I’m doing a pretty good job of screwing stuff up lately. Previously I wrote about the great computer crash of ’05. Well, yesterday I crashed (Bricked) my Linksys router. Why do they call it Brick instead of crash? Because that is what your router becomes if it doesn’t have working firmware, a very expensive paper weight. Anyways, back on topic. I was upgrading the firmware for my WRT56G v2.02 and held down the reset button on the router while it was rebooting. This was bad. At that point I really didn’t know what to do in order to get firmware back on the thing. Without a web interface to access (because the thing didn’t know how to boot) I was baffled. After plugging the modem directly into one computer I researched methods of resetting the router.
Step one, connect two spots on the circuit board with a jewelers screwdriver while plugging in the power. Soon as I made my peace for all the bad things I’ve done in life I plugged in the power. No electrocution, which is good. But that didn’t solve the problem. I was monitoring a command prompt window which was pinging the router so I could tell if signal was getting through but no luck. (ping -t 192.168.1.1)
Step two, using a copper wire I connected a point on the circuit board with the top of the left wireless antenna. I have no idea what this physically accomplished but for some reason it worked. I was able to ping the router just fine and all problems solved. Mostly.
After installing the original firmware I finally upgraded (using open-source firmware) and restored the original setting.
This whole scenario was a BIG pain and I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone. I was pleasantly surprised that this work-around found on the internet worked!
