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Topic: Support for Marvell 88F5xx81 based routers

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there are opensource files from linksys you can easy download and compile dropbear i have telnet open on mine.

KRH,
thanks but i am really a newbie on this. At this moment that is a bit out of my league.

hmm
maybe i resume working...
but only if watha tests my images... or someone else does

Davidkra,

I am a newbie and i have almost no knowlegde of routersoftware/unix. If you can assure me that there will be a way to unbrick the router (If that might happen and i don not have to have special cables) i am willing to test your images. This since it is the only router i have and i realy need it.

bad... you need some experience in u-boot and linux knowledge and a serial console. i'll wait for watha...

ok, hope that he will respond soon!

yeah.

he watha, would be nice if you leave any kind of sign that you are alive. This since i am still waiting for a linksys wrt350n v2 that has dropbear on board....

(Last edited by Pearl on 30 Mar 2008, 08:57)

Hi guys i would like to know if they any update about WRT350N v2 Marvell ??

smile

As bbradley didn't get a high-res picture of the WRT350N v2, I want to provide one.
Click on the thumbnail below to get the high-res picture.
J5, the serial port, is on the right side in the middle.

I'm going to add a serial port and connect it with my PC, then I will do my best to help davidkra to get everything done.

http://ftp.maddes.net/hardware/WRT350Nv2/WRT350Nv2_small.jpg http://ftp.maddes.net/hardware/WRT350Nv2/WRT350Nv2_small2.jpg

Regards
Maddes

(Last edited by maddes.b on 25 Sep 2011, 12:06)

hi maddes smile

whats under the atheros wlan card?

can you maybe remove it and take another picture? a pic from the other side of the board would also be good.

#1 @mindbender
The internet is a small place, isn't it? you always meet the same people big_smile
Btw did you fix your FTP problems?

#2 WRT350N v2
The down side is 90% covered with the isolation copper, and it doesn't stick anymore when removed once.
The brackets of the WLAN card are directly attached to the card, so I didn't dare to remove it.
If it is necessary I will dare to remove everything, but I assume it is not important for the task.

Maddes

Wow Maddes,

That's great, helping David. I hope there soon will be an OPENWRT or a DDWRT firmware (with a SSHD like dropbear in it).

This is genuinely exciting. I'm really hoping we'll see a community-based firmware upgrade for the WRT350N-V2.

Just for being nice (and pleasing mindbender smile): here is the picture with the WLAN card removed (click picture for high-res).
The picture with WLAN card inserted and no modifications is in post #61 above.

When you remove the WLAN card yourself, then be careful with the holding brackets (I over-bend the lower bracket).
Second the WLAN card sticks to the motherboard via the foam. I had to cut the foam to remove the card.
Wish me good luck, that WLAN still works on my device.

Additionally you see how I brought the serial console (J5) to the outside.
It's just an old CD-ROM audio cable and a stereo audio jack.
Now I just need to wait for the FTDI TTL-232R-3V3-AJ USB cable to arrive.
(Edit) Attention! The place for the audio jack shown here is totally stupid, as it covers a screw hole, so the case couldn't be closed.
The best place for the audio jack is across the board on the left side, as the right side is shielded with metal because of the antennas.
Here is a link for a HowTo open a WRT350N v1 and v2.
And some info about how I wired my audio jack, the pin layout is described in post #5.

http://ftp.maddes.net/hardware/WRT350Nv2/WRT350Nv2_small.jpg http://ftp.maddes.net/hardware/WRT350Nv2/WRT350Nv2_small2.jpg

Regards
Maddes

(Last edited by maddes.b on 25 Sep 2011, 12:06)

very nice maddes.

as this board is a arm9 board and all NAS boards made by marvell featured a 20 pin arm jtag i suppose that the 20 pads which can be seen on the first pic could be JTAG. nice that you already figured out where serial is....were the headers populated or did you do that?

The header on J5 was already there. For the cable I used the pin layout provided in post #5 by mwt.
J4 (to the left, under the silver heatsink) really looks like JTAG.

Last but not least I got my FTDI cable today, serial connection is working and TFTPBOOT is prepared.
But it will still take some time to get OpenWRT on the router (remember everybody is doing this in their leisure time).

By the way never place an audio jack over a screw hole (hint: case won't close big_smile)

Maddes

(Last edited by maddes.b on 28 Aug 2009, 18:00)

I recently bought a WRT350Nv2.1 and I am too looking to get started on running Openwrt.

Before I jump right in and start flashing and booting all kinds of untested kernels I wanted to make sure if I can unbrick the device in an "easy" way.
Will I be able to flash the stock linksys firmware back on through the Serial connection (J5)? Or do I need JTAG for this?

Another question, I read I need level shifting for the Serial connection to work. Can anyone point me in the right direction on what to build/solder to get the required shift?

as this is a Marvell orion based device it uses the uboot bootloader. you can load kernel via tftp and use a rootfs via NFS. then the stock OS is not touched at all. all this can be done from within the uboot bootloader console....

so...your task is to connect a serial cable as maddes.b did above.

then you can instantly do everything without actually modifying the stuff in flash.....there will be an updated foonas-em image for arm9 soon....with the 2.6.25 kernel. maybe networking works with it. stay tuned.

@dirkNL:
Dag!
Level conversion is needed as the WRT350N uses 3.3V for its serial console, the old standard uses 12V (a typical COM port).
Either you place an FTDI converter chip into your WRT350N, so you can use a standard serial port on your router.
Or you, just like me, use an audio jack to bring the connection to the outside and use a USB cable that does the level conversion (see my posting #66).

If you open your v2.1 router, then do not forget to take pictures of it.
Check the quality of the pictures before closing the router again.
Thanks.

Doei
Maddes

(Last edited by maddes.b on 28 Aug 2009, 18:00)

Thanks alot for these replies maddes.b and mindbender.

I ordered the same cable because soldering on a tiny FTDI chip like that isn't going to work for me...

When I opened my WRT I couldn't see any difference between your photos and my WRT, so I haven't made pictures. After I receive my cable I will  need to openup my router again, if I don't forget I will make some photos.

I'll keep you posted once I get started.

I've got to work on my WRT350N today with a friend of mine.

We succeeded to get a kernel built from linksys sources to boot, which is a 2.6.12_arm1 kernel. After that we tried a 2.6.25 kernel from NAS sources and that boots too, only without all other hardware recognition ofcourse.

Now I'm eager to get a 2.6.25 kernel working with all drivers. My plan was to only replace the kernel in the linksys sources and see if we can get it to work. But I'm not sure where to get my kernel sources. If I use the vanilla tree from kernel.org I don't see any support for the ARM platform. The ARM-linux.co.uk can't provide me the right information either. Where can I find the correct sources?

When we succeed to get this working we want to take a look at getting dropbear compiled into the firmware, or any other package for that matter. I found the apps directory in the sources from linksys, is it as easy as inserting the package into the apps directory and editing the apps Makefile to include your package?

The 2.6.25-vanilla Kernel has arm support and mach-orion support too, but it hasn't got the setup.c-file for linksyses wrt350n