe mode and ignore the constant red light. Set your ip to 192.168.1.2 and ping 192.168.1.1 until you get some response.

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