Convert Sam Knows WRT160NL to a normal router
After lots of looking around and seeing posts with no answer i decided to give this a go myself.
I did this by using the serial pins inside the router and TFTP.
I bought a USB2.0 to RS232 TTL Converter Module PL2303 on ebay (first one didnt work but 2nd did http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260769090948 was the one that worked).
Once connected up i used the OEM TFTP Install instructions on this page http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/linksys/wrt160nl. The pin connections are also on that page.
The code.bin that i flashed was the original linksys one but then i installed DD-WRT afterwards as you normally would.
Everything is now working as it should on this router.
Not bad for a free bit of kit!
I hope this helps some of you that have been wanting to do the same. The main point of this post was to show that it is possible.
Enjoy converting your routers 🙂
Disclaimer: I am not responsible for what you do to your routers. By reading this and following these instructions you do so on your own accord. Doing this does break the terms and conditions of the Sam Knows agreement.
samknowswrt160nl 
October 10, 2011 at 7:37 pm
Wow Finally someone has managed it, I have had this router sitting around forever waiting for a breath of life
Gonna order that module and give it a go, thanks
December 24, 2011 at 11:52 pm
Well I bought the gear mentioned here, after a little while working out how to use it, I managed to unlock my router and am using it as my primary router right now – thanks a lot for the instructions, Merry Xmas !
December 26, 2011 at 11:11 pm
Im glad it worked for you Dave 🙂
April 5, 2012 at 3:15 pm
I have the USB TTL adapter (http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/communication/0429307/) and I’ve downloaded the TFTP utility and firmware.bin from Cisco. Is that all that’s needed?
I couldn’t really make sense of the upload instructions on the OpenWRT site.
April 5, 2012 at 3:33 pm
Not sure if a previous comment got posted or not, so here goes again…
I bought a USB TTL adapter (http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/communication/0429307/) and have downloaded the firmware and TFTP utility from Cisco. Is this all I need to unlock the 160NL? I can’t really get to grips with the OpenWRT instructions.
April 6, 2012 at 4:38 pm
Its been a while since i did this now and the router has been sold, but from memory you will need a telnet/serial client like PuTTY (i advise using putty if you can).
Connect the cable you bought and follow the “Boot into failsafe mode” instructions on the openwrt site. Then use PuTTY to connect using telnet to the router.
Then go back up the page and follow “OEM TFTP install” instructions.
Hope this helps
April 6, 2012 at 4:45 pm
I have more or less forgotten how I did this now, I remember having to use PuTTY for the serial console and once connected up, boot the router, watch the command prompt window for the uBoot process and quickly hit whichever key it was to abort the boot, then I could use the rest of the instructions to send the image over to the router.
The main parts I took a while over were getting the correct jtag pins on the router in the right order, and working out how to abort the uBoot process at the right time
Good luck
April 6, 2012 at 4:45 pm
haha double whammy reply 😉
April 6, 2012 at 4:51 pm
Yes, getting the timing right on the uBoot abort was tricky!
I probably should have written more detailed instructions at the time but i was a little bit excited about working it out and couldnt find anything else about it online, just a lot of people wanting to know!
April 6, 2012 at 5:20 pm
I know what you mean, it took me a good few attempts to get passed certain parts, and was going to write a detailed how-to on it, but same thing, soon as I got DD-WRT flashed I was like a kid with a new toy, still using it today as my main router too
I think its good for the brain when the exact steps are not all there, and you have to learn a little on your own, but as we both just found out, it doesn’t stick long if you never do it again !
April 6, 2012 at 8:38 pm
Wow… a bit of a comment flood — thanks for the responses, which are encouraging, if not concise :]
The USB adapter thing is in the office, so I’ll give it a try when I’m back in on Wednesday (yay, Easter!)
I’ve actually got two of these Samknows Cisco’s and it’d be great to suddenly gain a couple of fairly decent linux Wi-Fi routers!
I’ll post back when I’ve had a try.
Thx.
April 8, 2012 at 12:19 pm
Just trying to refresh my brain on how I did this for you Peter, I’m thinking I had to enable TFTP in windows features options, if you are running win 7 control panel > programs and features > left panel > turn features on and off > check telnet client and TFTP as shown here, I have a feeling this is needed for PuTTY to connect to the router http://localhostr.com/files/yOyw0ht/Capture.PNG
April 8, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Oh yea. if you don’t abort the uBoot process at the right time it will boot too far and you will have to start over, it takes a good few attempts to catch it
April 8, 2012 at 12:43 pm
Dave, thanks for this. I probably have the Telnet client enabled already, but likely not TFTP.
I also have some experience with sorting out troublesome Cisco routers, which also need their boot process interrupted with good timing!
Will let you know how it goes on Wednesday.
April 8, 2012 at 12:46 pm
Ok great, I`ll leave you with that then, if you get stuck, or if you manage it, let us know !
Good luck 😉
April 8, 2012 at 12:54 pm
A final thought, I have a feeling you use PuTTY for the whole aborting the uBoot process, but you use Command prompt for sending across the code.bin so you will have 2 command windows open from what I remember
April 8, 2012 at 1:12 pm
If I remember correctly, you need PuTTY to establish a link when using a COM port, as Windows can’t do that from a command prompt. It’s terminal emulation is IP-only. I suppose the wonderful HyperTerminal used to be the tool back in the day!
Looking forward to unbricking these routers now :]
April 12, 2012 at 10:59 pm
Is this site working again yet? I tried posting a few times and they never showed
April 13, 2012 at 8:01 am
I actually gave it a try yesterday, but made absolutely no progress!
I started to wonder if I was doing things in the right order… I had opened up PuTTY and set it connect over the serial port, connected the adapter to the pins on the router’s circuit board, following the pin-outs in the guide. I was using the power adapter and the serial adapter, although the power LED on the router was flashing when I connected the serial port only.
Long story short, I couldn’t get PuTTY to do anything much, it never seemed to establish comms with the router, simply sitting there with an empty terminal window. I also tried it with a non-switched mode power supply, as suggested in the guide, which made no difference.
Where am I going wrong?
April 13, 2012 at 11:31 am
Did you remember to check which COM port the USB > Serial adapter was running on and set that correctly in PuTTY ?
I have a forum and have made a thread regarding this topic just in case this wordpress site stops working again you can post in there
http://www.portableandroid.co.uk/forums/index.php?/topic/2673-unlocking-wrt160nl/
April 13, 2012 at 1:46 pm
I seem to be using the right settings in PuTTY, and I’ve connected to other routers before in this manner; albeit one’s with a proper serial port. I’ve a feeling the serial adapter is to blame, although that’d be annoying, as I spent £16.00 + postage getting the ‘official’ one from FTDI 😦
Just to clarify the sequence…
I’m attaching the serial connections to the router,
plugging in the USB end of the cable in to the PC,
firing up PuTTY and connecting to the right port
and then plugging in the power adapter on the router.
Sound OK?
April 13, 2012 at 1:51 pm
Yea that sounds about right, I think you press OPEN on PuTTY before powering on the Router so the terminal is waiting for the router as you switch it on
I got my Adapter from the link in the main top post, I did wire the Serial pins up incorrectly to begin with and remember realising and understanding why I had done that, something to do with the pinout diagram had confused me, double check you havent done the same ?
April 13, 2012 at 11:54 am
This is for a different router and shows stages you don’t need, but if you skip to 1m30s it shows how PuTTY needs to be set up to connect via RS232 and might help some
April 13, 2012 at 12:02 pm
Also did you set a static IP on the PC on the correct range 192.168.1. (2 – 254)
April 13, 2012 at 1:51 pm
And your PC is set to a static IP ?
April 13, 2012 at 2:02 pm
Sorry, yes PC is set to 192.168.1.150/24, although I haven’t managed to reach the networking stage!
I thought about the pinouts, however FTDI’s diagrams are really very good and I’m certain the pins are OK. I also checked the 5+ve and GND with a multimeter in case I fried the delicate data connections by having it mixed up!
I couldn’t find anything quite the same as the one in your link, which doesn’t seem to be available anymore — it says ‘more than 10 available’ but there’s no Buy It Now or Place Bid buttons?!
April 13, 2012 at 2:10 pm
Hmm yea it looks like they have stopped selling that one, there is another one that claims to have the same chip in their shop, but its not called the same thing.
I found this one just now, there seems to be quite a few on eBay, although I don’t see why yours isn’t working
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2pcs-USB-2-0-to-RS232-TTL-Module-Converter-PL2303-cable-/290607628111?pt=UK_Computing_Networking_SM&hash=item43a9907f4f
I`m going to have a hunt through my routers and find another one with serial pins, then I`ll connect it up to my RS232 and see if I can see where things are going wrong for you
April 13, 2012 at 2:18 pm
After some frantic Googling I came across this… https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?pid=56704#p56704
The user seems to have reversed the TX and RX pins and eliminated the 5v+
I’d say there could be confusion about the meaning of TX and RX between the OpenWRT guide and the FTDI schematics — after all transmit and receive are relative terms!
Sadly the router’s at home now, so I’ll have to wait and see if that sorts it.
April 13, 2012 at 2:25 pm
Ah that rings a bell, something about using the routers own power adapter and missing out the +5v – I definitely did something like that after reading that the router needs +3.3v and USB is +5v….
There was definitely something strange about the order of the pins, thats what I was thinking about when I posted earlier about getting them mixed up because of the confusing pinout diagram, and I was also getting nothing on PuTTY until I got them right
I remember thinking how I was lucky I had not popped anything by using the +5v on the wrong pin, but it didnt seem to mind as I had tried it quite a few times before finally getting it right
I’m 95% sure thats where you problem lies, that was the main point I got stuck on, until I needed to interrupt the uBoot process which was also fun, watching that Video I posted though, it seems he says to press F to abort
April 13, 2012 at 2:32 pm
Sorry, it looks like Ctrl + C is the stop key combo according to your link
I can’t believe just how little I retained from doing this, its almost as if I did it years ago, where actually it was only December gone
April 13, 2012 at 2:44 pm
It’s same for me with things like this — I work with HTML and CSS quite a bit, and often don’t recognise my own work a few weeks later!
Will gladly report progress on this tonight.
April 13, 2012 at 2:52 pm
I think the problem is that I had to search through a shed load of sites too and tried out many different sets of instructions before finally getting it to work also, so the combination that did work was used as many times as the ones that didn’t, so nothing to make it stay stuck in the old brain.
Your discoveries are walking me through the same sort of things I ended up finding too, I have a good feeling once you get these pinouts correct it will be more or less plain sailing
Maybe when you do manage it, it might be a good plan to add a step by step on here for the next poor soul who wants to try it and we all forget again !
April 13, 2012 at 5:31 pm
Thanks for all the help your giving Dave. Also feel free to copy anything on here to your forum.
It seems we’re all the same in forgetting things as soon as we do them!
I do computer repair as a job and half the time i forget what i’ve done to fix the problem which doesnt always go down well with customers!
The first cable i got didnt work and i thought i was doing things wrong so gave up for a few weeks, then thought i’d buy another cable just to check and thats when i got it working.
I’ve just looked at the 2 modules i’ve got and i cant remember which one worked!
One is CP2102 chip and the other doesnt say so im guessing its PL2302. One from the same seller is:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-USB-2-0-TTL-Converter-UART-6PIN-build-CP2102-Module-Serial-Converte-/260971972856?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cc32448f8#ht_500wt_715
I think i posted this blog as soon as i did it so its nearly a year since i’ve done this and remember very little.
Note to self: Write better instructions next time!
April 13, 2012 at 5:42 pm
Thanks, I`ll wait for Peter to hopefully have a success story and then I`ll add those step to the forum for future reference.
I worked in Computer Repair a year or so ago too, and I know what you mean, customers calling up expecting you to remember their name and their exact problem and your on the other end of the phone frantically flicking through job sheets trying to find their name without giving the game away!
The RS232 board I have I’ve just checked and knowing me I would have left it as it was when it worked, and it only has these pins connected to the wires
GND
RXD
TXD
So I guess the last link Peter found is correct in saying not to use the +V pins, the RST and 3.3v and 5v Pins have nothing connected to them as I left it, so hopefully that will solve part of the mystery
I usually have a good memory for things like this, tech is my thing, I’m shocked at just how little sank in !
April 13, 2012 at 5:55 pm
Mine says “Cp2102 Module” on the board and I only bought one so I guess thats the right one you have got too
April 13, 2012 at 6:00 pm
Here is my adapter that worked for a better look
(Looks like one of the resistors has melted… still it worked ! )
April 13, 2012 at 6:05 pm
One of mine is exactly the same as that so i guess thats the one that worked!
April 13, 2012 at 6:06 pm
Great! So at least that’s one down, maybe still a few to go but I`m confident between the 3 of us we’ll eventually figure it out!
How many technicians does it take to flash a router…..
April 13, 2012 at 7:31 pm
Swapping the TX and RX and ditching the 5v+ has done the trick — I can report a successful connection to the SamKnows firmware, woohoo! http://imgur.com/FHWzl
I was out for a cycle, so I haven’t actually reflashed with DD-WRT yet, but I don’t foresee any big issues with that part. I will of course repost when it’s all hopefully running smoothly.
April 13, 2012 at 7:33 pm
Wehey !! Great news Peter! Should be plain sailing from here on in !
April 17, 2012 at 2:01 pm
Updated the forum with full instructions incase that rapidshare link dies
http://www.portableandroid.co.uk/forums/index.php?/topic/2673-unlock-samknows-linksys-wrt160nl-monitoring-router/
August 15, 2013 at 2:33 pm
Thanks for such a good guide. I’ve managed to flash my router but for info the link to the firmware has now changed to
http://downloads.openwrt.org/backfire/10.03.1/ar71xx/openwrt-ar71xx-wrt160nl-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
August 15, 2013 at 9:57 pm
There is a new version of the firmware available here is a link to it http://downloads.openwrt.org/attitude_adjustment/12.09/ar71xx/generic/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-wrt160nl-jffs2-sysupgrade.bin