Bricked TP-Link WDR 4300 Router Recovery Using UART Serial Converter Part #1

I am not quite clear about the 3.3V and the 5.0V... where did you measure these voltages?

I have my UART and I can see there are 2 pins with one of them marked as 3.3V and the other one marked as 5.0V.

When I measured them, they are supplying the correct voltage respectively... and I do not have the option to "short circuit" in order to select the voltage. Any clue?

my router is back to life. Thanks. WORKS!!!

I don't get the "tpl" part?? Why tpl if it's an unknown command?? Surely any character + enter would work? Or even just enter by itself? Thanks for sharing!

hello, may i have a quiestion. I am typing tpl+enter right after the autobooting message...but the bootloop does not stops... what am i doing wrong?

Thank you so much! I saved my archer c7 with your tutorial. Liked a subscribed

it wont type anything on the putty windows i cant stop the logs

Hello Richard! Just Wanted to let you know this tutorial worked perfectly! in the year 2020!

Knowing how to connect via serial interface is so very helpful. I was able to gain access to a Netgear router that I'd flashed with Tomato; the flash actually succeeded but somehow the password was munged and I couldn't get into the web UI.

Access through the serial/USB cable let me see that the router was, in fact, booting correctly and I was able to "nvram show | grep pass" to see that the user password was a string of garbage characters and write a coherent password to the router right there, to be changed through the web UI once I got in.

Eu tenho um tplink que ao enviar comando via ssh, acabei por gravar em uma pasta errada e apagou a memoria, ficando com os leds iguais a este. Com cabo serial e tenho 4 funcionando, nenhum faz a comunicacao com a memoria mesmo porque ela foi apagada e estes pisca-pisca dos leds se refere ao pulso eletrico do circuito para dar start na flash e como nao tem programa, nao é possivel o putty fazer a comunicacao. Lamento, mas isso nao é verdadeiro. Nao mostrou por completo ligando no router com problema e sim em um router que estava funcionando.

i have a dlink modem,done same method.but in putty it shows" press esc key to enter boot console" but esc key is not working.i tried various solutions in the internet but it doesn't work.please help me if you have a solution.

I wondered if that programmer could work with tp link n600 model, thanks for doing great and useful videos

Dear Richard
I tried your tutorial but I think in my netgear router the txd and rxd is bit confusing so I connected txd to txd and rxd ro rxd.. it did something and now the lights are not dancing.. neither it is in loop.. couple of light stay on all the time..
I identified the right pins and connected but I'm not able to communicate with the router..
Any solution you can think of?

Very nice vídeo! Amazing detailed explanations! I got my Netgear r8000 bricked and I couldn’t do anything, same symptoms, thanks a lot

Thank you! Worked for WDR-3600 (v1) too!

Richard, thank you so much for your very detailed videos. I learned a lot from this video and finally got my router back to working again. My router is wr940n v5, it got bricked when I accidentally uploaded wrong ddwrt firmware. It kept rebooting over and over again. I was forced to take serial recovery path and in that this video helped me immensely.

Thank you so much. I have another router but I couldn't find anyone that actually had to solder the pins on it and that confused me – now I know that this is normal and can be expected...

Yeah, let's disconnect power last?

ch341apro tem como fazer esse procedimento ?

hey guys name ic u17 ? plis me ? help me name ic u17 ?

did you try the reset button lol

This is great, really well explained. I've become interested after reaching into openwrt. Didn't want to brick my router so bought an old one and going to do some learning! Thanks a lot.

I'm from Brazil, I'm messing with this one anyway, but I do not give the option to type commands in PUTTY, which key do you press to give the option to type commands?
because in PUTTY all the time restarting without giving option to type something!

Great tutorial! I am gearing up to UART into a SONY DASH to see what I can learn and whether there are any possibilities for modifying it into a useful device of some kind. Your video was a good intro to connecting from USB to UART. Thanks for showing & teaching!

Amazing vid. I have a netgearR8000 and using the same dongle with Windows 10 drivers. I do see the router startup and all but I seems can't break the code running. Tried maybe 20 plus times now. Forum says ctrl c but that does not help. Any help ..thanks

I connected everything and I can see everything in the terminal, but when I type tpl it doesn't stop rebooting itself.

Is there any way to make my router stop rebooting?

can i do the same with archer 2600 ?

Maybe this video should be called how to install DD-WRT on this router, because recover is a lot easier using the latest stock manufacturer firmware (auto erases memory). Someone probably already posted the TFTP IP it’s looking for in a forum, then you won’t have to buy a serial adapter.
Maybe no adapter needed if someone else has already posted the TFTP IP Address for your router. I believe these routers start the TFTP server by holding down reset for three seconds when powering on. Most of the time eth0 might be the wan port of the #1 port on the 4 port switch side.
Google the forums for your router made by this company and someone probably already posted the IP that the TFTP is looking for. Set your computer/TFTP server to use this IP that you find in the forums.
If you download the official firmware, it will erase the memory in the beginning if the firmware install and no need to run commands manually.
Now it will install the stock firmware, done and recovered.
Now if you want DD-WRT on a router of this model that is bricked then you might need to follow his instructions. If you just want to recover it with the stock firmware then this is to complicated and not needed. I say it might be needed for DD-WRT since sometimes third Larry firmware use special images that are vulnerable to install the third part firmware.

Nice job. You can turn in login with putting to output to a text file, this way you can read what’s going on and getter better messages, if it shows a hardware issue the restoring could be a waist of time. Are you sure your programmer isn’t marked wrong? The square pad on the PCB is usually always ground. That’s weird that This router wouldn’t follow the standard?

Brother , How can use Modem Or any USB Hard/ soft drive ?

If you wouldn't know where are UART pins, how would you guess?

when i turn on the router it just shows a bunch of jibberish theres nothing legible any ideas?

Hi richard I am looking some help to flash actiontec gt784wn .isp locked the firmware update tab on isl custom firmware and i want to flash it with stock firmware .Could you help me for this please

Hello.

Currently I have 841nd v8 brick, I tried to follow you, but putty can not connect to 841nd v8? The putty window does not show anything.

Now, what must I do ?

Thanks for this video. Nice to see it done successfully before diving in.

I saw post after I had bought different connector which doesn't work. cam has power as it rotates but does not load boot loader. cannot get any commands with any software used. cam maybe trash. foscam will work with me as next to take a picture ro show how I have connected. They will try to work with me on this.

unbricking foscam fi9828P (not v2). cp2102 module shows only steady red light (not blinking), windows 10 does see in device manager on com 4 the module and I updated to latest driver; but plug computer and camera with Ethernet then powering camera tera term (using com 4 and same baud 9600 as cp2012 in dev mgr), just a blinking cursor and no activity on screen. Tera term local echo I turned on to see if I could type characters and I can, but hitting Enter does not go to the next line. Camera has power as it intermittently rotates without doing anything. shouldn't the light on cp2102 be green if it's communicating correctly to main board of camera? Soldered on J8 of foscam the rxd to txd of cp2102, txd of foscam to rxd on cp2102 and gnd to gnd. Power cord in computer is also plugged in so it's using that to make power to cp2102.

Richard,

Thanks for the video. I was trying to debrick a linksys E1000 v2 after switching from Openwrt (no wifi for that build) to DDWRT (used wrong one). I was unable to get Putty to work, removed the red + wire, and used just the GND, TX, RX, which resolved the problem with Putty! Awesome!!

hmm, i didn't install any custom firmware still i face that issue

hi. i've accidentaly upgraded my tp-link ac 1750 with the wrong firmware. it's doing the exact same thing like the routter in this video. i can't connect putty to it. need somne advice. thank you

I have an serial connection , but getting only weird things on the screen, and cannot get an command line, My TP link must be pretty dead or corrupt.

thanks +Richard Lloyd, I have a tl-wr941nd, too with infinity reboot, me question is, ¿believe can do it same?

you are the besssssssssssst ever

Hi! May I use a standard DB-9 cable and follow this tutorial by connecting TX, RX and Ground as instructed? Or it only works with this USB-to-UART connector?