EternJ's Tech Space

Legal Stuff First
Flashing the firmware of your router is done at your own risk. There are NO warranties.

Before Flashing

• Download the correct version of the DD-WRT firmware for your router from DD-WRT Download Page. I needed USB support out of the box so I chose eko’s latest firmware (dd-wrt.v24-12714_NEWD_mini_usb.bin).
• Temporarily disable your firewall, PeerGuardian and other such software that can interfere with the flashing processes (like Firmware Restoration Tool/Device Discovery).
• Disable all but one network interfaces on your PC. This is nessesary because Asus Firmware Restoration Tool is not very intelligent in finding the correct interface to use for communicating with the router.
• Configure Windows TCP/IP networking to have a static IP address 192.168.1.10.
• Allways use a wired connection to upload the firmware. Do NOT use wireless connection.

Flashing
Although flashing firmware through the web interface is the preferred method, it didn’t work for me. I had to upload the DD-WRT firmware using Asus Firmware Restoration Tool. This needs the following steps:

• Do a 30/30/30 reset on the router.
• [Asus routers only] Power cycle the router to get out of the recovery mode.
• Disconnect the router’s power cable.
• Press the “Restore” button on the back of the router.
• Keep pressing the “Restore” button while plugging in the power cable again.
• Keep pressing the “Restore” button until the “Power” LED starts flashing slowly.
• Start Asus Firmware Restoration Tool on your PC (You can find this tool on the CD or download it from the Asus website).
• Select the correct firmware file you want to upload. Double check to make sure it’s the correct one!
• Press “Upload” button and wait.
• Once the firmware flashing process has completed, wait for at least three minutes for the firmware to write information to the nvram.

After Flashing

• Do a power cycle of the router. Unplug the power cord, count to 30 and plug it back in.
• Wait for the lights to return to normal. This usually takes about two minutes.
• Do another 30/30/30 reset on the router.
• [Asus routers only] Power cycle the router to get out of the recovery mode.
• Reconfigure the router using the web interface. Do not restore your old settings by uploading an old configuration file, especially when there’s a big version difference between the old and the new firmware. Your router might become very unstable if you do that!

Reference
Styno, Firmware Updating Howto.

I have a Belkin wireless router (model number: F5D7230-4 v1444). For some reason, the “Virtual Server” (or “Port Forwarding”) did not work correctly. It’s obviously a firmware problem. I checked the firmware version and my router had the latest firmware from Belkin. I wrote to Belkin Customer Service but who knows how long I have to wait to a response from them.

Thus I tried to find a custom firmware for my router on the Internet and I came across a firmware project called “DD-WRT“. The project was targeted at making custom firmwares for Linksys WRT54G/GS routers. However, there is a micro version which can be used on Belkin F5D7230-4 v1444. I decided to give it a try.

I downloaded the latest generic micro version of DD-WRT and flashed it to my router. After flashing, the “Virtual Server” on my router works perfectly and that’s why you can read this post. There are lots of features in DD-WRT firmware and I have not scratched the surface yet.

One thing to note is that the flashing was not an easy task. The DD-WRT Wiki has one section devoted to the installation on the Belkin F5D7230-4.

Instructions on how to flash the Belkin F5D7230-4 v1444:

1. Download the latest generic micro firmware (dd-wrt.v23_micro_generic.bin as of this writing).
2. Reset router to factory defaults. Unplug the router.
3. Connect your computer directly to one of the LAN ports on the router.
4. The router starts up with IP address 192.168.2.1. Set your computers IP address manually to the following setting: IP Address: 192.168.2.2, Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0, Default Gateway: leave blank.
5. Go to www.linksys.com and goto their download page. (You may want to do this first before you reset to the factory defaults in case resetting screws up your internet connection.)
6. Download the firmware for BEFW11S4 – EtherFast Wireless AP + Cable/DSL Router w/4-Port Switch.
7. Extract the Tftp.exe program from the zip file.
8. Start Tftp program and set server to: 192.168.2.1 and for the file part, put the location of your “dd-wrt.v23_micro_generic.bin” file.
9. Set retries to 20.
10. Power up router.
11. Click upgrade and then hit the reset button on your router. If program doesn’t catch the Belkin’s tftp window, just hit reset again. The Tftp program will let you know when it is upgrading and succeeds.