R8500 bricked

Thank you.

I will try this swapping the cables but also I will try to repeat this with an XP laptop.

I like to be sure that I get some comunication from the router.

I always have a cat5 connection so I cover both commands.

I will give some information with the foundings later on.

Best regards.

Peter11742

Updates.

I found that my usb to ttl cable unpluged from the router will give me the scamble letters when I send the script.

I do not know what is cousing this if any one had this before can maybe tell me what is the issue.

The script is good I downloaded twice.

Best regards.

Peter11742

Try a lower baud rate, like 19200.

What does the script do?

Hi.

I did adjust to 9600 but I still have the characters crazy.

My windows compatibility fails on Kitty.

Thanks for the hint we  will fix it somehow.

Best regards.

Peter 11742

I forgot to ask you which windows platform are you using.

Thanks.

Windows 10.  Did you ever try swapping the TX and RX connections?

Hi.

I am testing the unit unplunged because the display is giving but moving characters.

I will find my other win 10 laptop and I will see if it corrects the problem.

I will pass this problem first before I go to router.

Thanks.

Best regards.

peter11742

Hi

The wires were swapped but the problem remained bad characters.

Thanks

Peter11742

I did not read whole threads. OP, did you buy the broken router intending to fix it? Then first thing to make sure is CFE is intact. 8500 is not such a robust router with issues as you note else where in the forum.  Garbled letters can be caused by wrong baud rate. If CFE is messed

up, reloading CFE is another matter. If you reset the router what is the status of LED indicators?  Is power light blinking green?

Thanks.

First let me start to correct, the router R8500 is the best signal range router for the money.

This is what I found in the internet.

Now if you see all my messages you will see I bought the router from Ebay it has a YELLOW light.

The price was good and the router was brand new still in warranty.

I am an electrical engeneer in the medical field and retired.

I have pleanty time to play with routers.

Now you know why I try to fix it. It is a good chalenge and a good product.

The baud has been changed from low to high numbers have no effect on the error of the router, it is my system that causes the bad letters.

The problem is in the software "KiTTY" when I send the firmware it gives me letters moving that have no sense.

This is my first fix  then I will continue with the firmware reload to fix the YELLOW light.

By me doing this many people will read what I do and they are going to learn and fix their problems.

Best regards.

Peter11742

Thanks for the infomation for win 10.

It seems my laptop on win 10 do not like the software is incopatible.

So I will play with win 7 and i5 cpu.

I reloaded all the software.

Now I cannot load the script.

I do not see the reason but I will see what is causing this error.

If you have any other software that is as good as Kitty that sends scripts to the usb port.

I will soon report some good news.

Best regards.

Peter11742

First what does amber light mean? Have you checked if CFE is intact?  Tried Putty?

You may get more help at smallnetbuilder forum or dd-wrt forum. Tried to load fresh CFE?

Have a copy of right CFE?

Hi,

I'm a little confused reading this thread.

Questions have been asked and not answered.

The process that's needed has not been defined.

Leading to a whole host of wasted time.

But I think the aim here is to connect a USB-TTL serial cable to an R8500 and upload a fresh copy of the firmware, nothing more!

To do that you need to break the procedure into steps.

The first step is to choose a terminal emulation program and understand how it needs to be configured, connect the USB-TTL cable and work out what USB port the router is connected to, which can be a bit difficult.

You need to get a CFE prompt within you serial communications program first, whithout that you cannot proceed!

On windows the emulator program is often PuTTY (or similar).

You must select a connection type that is a plain hardwired terminal.

There must be no dail or any other script executed to establish communication.

You must get this setup right first.

Typically the communication parameters are 128k, 8, n, 1 (ie. 8 bit words, no parity, 1 stop bit and the baud rate might be different but can be varied to establish communications).

You need a USB-TTL serial cable and you need to connect three wires of it to the serial header on the mother board.

Connect only the corresponding transmit, receive and ground of the TTL cable to the corresponding pins on the router mother board.

I see from pictures the pins on the router header are labled R T G V, in that order with router mother board facing you and the header on the edge closest to you.

I assume R = receive, T = transmit and G = ground, match them up, connect them and plug the USB end into a USB port on your computer.

I have always been a bit confused whether it's R <-> R, T <-> T or R <-> T and T <-> R (strickly speaking it should be T(ransmit) connects to R(ecieve) and R(ecieve) connects to T(ransmit)), but that can be worked out by exchanging the R with the T on the router mother board and retrying.

There are only three things that need to be identified here, the USB port that the cable is using on the computer, the speed the CFE communicates at (maybe 128k as above, start with that), and whether transmit and receive need to be exchanged on the router mother board.

If there is no dialer or other script issuing output to the port you have chosen you should not see continous garbage on the screen, make "certain" nothing is sending anything to the communication port before continuing.

Having said that somethimes you will see some garbage on the screen, and occassionally it will continue, but if pressing the enter key a couple of times results in more garbage or nothing at all then, assuming the emulator is correctly setup for a hardwired serial connection, you need to try another combination of the three variables.

Start by exchanging the transmit and receive wires, if that doesn't work, change them back and try again with a different USB port selected in the emulator program until you get a CFE prompt.

There is no point in doing anything else until you get a CFE prompt, don't waste you time!

Notice I didn't talk about changing the baud rate becuase it's least likely to be the problem with the communication but, sometimes, might need to be changed.

If you do, reduce it by half on each try, ie. 128k -> 64k -> 32k -> 16k. Once you get down below 16k the only other likely rate to try is 9600 and it's also unlikley to be 16k.

Ian

---

raven_au wrote:

Having said that somethimes you will see some garbage on the screen, and occassionally it will continue, but if pressing the enter key a couple of times results in more garbage or nothing at all then, assuming the emulator is correctly setup for a hardwired serial connection, you need to try another combination of the three variables.

 

---

Actually just pressing the enter key might not be quite right.

I can't remember now what I had to do to get to the CFE on the R8000, maybe I did need to press ctrl+c a number of times, as described in the linked R8000 serial howto earlier.

In any case, when the communication setup is right you should see english text on the screen after powering on the router and no garbage (perhaps a little at the very start).

Maybe power off, wait several seconds then power on should be the communication test procedure.

Then once you see the english text after power on repeat the power off then power on and use ctrl+c to get the CFE prompt. I'm pretty sure the oppertunity for the ctrl+c escape will not last very long so it needs to be done repeatedly until you get a prompt. If you don't get a prompt and you see the router starting to boot up you've probably missed the oppertunity, try again. You also need to be able to tell the difference between the CFE startup and the router startup. Hopefully, once you get the communication right, it will be fairly obvious.

Ian

Thank you.

Very good answer.

I used a meter and I found the T terminal is a ground to the the chassy.

I used the blk wire the rest G V are used for communication T and R.

I like the procedure you are explain very well the steps.

I will follow them and see the results.

Best regards.

peter11742

I remeasured the pins with a meter this morning.

G = Ground.

I veryfied the gound we must look the pins from the front of the unit.

Original I measured from the back this was my mistake.

I still have difficulties but I will work them out.

Peter11742

Ok some progress.

First the pins #1 R gets the green wire, pin #2 gets the whit wire, pin#3 gets the blk wire.

I start seen information with putty it repeats the procedure continuesly checking CRC.

Now how to stop it or what should I see.

The final is to load the fress firmware for the router.

peter11742

Hi All.

The yellow light means no boot the router is not working.

Other news.

I made the putty to work .

Connections for the serial pins:    Serial plug J4  Pin #1 gets green wire Pin#2 gets the white wire Pin #3 gets the black wire.

No connection for red wire do not use it.

Now on serial communication I see good letters but the unit repeats checking CRC loop.

I can stope it by contron c but it gived me double letters in the commands is anything else we can do.

I see the light comming to fix the unit.

peter11742

Hi.

Amber light on R8500 router is bad news is bricked.

CFE is a command that putty gives you as a prompt and is called CFE.

Google never gives a software answer fot this CFE acronim.

If you have it let me know how to find it.

peter11742

Hi.

I finally have a working unit.

My mistake was I did not see the J4 letters in front of it.

Today I use a good light and I read all the information on J4.

It has the letters R T G V 1 2 3 4 pins.

With a meter I verified the ground is pin #3 with a letter G that gets the blk wire. The letter R it gets the green wire and the letter T gets the white wire.

Now I have the proper english letters.

I get a loop checking CRC I can stop it with cntr C.

I go to my cat 5 connectoion I send the firmware it still times out.

Any help here whow to proceed.

Thanks.

peter11742

The instructions are in the link I provided you early on.  Here is the direct link.

Hi

These  were the best instructions that I had for long time.

Thank you.

After I got CFE I typed TFTPD in the putty menue.

Then CMD   tftp -i 192.168.1.1 PUT C:\ R8500.chk

I see a yellow light LED #1 on off continues.

I did it twice and I get time out.

If this is the only procedure I will do a few times more maybe I will be lucky.

Best regards.

peter11742

Did you configure your computer with a static IP address of 192.168.1.2?

Hi.

No I did not yet but I will try in a few minutes and then I will post my finding.

I used 192.168.1.1.

Thank you.

peter11742

Hi.

I just did the same procedure this time I tried 192.168.1.2

I have to inform you that the router has 2 IP addresses 54.218.118.186  54.200.99.0

The IP was detected by GINIE.

The unit failed again timed out 2 times.

I hope we will fix it I will try any thing until I will see the green light.

Thank you

peter11742