My D-Link G604T de-bricking story.

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billybiro
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My D-Link G604T de-bricking story.

Post by billybiro » Tue Jan 27, 2009 10:23 am

Hi all,

First time poster here, but lurked on this forum for quite some time trying to de-brick my Dlink DSL-G604T.

I was initially running the latest DLink UK firmware available, and tried to upgrade to the RouterTech firmware v2.8 via the web interface. This *appeared* to work, but after waiting and rebooting the router, I found I had the initial login screen from the RT firmware, but when I logged in, I got the login screen for the old Dlink firmware(!?!!) :? . It obviously hadn't worked. I then tried to upgrade the firmware with the Router Repair Tool, and that "hung" about a third of the way through the "uploading" of the firmware file. This resulted in a thoroughly bricked router! :cry:

Well, to cut a long story short, I tried PCTool 2.1, PCTool 2.3, Router Repair Tool, TIUPgrade, CiclaMab, and every other tool/utility I could find to try to repair the router. My basic problem, was that the router was bricked, but my bootloader (ADAM2) was fine, as RRT and the PCTool's could indeed connect to the ADAM2 f.t.p.

However, whenever I tried to upload anything to the router, it would fail mid-way through in various spectacular ways (PCTool's progress bar would "throw a fit" about 50% of the way through an upload, RRT would simply "hang" indefinitely at about 12%, TIUpgrade gave a program error mid-way through the upload etc.)

Well, just as I was about to give up all hope, I read an obscure post on this very forum (sorry, I don't remember the author - but if you're reading this, your advice saved my router!).

Basically, the poster recommended to use a DLink firmware, but one that comes with it's own installer (which I believe is just TIUpgrade, but with all the right "settings" for the DLink G604T).

This DLink firmware can be found here:
http://ftp.dlink.ru/pub/ADSL/DSL-G604T/ ... adeB10.exe

what's quite ironic about this, is that the firmware is a generic EU version, but it seems to only be available on the Russian DLink FTP Server !!?!!? :?

Following the advice on this forum, I made sure that my router only had my LAN cable and the power cable attached (left the ADSL cable out completely for this part). I ran the DLink firmware upgrade package, and lo-and-behold, a few minutes of upgrading (where the progress bar actually made it to 100% in one piece! :) ) my router came back to life with the dlink firmware.

From here, I could log into the DLink web admin and perform a firmware upgrade from there, using the RouterTech v2.8 firmware, which also worked beautifully. Quite why I did this, I don't know, since it was using the web interface for upgrading that got me in this mess in the first place! :lol: I think I must be a masochist or something. A glutton for punishment! :lol:

Well, it did all work (amazingly), and I now have a working DLink G604T with the RT 2.8 firmware installed and running. :D

So, that's my story. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone on this forum (I read so many posts, I couldn't possibly know everyone's names) and especially the poster who pointed me to the DLink self-upgrading firmware on the RU f.t.p. server. (Sorry, I don't know your name).

I'd also like to thank the guys who actually built this firmware, as it rocks. The biggest difference I have noticed is that my wireless connection is about 5 times better and more stable that ever before. Kudos to you all.

Just posting this here, as I hope it helps someone else who may be in the same or similar predicament to what I was in.
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biro
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Re: My D-Link G604T de-bricking story.

Post by biro » Tue Jan 27, 2009 11:22 am

billybiro wrote:I was initially running the latest DLink UK firmware available, and tried to upgrade to the RouterTech firmware v2.8 via the web interface. This *appeared* to work, but after waiting and rebooting the router, I found I had the initial login screen from the RT firmware, but when I logged in, I got the login screen for the old Dlink firmware(!?!!) :? . It obviously hadn't worked.
Is usually due to browser caching, instead of getting the new page from the router it uses the old one stored on the PC !
ALWAYS clear the browser's cache after updating any firmware to make sure your seeing the 'live' page.
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Post by billybiro » Tue Jan 27, 2009 2:16 pm

Is usually due to browser caching, instead of getting the new page from the router it uses the old one stored on the PC !
Hi biro,

You're right about browser caching, and as I'm a web developer by trade myself, know all about this. I didn't think it was browser caching, though, as the page coming from http://192.168.1.1/ initially was the RT login screen. It was only after logging in with the default Admin/Admin that I then got the D-link login page, from exactly the same URL.

If browser caching was interfering with the router admin page, I would have expected to see *only* the DLink login page (as pulled from the cache) rather than the RT login page.
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Post by biro » Tue Jan 27, 2009 2:43 pm

It is virtually impossible to have a partial flash for a number of reasons :-
The flash is erased before the new firmware is loaded.
It is flashed as a 'disk' image not as individual files.

Even if it was a faulty chip with stuck bits the new 'file' would have to be exactly the same size and be in the same location on the flash, even less likely as the filesystem is compressed.
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Post by billybiro » Tue Jan 27, 2009 3:41 pm

It is virtually impossible to have a partial flash for a number of reasons :-
The flash is erased before the new firmware is loaded.
It is flashed as a 'disk' image not as individual files.

Even if it was a faulty chip with stuck bits the new 'file' would have to be exactly the same size and be in the same location on the flash, even less likely as the filesystem is compressed.
Ah ha. I see.

Thanks for that info, biro. I have no idea what exactly happened in my case, suffice to say that I eventually bricked the router (only power and lan lights would light, never status,adsl etc.) The main thing is that using the DLink firmware flash util, I was able to bring it back to life. Still, I have learnt many lessons dring this escapade. Hopefully, lessons that I'll heed in the future! :D
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Re: My D-Link G604T de-bricking story.

Post by tjoepar » Mon Jul 12, 2010 1:49 am

Thank you! I went through the same process and your posting helped me recover my device! The D-Link firmware installer did the job the first go
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