I am not in the habit of "bricking"("breaking" meets "brick") equipment - unless the piece of equipment has driven me completely mad. Say hello to the ViewSonic WAPBR-100 802.11g access point. Absolute trash. This piece of "hardware" has been driving me crazy for about a year and a half now. Normally it takes me about 2 hours of constant play to eventually finagle this gadget to work properly. It does not behave as expected, improperly reads the MAC address of wireless routers and after so many months of working O.K., it tends to forget itself and stops working at all. I then have to go though the whole setup process again - a complete waste of time.Out of my frustration, I googled around and found a wonderful forum post on DD-WRT.com by "cpresco" who, from what it looks like, took the risk of bricking this little beast and turning it into a functional, well behaving bit of wi-fi joy.
Thank you cpresco.
The steps are simple:
1. Go grab the The Linksys Firmware and uncompress it. It is the WAP54G v2.0 Firmware Release v3.04. You need to go to the Linksys site and hunt it down.
2. Reset the the access point (hold the small black button in the back down for a couple of seconds.)
3. Login (http://192.168.1.2 was my default. Yours may be different. Default password is "admin")
4. Browse to http://192.168.1.2/fw-conf.asp and on this simple form, set "Firmware Header" to "disable" then click Apply. Wait. Then click "Go Home."
5. Click the Administration tab, Click "firmware update" and point it to the "LinksysWAP54G_3.04.trx" file that you uncompressed. And Wait. DO NOT do anything. If you do you will have a high-tech paperweight with antenna. Just wait. The lights will flash for about a minute or two.
6. Your little box's new ip address is http://192.168.1.245, password is "admin."
7. Set it up accordingly. You will probably find that this time you can get it working in about 10 minutes.
Note - the new firmware does not use the "WLAN" LED on the front of the device. I do not care. It just freaking works.
UPDATE: Read here about my attempt with DD-WRT and this bugger.
13 comments:
I've been having the same problem, and have been looking to install different firmware. I've called Viewsonic, and they say that the guy who wrote the firmware was fired. For anyone else, I found the firmware mentioned by going to http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_CASupport_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1166859892664&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper&lid=9266437314B205&displaypage=download and selecting version 2.0.
I have 3 of these for use as AP Client. I've managed to make it work but with a lot of hassle. I recently changed my router to WPA and found that the Viewsonic firmware does not support WPA for AP Client!!! As I searched for the WAPBR-100 firmware update, I came upon this webpage and followed the given instructions and VIOLA!!! it works. The Linksys firmware supports WPA so I was able to save these three units. Thanks a bunch to this post and cpresco.
I did this, seemed to work fine on day one. Come home today and my internet isn't functioning at all (i'm assuming it is just a coincidence). I was really looking forward to downloading the Bioshock demo on my Xbox360 -- and the thought struck me that I could use our generously unsecured neighbor's wireless to do so, via the WAPBR-100 / WAP54G. However, when I try to log into the IP of 192.168.1.245 I get nothing. I try holding down the reset button on the back of the Viewsonic, and nothing happens. It seems as though the reset button will no longer work. I can't log into it and I can't reset it...this is a problem. I can still see my local router at 192.168.1.1 on the PC that blugs into my new mutated viewsonic. Anyone have any ideas?
Tell me if this helps...
Plug the WAPBR network cable directly into a PC or Mac. Then, hard code an i.p. number to the NIC on that computer (192.168.1.10 should work. Do not use DHCP.) Make sure there is no other networking going on that computer. You should then be able to browse to http://192.168.1.245 and get to the admin page.
If this does not work, it may not be on x.x.x.245. Try a broadcast ping (ping 192.168.1.255) and the device should reveal it's IP. Try browsing to that address.
Thank you, Will try this this evening and let you know how it goes.
Broadcast Pinging did the trick! I had never heard of this before but it came right back at 1.150 and I can now change settings.
It is entirely possible that I changed the IP to a static 150 after I got it set up and forgot about it... I had a few beers during the process.
Thanks again. Learned a useful trick today.
Vunderbar! I'd nearly given up on this useless AP, being forced to go with WEP was really putting me at risk. Nice work.
A tip of the hat goes to the OP for posting this. It works exactly as described. Follow the directions and you'll have no trouble.
I now have a functional wireless bridge that uses WPA encryption hooked up to my DVR. For anyone who's interested, I use a DLink DI-624 as my router/AP.
OK, so I have one of these and I flashed it to the Linksys firmware. Has anybody went further and loaded DD-WRT (or the like) to it?
If so, how would you do it? Do you follow the WAP54G instructions or the WAPBR-100 instructions (using vxworks killer)?
Thanks
Great info!! I have not done this with my POS Viewsonic WAPBR-100 yet since it has long been cursed and abandoned in my storage. Instead, I did it with my Trendnet TEW-410APBplus, and it worked!!!! I own both Trendnet TEW-410APBplus and Viewsonic WAPBR-100, and I had known that they both used almost the same firmware interface. Trendnet’s firmware was a little newer than Viewsonic; hence, it was a little more usable. Still, it was still pretty lame regardless. I started doing some research after reading this site. I confirmed that the Trendnet and the Viewsonic both use the same hardware components meaning that they are also comparable to Linksys WAP54G V2.0. I was not 100% but still took a dive anyway. I follow through the exact process above using the exact same firmware, and goodness…it worked great!!! Now, I can do all the things like just changing the wireless channel to something other than 3. What used to be a POS has suddenly become a reliable device. Thanks a lot, and I will do the same with my Viewsonic when I get it out of the storage.
Thank you for the info in the previous comment! It confirmed my thought that most the hardware in these devices are pretty generic and DD-WRT has built in drivers for most occasions. (Pick your firmware carefully!)
Thanks again for taking the dive.
-aprigliano
Does the reset button still work for resetting the defaults? if not how would you go about reseting the device if the settings get trashed for some reason? Assuming a power cycle isn't working...
I have pulled the trigger with DD-WRT on this baby and did a short write up here...
http://www.aprigliano.org/2009/06/viewsonic-wapbr-100-revisited.html
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