Martin

Since upgrading our wireless network with our new Netgear RangeMax Next Wireless-N Router Gigabit Edition (see my post ‘Belkin Wireless Router is just rubbish‘ explaining our upgrading path), our humble D-Link DIR-300 Wireless G Router seemed to be doomed into a life of gathering dust along side many other bits and pieces that I may have a use for one day.

Then I stumbled upon a forum post that stated it is possible to flash new firmware onto the device which not only un-restricts the hardware, but also enables a host of other goodies into the D-Link Wireless Router.

I followed the link to DD-WRT.com and it became apparent that doing this will add new functionality into the D-Link Wireless Router – I was particually interested in using the Wireless Router in client mode.

DD-WRT is a Linux based alternative OpenSource firmware suitable for a great variety of WLAN routers and embedded systems. The main emphasis lies on providing the easiest possible handling while at the same time supporting a great number of functionalities within the framework of the respective hardware platform used.
Taken from the DD-WRT-  About page.

Following the DD-WRT install instructons for the DIR-300, I set upon the task of breathing new life into the Wireless Router.

Prerequisites

1. Plenty of patience (taking your time will ultimately save you time in the long run)
2. Ubuntu Desktop with *wine and putty installed (you can use any OS, but this is how I did it)
3. All the required files as well as the instructions available on your desktop (NOTE: This is D-Link DIR-300 Consumer Stable DD-WRT.v24 SP1, please check for newer versions if available)

* I had some difficulty using tftpd-hpa and atftpd (although it appeared to work intermittently) so I used tftpsrv.exe which can be downloaded from the required files link above.

Basic Install Guide

The following closely mirrors the actual install process mentioned in the DD-WRT wiki.

I found this script to be very useful in accessing the router and it is almost exactly the same as the one found on the DIR-300 DD-WRT installation page, so use the editor of your choice to create a file called redboot.sh on your desktop and make it executable (chmod 770 ./redboot.sh).

#!/bin/bash
# requires putty (sudo apt-get install putty)
echo
echo ""
echo "Enter hostname or ip address: "
read host
while true
do
   if eval "ping -c 1 -s 1 $host" > /dev/null; then
  echo "Router Awake"
       putty telnet://$host 9000
       #-m redboot.txt
       break
   else
       echo "Waiting for Redboot to boot. Press CTRL + C to quit"
    sleep 1
   fi
done

Now plug your computer into the internet port on the router and configure Network Manager to use the static IP address of 192.168.20.80.

NOTE: Network manager is sometimes not fast enough coming back online when the router is powered off and back on, so you can either take your chances, assign an IP the old fashioned way by removing Network Manager and editing /etc/network/interfaces or use a switch/hub to connect between the devices (like I did).

Unzip tftpsrv.zip to your desktop and right click the resulting tftpsrv.exe file selecting Open With “Wine Windows Program Loader”, all the required files on your desktop will now be available via the TFTPd service.

Now run the redboot.sh script you created earlier and type in the IP address of 192.168.20.81 when asked, then unplug your routers power for 5 seconds – then plug it back in while holding the reset button for 5 seconds – if all goes well, putty will open after a short wait.

On the RedBoot within putty, you can now type the following commands:

load ap61.ram
go

If the load ap61.ram command takes a long time, then double check the TFTPd service is running (if you run a firewall on your computer, you can temporarily disable it).

If all went well after typing the go, putty will now seem to be doing nothing and your router will now be using a temporary boot loader, it is now safe to close putty.

Reconfigure your IP again, this time set it to 192.168.1.2 and unplug the network cable from the routers Internet port and into the LAN port.

Run the redboot.sh script once again and this time give it the IP address of 192.168.1.1 when prompted, putty should now appear once again.

The next part is a direct copy and paste from the DD-WRT wiki, please note that you MUST take care and be patient with all the following steps highlighted in bold.

IMPORTANT: while doing the following steps. never plug off the lan cable or the power cord!

fis init
About to initialize [format] FLASH image system - continue (y/n)? y
*** Initialize FLASH Image System
... Erase from 0xbffe0000-0xbfff0000: .
... Program from 0x807f0000-0x80800000 at 0xbffe0000: .
ip_address -h 192.168.1.2
IP: 192.168.1.1/255.255.255.0, Gateway: 0.0.0.0
Default server: 192.168.1.2
fis init
load -r -b %{FREEMEMLO} ap61.rom
Using default protocol (TFTP)
Raw file loaded 0x80080000-0x800a8717, assumed entry at 0x80080000
fis create -l 0x30000 -e 0xbfc00000 RedBoot
An image named 'RedBoot' exists - continue (y/n)? y
... Erase from 0xbfc00000-0xbfc30000: ...
... Program from 0x80080000-0x800a8718 at 0xbfc00000: ...
... Erase from 0xbffe0000-0xbfff0000: .
... Program from 0x807f0000-0x80800000 at 0xbffe0000: .
reset

If the above went well, your router should be restarting and will have a new permanent boot loader waiting for you to log into, so now close putty and run the redboot.sh script again using the IP address of 192.168.1.1 when prompted.

After another short wait, putty will be ready for the next step – installing the DD-WRT system image.

fis init
ip_address -h 192.168.1.2
load -r -b 0x80041000 linux.bin
fis create linux
fconfig boot_script true
fconfig boot_script_timeout 4

Now all that is left to do is make sure the linux image is always started at boot, so type fconfig and accept all the options until you get to the bootscript part.

fis load -l linux
exec

Once the configuration has been saved, you can type reset and close putty.

The router will take a short while to boot back up and will be ready for you to log in via its web interface on 192.168.1.1 where you setup the username and password for administration.

You are then left with simple to use web administration pages to configure and customise to your hearts content with AP, Client, Client Bridge, Adhoc, WDS Station and WDS AP wireless modes supported.

So thats it – all done – well, it wasn’t quite finished for me, I wanted to put the router into client mode and followed another howto on the DD-WRT wiki.

I currently have one of my spare computers plugged into the newly configured D-Link DD-WRT client and wrote this entire post using it connected to our main wireless network. As the D-Link has 4 Lan ports (there is a setting to turn the Internet port into a 5th LAN port – but I have not tried it yet), this method is a great way to get network devices (network storage, HTPC devices and wired computers) onto the wireless network.

For a while now we have been configuring our network to suit our needs – we have a wired segment for our main server and client PC’s and we have 2 small computers we use for all our multimedia – one is currently hooked up to our HDTV and the other is in the process of being converted to do the same.

We have been using a D-Link DIR-300 Wireless G Router and it has been superb, it works great sharing our media content from our home server and watching DVD iso’s over wireless while sitting in front of our HDTV.

Problems started to occur when we realised that our new home was big enough to support two of these set ups… playing 2 DVD’s at once on a wireless G seems almost possible – if you ignore the odd frame skips and occasional jitter – then things are still perfect (we also use our media putes for regular Desktop log ins too and occasionally add an old wireless enabled laptop into the equation).

I have always prefered cables for all my PC’s, but a larger home and not wanting to lay them loose around the place (channeling cables into the walls was not an option either – although would be nice) and seeing how well we have utilised our Wireless G, an upgrade of our trusty D-Link Wireless Router was needed.

So why did we choose Belkin? …well for one – while doing some impulse shopping, we saw the Belkin Wireless N1 Wireless Router and not only did it look nice, it also offered:

Intelligent MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) spatial multiplexing techniques build upon the widely deployed 802.11g standard by greatly increasing speed, range, and faster speeds of up to 300Mbps*.

*NOTE: The standard transmission rate–300Mbps–is the physical data rate. Actual data throughput will be lower.

As with all Belkin products, they come with a Lifetime Warranty – even though opening our shiny new Belkin N1 MIMO Wireless Router and finding the wireless part didn’t actually work, we phoned customer support and were told to take it back to the store for a replacement .

We opened our second one and promptly set it up and connected 2 computers wirelessly with security disabled and although at this point I had not tested any speeds or media playback wirelessly, We saw the signal strengh was strong.

After enabling WPA/WPA2 security, we tried to connect our wireless computers once again and it soon became apparent after reading the computers log files and testing various wireless security levels that the Belkin N1 MIMO Wireless Router was refusing to issue a local IP address via DHCP.

Setting a local IP address manually on each of our wireless computers we were able to connect – it was now time to playback a DVD’iso to one of the wireless computers.

1. Opened our shared media directory from our home wired server and waited.
2. Made a coffee and then checked signal strength (the coffee and signal strength was strong).
3. Our media directory eventually appeared, so I right clicked a DVD iso and selected ‘Open with VLC’ and waited.
4. Checked signal strength, log files and finished my coffee.
5. Eventually, we have media playback on one computer and playback seems to jitter and freeze.
6. 10 minutes into watching the DVD iso, the whole lot froze.

Still not detered, we figured that maybe we have set something up wrong so back into the settings, I removed all security on the router and set it to use a fixed unused wireless channel rather than relying on auto channel selection (at least DHCP works again now).

We then repeated steps 1 to 6 above on one PC, then the other PC, then both and achieved the same results.

At this point, I decided to search Google for ‘Belkin Wireless Dropouts’ and discovered I was not alone and the blame for this was varied and dependent on who answered the questions.

• No, the unit is not close to a microwave or a cordless phone
• No, the unit has not been placed behind any walls (we were testing and setting up) – the unit is in direct line of sight between our PC’s
• Yes, I have disabled all security, but I am refusing to drop the Wireless settings down to B then G because the box says it is a N1 MIMO wireless router (If I wanted G, then I would have got a second D-Link)

On the Whirlpool Forums, the question of ‘Are Belkin Routers Good?‘ was asked and  opinions are varied but it seems a lot of people are having problems. My personal favourites are:

I just purchased one to replace a DLink G604T and it seems fine – a breeze to set up for ADSL2+ and for wireless and security. But then anything that works must be better than what I had before.
posted by bboraj on 2008-Sep-1, 3pm AEST

Great, they got a Belkin Wireless Router and it works!

Hmm spoke too early on merits of Belkin – its been behaving badly and may be banished back to where it came. The wireless seems pretty unstable.
posted by bboraj on 2008-Sep-2, 7pm AEST

Oh dear, a day later and now they are not happy! So whats the best answer?

Just change the unit!! Two cans and a piece of string might be better!!! at least if string breaks you know where problem is!!
posted by grabman on 2008-Sep-2, 9pm AEST

We headed back to the store for the third time (this time without bothering with phoning Belkin customer support) and demanded a different brand. For a little more money, we chose the Netgear RangeMax Next Wireless-N Router Gigabit Edition.

Exactly the same specifications and promises that Belkin have written on their boxes (wireless speeds of up to 300Mbps and advanced MIMO technology), but for the extra $26 we got 4 x 1GB (BASE1000) Wired ports where the Belkin only supplied 4 x 100MB (BASE100) ports.

It took me minutes to plug it in and set it up to use WPA/WPA2 security and shortly after, we were playing our DVD iso’s across the network once more but now using the Wireless N speeds we upgraded to.

Conclusion

If I had never had wireless before and maybe if I did not know too much about computers, I most likely would have just accepted the Belkin Wireless Router as doing its job but being able to compare with an older D-Link Wireless G Router and an equivalent specification Netgear Wireless router seems to suggest that out of the 3, Belkin came last in the performance stakes.

I have always thought highly of Belkin Products but now will only ever buy cables branded by them – even if their wired technology is solid, their wireless is not and as such I will choose different brands for those purposes from now on.

As for our Netgear Wireless N Router, it is now happily set up in the center of our house and has no problems with the demands we put on it (we can also connect our wireless enabled mobile phone and laptop from half way down the street).