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Netgear Centria N900 WNDR4700
- CPU: AMCC PowerPC APM82181 Rev. E at 1000 MHz (PLB=166, OPB=83, EBC=83 MHz) Security support, Boot ROM Location NAND wo/ECC 2k page (8 bits) 32 kB I-Cache 32 kB D-Cache, 256 kB L2-Cache, 32 kB OnChip Memory
- Board: AMCC APM82181 Evaluation Board, PCIE0/SATA1, 1*USB OTG
- DRAM: 256 MB (ECC not enabled, 500 Mb/s, 32-bit, CL3)
- NAND: 128 MiB (SLC, erase size: 128 KiB, page size: 2048, OOB size: 64)
- ETH: Atheros AR8327N Gigabit Switch (4 x LAN, 1 x WAN)
- USB: 2 x 3.0 (Renesas uPD720202K8-711-BAA-A, firmware not included)
- SATA: 1 x SATA-II 3.5" Hard Drive Bay for HDDs (DesignWare SATA).
- WLAN1: Atheros AR9380 5GHz 802.11an 3:3x3
- WLAN2: Atheros AR9581 2.4GHz 802.11bgn 3:3x3
- SDCARD: GL827L SD/MMC/MS Flash Card Reader (on internal dwc2 USB 2.0 host)
- I2C: GMT G781 (i2c-0 @ 0x4d - lm90 compatible temperature sensor) TC654 (i2c-0 @ 0x1b - Dual PWM fan Speed controller)
The lede-apm821xx-netgear-WNDR4700-squashfs-factory.img images can be used to flash the Netgear WNDR4700 via the web admin site of the device with the stock firmware or via the firmware's recovery mechanism in u-boot.
The bootloader can be instructed to do a firmware recovery by interrupting the boot and entering: # fw_recovery Then u-boot will start a tftp server and listen on 192.168.1.1 (the ipaddr variable in u-boot) for incoming, binary tftp clients. The firmware recovery mechanism is also started if any of the flash content which contains the kernel, device-tree definitions or the (fake)rootfs fails to verify or load.
To use the initramfs method, follow the following steps:
- Move the "lede-apm821xx-netgear-WNDR4700-initramfs-kernel.bin" file to to the root directory of your TFTP server.
- rename it to wndr4700.bin
- On the WNDR4700 - Hit Enter during u-boot and insert:
# tftp 400000 wndr4700.bin; run addtty; bootm 400000 -
This will boot the LEDE image. Note: The default tftp server is 192.168.1.7, if you want to change it:
# setenv serverip 192.168.8.7;
Note2: The default address for the WNDR4700 is 192.168.1.1:
# setenv ipaddr 192.168.8.8;
Note: Connect you tftp server on the last LAN port (not the WAN)
From the current release
lede-apm821xx-netgear-WNDR4700-squashfs-factory.img
The firmware for the USB 3.0 Host chip is not included anymore due to the lack of a redistributable license for it. Therefore the two USB 3.0 ports will not work out-of-the-box. Please install the uPD7070x-firmware manually. If you know someone at Renesas/NEC who can help: Please contact us! Without a Signed-off firmware license we can't ship it anymore.
A user reported that the USB 3.0 chip on his WNDR4700 did not work. Upon further inspection, it turned out that the chip wasn't available/scannable in the bootloader either:
PCIE0: successfully set as root-complex
03 00 168c 0030 0280 ff
02 02 111d 803a 0604 00
04 00 168c 0033 0280 ff
02 03 111d 803a 0604 00
02 04 111d 803a 0604 00
01 00 111d 803a 0604 00
whereas the expected output is:
PCIE0: successfully set as root-complex
03 00 168c 0030 0280 ff
02 02 111d 803a 0604 00
04 00 168c 0033 0280 ff
02 03 111d 803a 0604 00
05 00 1912 0015 0c03 00
02 04 111d 803a 0604 00
01 00 111d 803a 0604 00
(Note the extra 05 00 1912 0015 0c03 00 entry!)
Thankfully, he was able to regain the use of his usb chip:
Sunday I disassemble the router to see if some visible damage are on the board. I found nothing, so I assembled the box and started, then happened the magic USB LED change to blue, I assume maybe some capacitor or other other parts joking with me, never mind it's working now."
The devicetree flash area is currently NOT updated by sysupgrade. Until the devicetree definition is stable, this can lead to all sorts of hardware detection problems! So make sure, if you experience issues: make a backup of your configuration and try the fw_recovery method. If you are unsure whenever this affects you: test if you can reproduce your issue with the initramfs method. As it will always have up-to-date device-tree definitions.
Note: One implication of this is that unlike some other platforms, it isn't easily possible to boot the initramfs image and run a sysupgrade to install the image on a stock router. Please use the web admin site or fw_recovery method for this.
Due to the close proximity between the hard drive, the WIFI and the antennas, the electromagnetic interference of the WIFI can confuse and damage the HDD. If you hear a clicking noise once any of the wifi chips is enabled, you should immediately limit the tx power. This may not effect everyone, because some Regulatory Bodies limit the tx power by law. So check if you have set the right country code/regdomain too.