Flashing a Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 Router with DD-WRT Firmware

This is a summary of the process of flashing DD-WRT onto a Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 wireless router.  I needed to do this because the Linksys WET54G's that I bought dropped like clockwork approximately 1 time per day.

Research Links – make sure to read about your own routers particulars if you are not doing the same model as I did.  This is where I got my information.  You can probably skip all this if you have the same model router.

• DD-WRT: TFTP Flash
• DD-WRT: Buffalo –  Dickson's method on this page
• DD-WRT: WHR-HP-G54
• Default settings of the Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 
• Buffalo WRT-HP-G54 Manual PDF
• Joe Wein: DD-WRT on Buffalo WHR-HP-G54

Default Settings of WHR-HP-G54  Use this to login to your router

Login data for the user interface
IP address:  192.168.11.1
Username:  root
Password: <blank>

These are the steps

1. Use the reset button to restore the router to factory default settings.
2. Using the html router interface reset the settings to factory default.  – did this to make doubly sure.  In some cases routers do not change everything back to factory settings by usage of the hardware reset button
3. Set your computer ethernet port to a fixed IP address > I used:  192.168.1.7 
4. DownLoad the firmware of choice.  – I went with dd-wrt.v24_micro_generic.bin
5. Enable TFTP: Control Panel > Programs and Features > Turn Windows features On or Off in left side > enable Client Telnet and Client TFTP then click in OK.
6. Follow Dicksons method below under the Notes heading.  Note that while they said it works every time I had to try it 4 times.  The first 3 times I was too quick to run TFTP and it timed out.  When I took my time starting TFTP is worked.

Notes

• Example TFTP usage: Copy the file boot.img from the remote computer Host1:      tftp –i Host1 get boot.img 
  •   tftp -i 192.168.11.1 put dd-wrt.v24_micro_generic.bin
• I have since obtained a number of these routers that had Tomato Router on them and successfully used the button reset and firmware update to put DD-WRT on them.

Dicksons has suggested this method:  the non-gymnastic technique for doing a tftp flash on a buffalo is to:

• download your firmware (std and anything smaller works, newd if you're using an Eko build)
• set your computer into the buff's native default subnet (192.168.11.7 will do)
• get the the tftp client ready (tftp.exe)
• browse into the native buffalo interface and find the "reboot" button
• click the reboot button
• press the "start" button on the tftp client.

This method (Dicksons) works the first time every time can be done with only one hand.

In order to use this unit as a bridge after flashing it I followed the instructions here:

• Reuse an old router to bridge devices to your wireless network
• Bridged WHR-HP-G54 Setup file – this can be imported using the WHR-HP-G54 admin panel to set up the box to act as a bridge for SSID= BlueHouseLanCompany.  root password 

Related Work

• Flashing a Linksys WRT54G and WRT54GL Router with DD-WRT Firmware