My 15-minute router setup took me 5 hours

Picked up a used Linksys router off Facebook Marketplace for $20, figured I'd swap it in before dinner. Five hours later I was still fighting with a firmware that was bricked and needing a TFTP recovery that the manual didn't mention. Has anyone else had a "quick fix" turn into an all-nighter for something this simple?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_margaret15d ago

Did you end up keeping the router after all that trouble?

hart.mark15d ago

The WRT54G line did this to me once. I bought a used one that supposedly worked but the firmware was half corrupted. The recovery mode needed 192.168.1.1 with a specific TFTP client and a 30-30-30 reset that nobody tells you about until you're three hours deep on a forum from 2009. I ended up using my old PC since Windows 10 kept blocking the TFTP command, and that was the part that really made me lose my mind.

xena37315d ago

okay but let's be real here, the real nightmare is that you had to use a specific TFTP client. like, sure, Windows 10 blocks the command, but even on Windows 7 the default one would just give you "access denied" for no reason. I had to dig up a client from a random dude's dropbox link that was from 2012 and pray it wasn't a virus. And the 30-30-30 reset is a myth half the time because some routers need different timings or a paperclip trick that nobody mentions. The whole thing is basically a secret handshake for people with too much time on their hands.