Monday, May 7, 2007

Problems with D-Link DI-524

Today I bougth new router D-Link DI-524 (see d-link.de or dlink.com). I'm posting also link to germany website, because there are maybe five revision of this hardware (A to E) and the revision sold in Czech Republic (namely here) is the revision B4. Global website (well, precisely said, the US website) contains info only about the other revisions. So, the latest firmware for rev. B I have found, is here.

First, let me explain, why I wanted to flash the firmware. Because I wanted to lower the antenna transmit power - I have the router next to my computer, near my head and I'm quite sensitive to this waves. Also I don't want my neighbours to try to hack it. The emulator of DI-524, which is available on the D-Link site has this feature. Well, I was quite surprised, when this was the only feature missing in my revision (in comparison to the emulator). So I thougth, that upgrade could make it.

Unfortunately, the actual firmware in my device was 2.04, and the newest on the net is only 2.05b02. And there is no changelog. Well, I tried (with a lot of hope in my hearth) it, but after regular upgrade (everythink went well), the router stopped responding. I could not connect to the webadmin (192.168.0.1), nor ping this ip. Hard or soft reset (holding the reset button down for 10 seconds with or without power on) didn't helped. Interesting thing was, that the inner switch still worked.

The status led flashed very quickly (according to some sites, they say it's the normal - ready - state. According to me, it's some kind of failure. The normal state is, when the led blinks - say - once per second).

I was afraid, that my new D-Link DI-524 is dead. Luckily, I have found this recommendations.
Shortly: If you are having troubles upgrading your firmware (crashed router or st.), try this:
  1. Connect your PC through LAN to your router (only your PC, nothing else).
  2. On your PC, set IP adress 192.168.123.253 (thx Borge for correcting this typo), mask 255.255.255.0, Gateway and DNS to 192.168.123.254
  3. Reboot your PC (maybe optional)
  4. Use the flash utility (can be downloaded bundled with the firmware from forementioned sites) to force some version of firmware (maybe some older one) to your router
  5. Wait for some while, until upgrade process finishies
  6. Disconnect your router from power source for a minute
  7. Reboot your PC (maybe optional)

Yipee! This worked for me. On the second try, also the newer firmware (2.05) worked.

But, the transmit rate settings was still missing. Then I googled this.

It seems, that the router has some secret settings (or I missed something :)), where you can find some useful things. There are many I don't understand at all, bud there ore some I know. Yes, including the antenna transmit rate. The pages with settings can be found under following URLs (replace the IP address with yours)

http://192.168.0.1/wlape.htm
http://192.168.0.1/extra.htm
http://192.168.0.1/rtab.htm

I have used the first one and lowered the antenna transmit power to 13%. Saved, rebooted, everything went ok. According to my girlfriends notebook (and my subjective feelings) it realy worked.

Sorry for my english, and don't forget - everything you get here, is without any warranty or liability ;). Do it on your risk.

49 comments:

Borge said...

Thanks for this post.. It really works.. Would you mind if I add more info? We has the same problem, and managed to work to upgrade my firmware, but it took me more than 20 mins to do so. So here are my additions:

1. When flashing your firmware, make sure your antivirus is turned off and your windows firewall disabled.

2. And the IP Address, its 192.168.123.253 not 192.168.123.254 (this is for the default gateway and and DNS Server.)

3. It make take a while before the software recognizes that you have your router, just be patient. And DO RESTART your pc.. it helps alot.

4. Do not turn your router on while you are rebooting your pc, turn it on once you have your pc up and running with the TCP/IP configuration given in this blog.

All in ALL man.. YOU DID A GREAT JOB.. KEEP THE POST GOING...

SorryForMyEnglish said...

Thx a lot for more info and sorry (for my english and) for that typo in IP. Will modify the post to make it clear.

Anonymous said...

Tried it out but did not work for me. When i configure my pc to 192.168.123.253 gw & DNS to 192.168.123.254, the flasher utility would say "192.168.0.1 crash and ip unreachable". However, it says " 1device found". any ideas? thanks.
I have a dlink di-524 h/w ver b4. original f/w 2.03. i bought this here in the philippines. thank again.

SorryForMyEnglish said...

Are you sure you had set your net mask to 255.255.255.0? And it seems, that the restart is also needed.

Unknown said...

Nice blog. I'm using the same router but my firmware reports that it is V2.04Patch05 and is dated on Mon, 26FEB2007. After applying the firmware I now have V2.05 and dated 18JAN2007. Did I do an upgrade or downgrade? The dates may mean something. FYI, you can visit this link to download a newer version (2.06b). I have updated and one of the most noticeable change is the addition of a logout button/option.

SorryForMyEnglish said...

Hey guys, thanks for your posts. Actually I'm still using the 2.05 version (from Jan, 18th) and have no bigger problems with it. As much as I remember I had some troubles using the 2.06b, but that could have been some locale-related problem.

Nabendu said...

great work..I am really thankful to you.But in my case it worked for 192.168.0.1 instead of 192.168.123.254..

Keep it up..

Anonymous said...

nice job, its worked for me! ;))
thanks for this info!

(btw this router is crap;) )

Bos said...

Thank you very much! you helped a lot!

we have the same DI-524 B4 version.
do you have any idea, how to flash it to DI-624 or even DI-624+??
like they are discussing here:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,15034139~start=20

SorryForMyEnglish said...

It seems to me that the same procedure may work for DI-624 'hacked' firmware (they mention this in your link), but currently I have no experience with it.

Unknown said...

Thanks! This guide was great!
I would like to point out that if you've changed the ip to say 10.0.0.4 and the flash utility says it has crashed and the ip is unreachable, change the ip of the computer to something like 10.0.0.3 so you're in the same ip range.

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for your guide. was on the verge of going craazy and smashing the thing to bits! ;)

Shaun said...

Yet another page!
http://192.168.0.1/snmp.htm

SorryForMyEnglish said...

Thank you all guys for your additions.

Anonymous said...

hey! I've got the exact same problem with my router. But, I can not find the flash utility program that you're writing about. Where can I find it? Thank you though for a great guide!!

Haze said...

Thanks for the tips! I struggled with the proposed network settings until I at last tried with the following:

IP: 192.168.0.2
DGW: 192.168.0.1
DNS: 192.168.0.1

With these settings I could flash my router to firmware 2.05

But now I can not upgrade to 2.06b or 2.07 from the web interface. It looks as everything went ok (the progress bar goes to 100%) but I have still the 2.05 version. Any idea?

btw another hidden page:
http://192.168.0.1/ddns.htm

SorryForMyEnglish said...

Haze, thank you for your contribution.

I have no idea, what's causing your flashing problems, probably it will be something too simple :).

Have you checked, whether your firmware version corresponds to your HW revision? (http://www.dlink.de/archivos/6643-359-revisionImage1/di-524b.jpg)

desimaniac said...

Good article, thanks. Upgraded successfully to 2.07.

Anonymous said...

Thanks very much! Saved my ass!

Anonymous said...

Newest firmware is here: http://ftp.dlink.ru/pub/Router/DI-524/Firmware/Rev.B/

Johann Medina said...

Thank you very much, i did an upgrade from 2.04 to 2.07 and crash my router. So i took your instructions but using 192.168.0.1 and run the upgrade utility, and it works like a charm. I lost an hour because of my firewall dont letme upgrade but now everithing is ok.

SorryForMyEnglish said...

Great, I'm happy it worked.

stussy said...

Hellp people,I did everythig step by step but it didn't work for me.Can u tel me were is my mistake? I start Flash utility, put 192.168.123.253 pushed enter and the was see it here:

http://ics-bg.eu/other/

Pls hellp!!!

SorryForMyEnglish said...

Check your TCP/IP settings, I think I've noticed a typo in your gateway/dns IP.

Anonymous said...

Worked for me.
I was stuck by restart on firmware 2.7 so Ill stay on 2.6 now.
If the device is availible, but update button grey (crash and ip unreachable), change your IP to a similar. My device was standardly stuck on 192.168.0.1 so I changed to 192.168.0.X(anything 2-255).
Thanks, I nearly dumped it away!

stussy said...

Thanks, alot for the support you saved me lots of time and money.Have a great day! :)

stussy said...

Thanks, alot for the support you saved me lots of time and money.Have a great day! :)

dan said...

Very good piece of information. Thnx.

zack said...

Hi guys ! Had the same problem, di-524 crashed on me and really wanted to crush it to the ground when i found these comments which helped me a lot. Many thanks to you all, live long and in a good health !

Anonymous said...

Hello can you help me please. I have the same router and facing the same situation. I followed your step but to no success. When I tried pinging the router, it replies :

ping 192.168.0.1

Pinging 192.168.0.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Reply from 192.168.0.11: Destination host unreachable.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 192.168.0.1:
packets: Sent = 4, Received = 1, Lost = 3 (75% loss)

This is the setting in ipconfig :
IPv4 Address : 192.168.0.11
Subnet Mask : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway : 192.168.0.1

Maybe there is something wrong in my step and I wish that you could give me any ideas on how to solve this.
Thanks in advance

SorryForMyEnglish said...

Well, it's hard to tell, but the log you posted looks quite weird. Are you connected to the router by wireless or cable? I heavily suggest using cable.

Anonymous said...

it is via cable. I dont know what else to do. Maybe I did wrong in the ip setting? I didn't have much knowledge in IP cause I didnt pay attention in my networking class heee :D

SorryForMyEnglish said...

Maybe it will be better to ask some IT specialist :).

To use the aforementioned firmware flashing method you definitely need to set the IP configuration according to the numbers in my post (IP, mask and gateway). You can set the configuration in TCP/IP protocol properties (the dialog varies in each version of Windows, generally you can get there through the control panel/network settings).

Are you really sure you need to flash the firmware?

Anonymous said...

I just did another test with the ip setting similar to your post and this is what im getting:
Test ping on 192.168.0.1

Destination host unreachable
Request timed out

IP setting:
IP:192.168.123.253
Sub:255.255.255.0
Gate:192.168.123.254
DNS:192.168.123.254
alternate DNS : blank

I did restart my computer after changing the ip setting.

Yes I really need to flash it because the router accidentally went off during a firmware upgrade. Now the router is just like a brick. It cant function at all. Im very frustrated because I know there is a way to revive the router because many had succeeded in doing so. I just cant figure out how to make my laptop detect the connection to the router.

SorryForMyEnglish said...

These settings looks fine now. But I haven't tested pinging the router in the "dead" state.

Now you can try to flash the firmware using the utility. You should be able to see the router in this utility. Are you?

Anonymous said...

When I set the Ip i got a pop-up message saying:

Warning - Multiple default gateways are intended to provide redundancy to a single network ( such as intranet or the Internet). They will not function properly when the gateways are on two seperate, disjoint networks (such as one on your intranet and one on the Internet). Do you want to save this configuration?

N i pressed yes. This wont have any effect right?

The utility says that 0 device found.

I followed the steps in here to : http://www.rajib.com/2009/03/29/resurrecting-the-dead/
and asked the same question but still no reply from there.

Got any more suggestions that I can try?

SorryForMyEnglish said...

This starts to look interesting.

Do you have more network connections? I suggest disable all except the one to the router. Also it will be better to connect the computer and the crashed router directly (not using any additional switches or routers). Also disable try disabling the WiFi.

Anonymous said...

I dont have any more network connections. I figured that maybe it is because of the WiFi so I already disabled them in the first place, including Bluetooth connection too. The connection is directly from my computer to the WAN port at the router using standard LAN cable.

SorryForMyEnglish said...

I'm afraid that I'm unable to help you. One thing is really weird - the multiple gateways. I could not imagine where did you get more gateways. I suppose, that if there are more GW, the computer is unable to route the packets to the crashed router.

Maybe somebody else can help you. Please, let us know if resolve the problem.

Anonymous said...

allright I'll keep trying.
I didnt know about the multiple gateways too.
Anyway, thanks for your attention and concern. I'll let you know if anything interesting came up.

Anonymous said...

UPDATE:
Here's what came up from the flash utility when I tried using my desktop(xp):

Error 10065 in function TryToSend failed
No route to host.

Same ip setting like before.

Anonymous said...

UPDATE:
Gave up trying, and bought a new WRT310N
I guess the router is dead for good

Anonymous said...

hey, thanx for ur step-by-step instruction, now i'm closer than ever. i have only one small issue, in the flash upgrade there is a password u need to enter, and then confirm.... what kind of password? where can i get it from? thanx again

SorryForMyEnglish said...

Strange, are you sure that:
1) your router is really dead? (if not, try the standard firmware upgrade procedure through web interface)
2) you're connected to the router by cable (not by wifi)?

Anonymous said...

i am the last Anonymous from January 25th. password was demanded in few firmwares(flash applications, but not the ver. 2.07)ur guidance was really helpful. i did exactly same way(in my case with flash firmware it worked with ver. 2.07) amzing!!! using it night/day and having no problems: stable network, wi-fi signal is strong no shutdowns. thnx for ur practical advice.

Anonymous said...

MANO:

HELP!
i tried Everything !!
the utility cant find my router,
i manually put in the ip 192.168.123.253 and it finds the unknown device but when i press upgrade i get "SEND REQUEST ERROR"
HELP !!!

Anonymous said...

Perfect! This worked for me.

I found the firmware updating software in a firmware package on the united kingdom and german support sites. Not my local country. :-/

Marcin Wojciech said...

Thank you so much for this post!
It really helped me! :)

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