Upgrading your Linksys Wireless Router to a 500$ router, for FREE!

I have been wanting to add QoS(Quality of Service) to my home network since a long time, I am just sick of getting bad ping while playing, while someone is downloading something in another computer.

The solution: Upgrade my damn router firmware, or add a DNS to the network. I went with the router option.

Now, for doing this there are 3 mayors players in the open source router firmware business.

• OpenWRT
• HyperWRT
• DD-WRT

In this tutorial I will be using the DD-WRT firmware, I think it is the best, but I will let you do the research if you don’t believe me. It may also work with not linksys router, but I dont have one so I cant test.

Refer to Supported devices list to know

First, go the the DD-WRT homepage and read what are you going to install in your router, seriously go, and when you are done come back, I will be here. Do not continue reading if you don’t know at least what the hell the thing does.
Ok, now that you loose 5 minutes of your life time reading about the DD-WRT thing, we can continue.

I think that in your reading you learn why is this firmware better than the default linksys one right? I think that some of the more appealing points for me are:

• QoS of course. (The ability to throttle bandwidth in the network, this will let you play online, VOIP, without breaking out.
• Boost your wireless Signal.
• Static DHCP. (This allows me to always assign the same IP to a specific MAC address over DHCP, essentially allowing me to set Static IPs without setting anything in the OS, cool huh?)
• Lots of other cool stuff

First, you will need to know what version of router do you have, you can read your router back part and know, mine is

WRT54G V5

Turn the thing over and see what you have, dont drop anything!

Ok now, we need to know how much flash memory your router has, this will let us know what version of the firmware to install(micro, mini, standar,voip,vpn, mega)

Go to this page and search for you router.

Ok, you now know, mine has 2mb. I can only install the micro version of the firmware
To know what version you can install go here

Now you know what version to download, but basically it goes something like this:

Micro- if you have >=2mb of flash memory

Mini- if you have <2mb&>= 4mb of flash memory

Standar, Voip, VPN- <4mb of flash memory

Now its time of downloading our version, go to this page and download your version

http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv3/dd-wrt/downloads.html

I will go for my micro version. Use the mini version if your router has 4 MB or more of flash (WRT54GL for instance). You only need the micro version if your router has 2 MB of flash (WRT54G v5/v6 for instance). Like mine

Download the generic version, we will use this to flash the router. Also is recommended that you download first the micro or mini version and then re flash again to the standard version if your router has flash memory for handling it.

This will download the .bin file to your computer. Now Its time the flash the hell out of it !!

Wait, if you have the router version WRT54G v5, v5.1, and v6 ONLY (like I do) the next steps do not apply to this routers, reefer to the end of the tutorial on how to flash this routers. If you don’t, then continue reading

First you will need to back up your current router settings, I found that the quickest way of doing this is taking screen shots of you router web interface. So go ahead and take the time to backup everything.

We are going to flash the router using the Web GUI, for this, we need to take precautions. This are the precautions from the DD-WRT website read them! I don’t want you blaming me that I brick your router.

Precautions

Follow all the instructions precisely, or you may run into trouble. Incorrectly flashing can brick your router!

• As this documentation says elsewhere, upon flashing the first time, before dd-wrt is running and while the Linksys software is still installed, do not use Firefox. Use IE to flash the router (even OS X IE works). Once dd-wrt is running, you can use any browser you like to administer or even flash the router.
• Do NOT use a wireless connection to upload firmware. Use a wired connection. It is recommended that you disable any wireless adapters on your system to ensure that none are used for the transfer.
• Do NOT flash/backup your firmware over an SSL (https) connection. Make sure you are using http.
• Disable your anti-virus-software, as a false-positive virus detection could interrupt the upload.
• If you need to use TFTP to upload firmware, disable your software firewall first.
• You will not have internet access through the router during the process of replacing the firmware. We recommend you save this webpage and the Recover from a Bad Flash and FAQ pages to your hard drive (use File->Save As, *NOT* a bookmark). This will allow you to review the information offline in the event that something goes wrong.
• Do not forget to make note of your current settings, especially if you have static IP addresses. A quick way of doing this is to take screenshots of your current configuration screens.
  • It can be essential to record your current WAN MAC address. Some ISPs do not allow an immediate change of the routing hardware and changing the firmware changes the MAC address.
• Have a secondary router or internet connection available while experimenting with your router’s firmware, to expedite any trouble shooting and remove the risk of becoming stranded.
  • If you have a cable modem which connects to your router with Ethernet, you can plug your PC straight into the modem should you have any problems. Your PC will be assigned your external IP with DHCP, and you will be on the net. Remember to use a software firewall.

Now that we have the firmware, we backup our router information, and we read the precaution, we are ready to flash the guy.

Make sure that your router does not have Internet access while doing this. So unplug the moden cable

Open Internet explorer and go to your router administration tab( If you are here, you better know how to do this)

Mine is in Spanish, but you get the idea.

Ok, cool after you reset your settings you will have to do a hard reset on your router. To do this, hold the reset button on the back of the router for 30 seconds.

Flashing time has arrive. Enter your router administrator tab again and go to the firmware update tab.

Select the generic firmware that we just download and hit the upgrade button. While you router is in the process of updating, make sure you don’t mess with anything. Go grab a glass of water or pet the lonely dog. Let the computer alone till its over.

Congratulations!!, pad your self in the back, you just upgrade your router firmware. Welcome to a world of new possibilities!

Your new firmware default user name and password will be root and password admin. Good to have in mind

Flashing WRT54G v5, v5.1, and v6 ONLY

With this routers the process is a little different, different don’t mean complicated, so don’t worry.

1. Read the Tutorial on top and get to the point where you have backup all your routers informacion, reset the routers to default settings, and read the precautions
2. Download vxworks_prep_v03.zip and extract.
3. Download vxworks_killer_g_v06.zip and extract
4. Download this tool Linksys TFTP transfer tool
5. Asing a manual IP address to your network adapter, this is because if we don’t, the router will possibly change it every time that we reset it.
   1. This is kind of basic but for doing this, go to your network adapter properties
   2. Choose TCP/IP and hit the properties button
   3. like this
   4. Set the IP to 192.168.1.3 and use the default subnet mask (255.255.255.0)
   5. like this
   6. Click Ok
   7. Go to your router’s web based interface and enter the ‘Administration’ tab. Then select ‘Firmware Upgrade’ and choose the vxworks_prep_v03.bin file. Hit apply. After a minute, your browser window will go blank. At this point, you will need to hard reset your router(Holding the reset button for 30 seconds)
   8. Like this
   9. Now Hard reset your router
   10. Again point your web browser to http://192.168.1.1. You’ll see a different sort of firmware upgrade screen. This is the Management Mode.
   11. like this
   12. Select and apply the vxworks_killer_g_v06.bin firmware upgrade. WAIT for your browser window to turn to report ‘Success’. Use Internet Explorer for this.
   13. Now unplug the power cord of your router, then plug it back in. The power LED should now be blinking.
   14. Now you need to do a binary mode TFTP transfer of DD-WRT micro generic to your router, sounds complicated, its not.
   15. Open the Linksys TFTP transfer tool that we just download
   16. It will show this
   17. Enter you router IP address(192.168.1.1) and select dd-wrt.v23_micro_generic.bin firmware, leave the password field blank, and initiate the transfer.
   18. Like this
   19. Initiate the transfer
   20. Do NOT reboot your router after TFTP’ing, this will happen automatically. It takes a couple minutes after the TFTP transfer finishes for the firmware to actually be flashed.
   21. You are DONE! This is just a one time deal, there is not need to upgrade like this the next time you can do it the regular way.