Bricked my WRT54G

Last night, I made the mistake of loading some new firmware on my WRT54G, which ended up “bricking” the unit (i.e. making it unusable). This is even after disassembling the unit, shorting out pin 15 and 16, and getting the unit into tftp mode. I can’t get the unit to take any usable firmware, so it’s pretty bricked.

Today, I went out and bought what I should have bought ages ago: the WRT54GS. I utilized a $30 reward I had gotten from purchasing a bunch of stuff there a while ago, so that brought the prrice down to about $68 with tax. While I don’t need the “speedbooster” technology they include, having twice as much flash RAM is useful for all the custom firmwares out there.

While I would have really liked to get the Belkin Pre-N access point the TWiTs were raving about, they cost too much. I also wanted to maintain the investment I had made in better antennas and repeater for the WRT54G–both are compatible with the WRT54GS. I also happen to know the Linksys boxes are way more hackable, which is a bonus for me.

I keep debating whether I should keep my WiFi locked down or open it up to anyone. It suure would make reconfiguration of all the WiFi devices way easier.