Bekijk de volledige versie : No 'Ready' light -> no shutdown
Hi,
after killing the internal HDD of my WL700gE, i replaced it with a IDE <-> Compact Flash Adapter + 256MB industrial flash card. I formatted with the ReiserFS and used the Firmware Restoration Tool to get firmware version 1.0.7.8 on it.
Everything went fine, after flashing the router rebootet and the WAN- and WLAN-light turned on, but not the Ready-light.
The surprising thing is, that the router works just normally.
So i assume, that the router has not finished booting yet, but loaded certain modules that i can connect to the internet for example.
The logical consequence is, that i can't shut the router down via the orange power-button and i have cut it from the power supply.
My question is: are there any changes i have to make in the configuration, because it is running on a compact flash card?
Hi,
Did you have a look at this post of mine:
http://wl500g.info/showthread.php?t=10198
So, my best bet is that you should not format the whole disk, but just the part from sector 1262160 onwards.
After that it would not hurt to replace the first 512 bytes of the CF card with the bootsector of your 'killed' disk.
See if that helps. I think your setup is rather unique, so no warranty from me.
Marc
Thanks for your answer,
i studied your HOW-TO and i came to the point in your remarks where it says:
1262160, that is about 600 MiB
Well, it would mean, that i can't put the firware on a 256MiB device, because it's too small. :confused:
But i installed it already and it works - with the Ready light as an exception.
In my opinion if the problem was the bootsector, i wouldn't have been able to start the router up at all.
First i thought that the light itself doesn't work any more, but they're LEDs with a very long lifetime. As mentioned, i assumed that the router doesn't boot up completely, because of compact flash card.
I'm working with Linux for about 3 weeks now, so i'm not very familiar with it yet. So i decided to ask my question in this forum, because i've seen that there are many people who are working with Linux.
Well, does somebody know a way to shut the router down if the power button doesn't work?
I've already tried
shutdown -h -now
but i gave me back
shutdown not found
and i had to pull out the power cord again...
Thanks for your answer,
i studied your HOW-TO and i came to the point in your remarks where it says:
Well, it would mean, that i can't put the firware on a 256MiB device, because it's too small. :confused:
O, really, did you try to replace the 250 GiB disk with a 256 MiB flashcard? I had overlooked that. No it will not fit, whatever is in this dark spot.
Are you sure it has only 256MB? That's pretty small, even for a CF-card.
I can't imagine that it ever will work, let alone that it will be of any use.
Marc
I can't imagine that it ever will work, let alone that it will be of any use.
I chose a CF, because it uses less power and is completely quiet. For Bittorrent and shares, which require more disk space, i'll build an additional fileserver, whose power consumption will be at the WL700gE's level and below.
According to the CF, here's a little picture (http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/9674/unbenannt1kopiehk4.jpg) for you.
By th way, the biggest compact flash card ever built has about 32 GiB space, hasn't it?
I chose a CF, because it uses less power and is completely quiet. For Bittorrent and shares, which require more disk space, i'll build an additional fileserver, whose power consumption will be at the WL700gE's level and below.
As far as I know the Asus uses about 11-12 Watt when in use with a spinning hard disk, and about 5-6 Watt with a not spinning hard disk. You can arange such a behaviour by installing kFurge's Image.
It would amaze me if your setup with an extra 'fileserver' (USB disk?) would use less Watts. I totally sympatize with lowering energy waste, but imho the Asus did a decent job just by itself, let alone the possibility to stop the disk.
Of course, if it is about noise, nothing beats complete silence. But your fileserver won't be so quiet.
So please explain.
Marc
According to the CF, here's a little picture (http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/9674/unbenannt1kopiehk4.jpg) for you.
By the way, the biggest compact flash card ever built has about 32 GiB space, hasn't it?
Your picture is very interesting. It shows that your format action is overruled by the reflash. Amazingly less than half of the CF is used for VOLUME1, and even that tiny space is used for only 40 MB... There is a large unallocated space above VOLUME1.
With my 250GB disk VOLUME1 takes all the space above 600 MB until almost the end of the disk: it leaves 10 KB unallocated there. But that is not the same or related in any way to the 0,134GB (134MB) that it leaves unused in your situation.
What reflashing does is still not very well known. It might try to devide the space for its root volume and the VOLUME1 in such a way that it fails with tiny disks. I would suggest that you try with a bigger CF-card, say one with 2GB. Those are not too expensive. I have googled for 64 GB CF-cards. It seemed to me that they are coming soon.
Good luck, and let us know what you find.
Greets
Marc
As far as I know the Asus uses about 11-12 Watt when in use with a spinning hard disk, and about 5-6 Watt with a not spinning hard disk. You can arange such a behaviour by installing kFurge's Image.
It would amaze me if your setup with an extra 'fileserver' (USB disk?) would use less Watts. I totally sympatize with lowering energy waste, but imho the Asus did a decent job just by itself, let alone the possibility to stop the disk.
Of course, if it is about noise, nothing beats complete silence. But your fileserver won't be so quiet.
So please explain.
Marc
I'll use VIA's Pico-ITX mainboard, which uses about 7 Watt, and several notebook HDDs. They'll only spin if they're needed, the rest of the time they 'sleep' in standby mode - similar to the router with modified firmware.
The OS will run on a compact flash card. I plan to install Windows with the EWF extension of XPe to guarantee longer lifetime of the CF, because they have a limited number of write cycles, you know surely.
All in all, the system's average power consumption will be about 9-10 Watt.
Your picture is very interesting. It shows that your format action is overruled by the reflash. Amazingly less than half of the CF is used for VOLUME1, and even that tiny space is used for only 40 MB... There is a large unallocated space above VOLUME1.
With my 250GB disk VOLUME1 takes all the space above 600 MB until almost the end of the disk: it leaves 10 KB unallocated there. But that is not the same or related in any way to the 0,134GB (134MB) that it leaves unused in your situation.
What reflashing does is still not very well known. It might try to devide the space for its root volume and the VOLUME1 in such a way that it fails with tiny disks. I would suggest that you try with a bigger CF-card, say one with 2GB. Those are not too expensive. I have googled for 64 GB CF-cards. It seemed to me that they are coming soon.
Good luck, and let us know what you find.
Greets
Marc
Well, i have some interesting news.
Today i replaced the CF card + adapter with an old 4,3GiB hard disk to ensure the problem is the CF, if everything works fine again with the HDD.
I proceeded like with the CF card, so i formatted the whole disk with ReiserFS and put it into the router.
I installed firmware 1.0.7.8 and rebootet. The 'Ready' light turned on :) and i could use it as normal (!).
Yes, all settings were still there, although it was a different drive, which was completely empty. It seems that the router doesn't store the settings on the hard disk but on an internal (additional) flash card.
So far, problem #1 -> solved, 'Ready' light works again.
As the next step, i tested if i was able to shut the router down via the orange power button, but there was no reaction.
=> the shutdown doesn't depend on wether there's a hard disk inside or a CF
I remembered, that i have never used firmware 1.0.7.8 with the original hard drive and the shutdown problem exists since installed the new firmware.
I reflashed 1.0.4.6 again, still the 4,3 GiB hard disk inside. It took hardly a minute and the router was 'Ready'. Again all settings were still there. I tested the power button and surprisingly the router powered off just normal.
Finally i reflashed 1.0.4.6 on the CF as well, because at that point, it was pretty clear to me, that the new firmware causes all problems. After about a minute flashing was done, 'Ready' light was on and i could shut the router down via the power button again.
Conclusion:
- the new firmware (1.0.7.8) causes problems at shutdown (and while booting with a CF)
and!
- it is possible to replace the internal hard drive with a CF card adapter without any restrictions as long firmware 1.0.4.6 is used (perhaps, the disk space is very very limited ;) )
Well, i wondered that nobody has found that bug yet, i read the whole topic in the firmware discussion forum at that time before is used the new firmware.
The finishing would be to find something like EWF for Linux to minimize the number of writing processes on the CF.
I read something about JFFS2, any experiences with that?
Hi 'psitrax'
Congratulations with this solution.
Could you do me a favour and upload a new picture of the Disk Management Basic Config page of your Asus?
The fact that the power button in the new firmware does not work is not yet discovered, could be due to the sad circumstance that nobody cares to power it off. But I doubt... That's why I a gave my reply a title, hoping someone else will confirm one way or the other.
Marc
Thank you,
the Disk Management Basic Config page looks exactly the same as already posted. Even the used space is still at 0.040 GiB, which shows, that there are only minor differences between 1.0.4.6 and 1.0.7.8 .
I'll post the fact about the non-working power button in the forum for firmware discussion to get a verification and perhaps kfurge is bored some time and will fix it. ;)
'psitrax'
You mean, i misspelled it? :(
(i still can't imagine to have the router running all the time...)