Router doesn't do anything, bricked?

[Guest]

Hi, so I have a TP-LINK WR740N router, pretty old now. I know I messed with it once by installing DD-WRT, which worked fine, and after that I got a new ASUS router and this one fell into disuse. Now if I try to power it on, it does seem to turn on, but no WiFi network by its name shows up and if I plug in an Ethernet cable it shows up as "Unidentified network" in Windows. I tried guessing the default gateway and provide a static IP but that doesn't help - it's either 192.168.0.1 (stock firmware's default) or 192.168.1.1 (DD-WRT's default), but setting either of them did nothing. At this point I tried resetting it, by the 30/30/30 method, which I hope I did correctly, cause that didn't work either - the router simply did not reset to factory settings.

 

What am I doing wrong here? Is there anything else I can try to revive this? I'm not buying a new one because I don't need it, I just wanna revive this for fun.

[TechQuest]

did you sign up the router ssid?(via ip address) like this......

[tlink]

did DD-WRT install fine without interrupting the process?

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, namandoesnotpanic said:

Hi, so I have a TP-LINK WR740N router, pretty old now. I know I messed with it once by installing DD-WRT, which worked fine, and after that I got a new ASUS router and this one fell into disuse. Now if I try to power it on, it does seem to turn on, but no WiFi network by its name shows up and if I plug in an Ethernet cable it shows up as "Unidentified network" in Windows. I tried guessing the default gateway and provide a static IP but that doesn't help - it's either 192.168.0.1 (stock firmware's default) or 192.168.1.1 (DD-WRT's default), but setting either of them did nothing. At this point I tried resetting it, by the 30/30/30 method, which I hope I did correctly, cause that didn't work either - the router simply did not reset to factory settings.

 

What am I doing wrong here? Is there anything else I can try to revive this? I'm not buying a new one because I don't need it, I just wanna revive this for fun.

Can you get into the control panel of the router?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, tlink said:

did DD-WRT install fine without interrupting the process?

Yes. This was way back, a year or two ago. I've even used DD-WRT on the router with no problems.

 

1 hour ago, Factory OC said:

Can you get into the control panel of the router?

Nope.

 

1 hour ago, TechQuest said:

did you sign up the router ssid?(via ip address) like this......

<snip>

It's been a while since I used this, so I don't remember. But when I used it, I used it as a range extender, not a router. That is in fact why I put DD-WRT on it in the first place, so I could use it as a range extender.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, namandoesnotpanic said:

Nope.

It can be bricked.

[Guest]

34 minutes ago, Factory OC said:

It can be bricked.

That's what I was thinking too. Any way of restoring it you could think of?

[Guest]

Just now, namandoesnotpanic said:

That's what I was thinking too. Any way of restoring it you could think of?

Sounds hard bricked, you probably can't.

[tlink]

9 hours ago, Factory OC said:

Sounds hard bricked, you probably can't.

well you can but its a pain in the butt that requires you to serial directly to the flash memory and figure out the IC's specifications to know how to flash the firmware. you might find something on some of the open source router firmware hack pages floating about if you own a well known model.

[TechQuest]

10 hours ago, namandoesnotpanic said:

Yes. This was way back, a year or two ago. I've even used DD-WRT on the router with no problems.

 

Nope.

 

It's been a while since I used this, so I don't remember. But when I used it, I used it as a range extender, not a router. That is in fact why I put DD-WRT on it in the first place, so I could use it as a range extender.

Just don't use repeater, as Linus said in his first Pimp My Wifi:"awful solution".

[Guest]

7 hours ago, TechQuest said:

Just don't use repeater, as Linus said in his first Pimp My Wifi:"awful solution".

Not an option - wiring LAN cables throughout the house may be faster, but the cost is ridiculously high and the cable snaking across the walls would look horrible, plus it's a target for kids. Already I have a fiber cable coming in at the seams and it's hard to keep it from the eyes of my two year old sister. 

[Guest]

8 hours ago, tlink said:

well you can but its a pain in the butt that requires you to serial directly to the flash memory and figure out the IC's specifications to know how to flash the firmware. you might find something on some of the open source router firmware hack pages floating about if you own a well known model.

Well, considering I can't even get the router to open up...