Install tomato on Asus WL-520GC

From Finninday
Revision as of 23:45, 19 May 2012 by Rday (Talk | contribs)

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I have two identical wireless routers that are only mildly useful with the factory firmware. I used them to establish a point-to-point connection where I didn't want to run a wire. But they would be so much more useful if I could get Tomato firmware on them. It appears that it is possible but requires a special dance as described here:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Tomato_Firmware/Installation_and_Configuration

The main problem is that I have to first downgrade the firmware to a version that allows me to put a custom firware on. That required a trip to here:

http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&m=wl-520gc

There I got a 2.0.0.8 version firmware. The router currently has 2.0.1.1 and that won't let me install Tomato.

Bummer with 2.0.0.8, I get the same delightful error message:

Firmware Upgrade Fail !
Firmware upgrade fail. It may result from incorrect image or error transmission. Please check the version of firmare and try again.

Next, I downloaded the earliest available English language firmware which happens to be 2.0.0.6.

2.0.0.6 gives me the firmware fail as well.

More googling reveals that perhaps this device only has 2MB of flash instead of the 8MB on the WL-520GU. I was working on the assumption that if the 520GU worked, the 520GC would work. But that is a big difference in RAM. Wouldn't be cool if the ASUS page for specs on this model gave you details like the size of the flash memory: http://www.asus.com/Networks/Wireless_Routers/WL520gC/#specifications

So I think my next try will be DD-WRT micro.