Another RT-N66U flashing adventure

[testing123]

I received my RT-N66U a few days ago. I read up on the flashing methods and followed the instructions. My first attempt was tomato and was with the router right out of box, ignoring the welcome screen. No go.

I didn't come across the flashing issue threads until I started googling terms connected with my own problems. I soon found out that flashing this router can be quite problematic.

I have followed the instructions to resolve flash issues in the threads I found here and here.

This ^ with either 30043745517 (which was on the router when I received it) or Shibby Tomato rev 120.

Nothing seemed to help. Finally, I was about to post here for final words of advice before I returned the router to Amazon, but decided to try one last time. Unbelievably, it worked. I'm back to the factory fw welcome screen.

What I really want on this router is Tomato. Should I try it? Some seem to have no problems after the initial flash success. Is this generally the case, or am I asking for trouble?

And, if I should go ahead and flash Tomato, am I ok with going OOTB again (i.e., not set up the factory fw at all, just flash tomato)?

Thanks for any input.

 

[Pierino]

You have to at least log into the router to get to the firmware update page in order to flash tomato, unless you are doing it in recovery mode. Personally I always use the GUI to flash dd-wrt to it and to flash Merlin/asus firmware back onto it.

I've never used tomato on any of my asus routers but on my other ones I did it the same way.

 

[testing123]

Hi Pierino, thanks for your response. While awaiting a response, I decided to go ahead and try the Tomato flash, since others had success after the initial successful flash. I used firmware recovery and was successful. After the flash (and the wireless lights lit), I used wps to clear VRAM, then shut off the router rebooted it, and browsed to 192.168.1.1. Tomato has now come up.

It's so odd that once successful flash is achieved, subsequent flashes seem to go well! If this router does well, I will buy another for another network. I suppose I'll have to go through the same process. Tedious! I will, however, first try as you suggest. Log in and flash via the GUI to see if that works better.

Again, thanks for your comments .