A very basic question

[grotgod]

Good day.

I am sure that you sometimes find questions posted on this board that will tax your knowledge to the limit.

This is not one of them.

----- VERY BASIC BACKGROUND : SKIP IF YOU WISH -----

I bought a Tplink TL-WDR3600 router. It is up and running without any problems at the moment. What a brilliant piece of kit this is! Especially since I upgraded from a very old end-of-life Netgear router.

I have been reading up on Gargoyle and would like to install it on the router. Primarily for the ability to monitor network and bandwidth usage and if necessary impose rules to throttle internet speeds at certain times of the day for specific pc's.

----- THE QUESTION -----

When I install the Gargoyle firmware, will the default TP-link web UI be replaced with the Gargoyle interface? Such as the one shown in this screenshot?

http://www.gargoyle-router.com/wiki/lib ... ateway.jpg

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply to such an inane question.

[tapper]

Hi i cant see the screen shot as i am blind, but judging by the URL of it i think you are rite. Dont you like what you see? lol
If you want to go back to original firmware look here http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wdr3600

[grotgod]

Hi Tapper,

Thanks very much for your reply.

Well, to be honest, I am troubled by the screen-shot.
It shows 4 main menu items on the left-hand menu.
Status, connection, firewall, system and logout. Thats it.

The current default Tp-link UI has quite a few other options available with which to configure the router and network. Such as the ability to set access to each of the 2 wireless signals individually, USB settings etc.

Would one loose this native functionality when installing Gargoyle?

I have downloaded the Gargoyle firmware for my router but not pulled the trigger on the installation yet. I am especially careful since I have read that you could end up with an expensive doorstop if things go wrong. Given that the router is 1 day old, I am being extra cautious. I would hate to take a risk and end up with something less useful.

Thanks for the link. I came across it while reading up and have downloaded the original firmware they suggested.

[tapper]

Hi on mine i have:
Status, Overview, Bandwidth Usage, B/W Distribution, Web Usage, Connected Hosts, Connection List, Connection,Firewall and System.

Of them Connection, Firewall and System are submenus so if i click on Connection
then i get: Basic, DHCP, OpenVPN, Dynamic DNS, Routing, Wake on LAN and Ping Watchdog.

clicking on Firewall will get you:
Port Forwarding, Connection Limits, Restrictions, Quotas, QoS (Upload) and QoS (Download).

system will get you:
Router Access, Identification, Time, System Logs, Plugins, Webshell, USB Storage, USB Printer, Backup / Restore, Update Firmware, Reboot and About
Install the new v1.6 and you are good to go. good luck!

[grotgod]

Hi Tapper;

Thanks for the feedback mate!

Enough of the dallying. I must drink a courage pill, strap on my big-boy pants and take the plunge.

Here's to hoping that I manage to get the router back to original if it goes pear shape.

[grotgod]

Just some quick feedback.

I installed Gargoyle following the instructions provided at:

http://slickdeals.net/f/5525498-tp-link ... ing?page=8

It works like a charm!

The entire process took less than 10 minutes and I am up and running with the data usage reports already. I will still need to read up a bit concerning finer detail tweaking to be done, but I am very much looking forward to it. Especially now that I have discovered the dual-band options under the wifi connections.

--- So to answer my own question: ---

No, it does not seem that the native TP-LINK TL-WDR3600 N600 firmware has any specific functionality that you will miss or desperately need after having replaced it with Gargoyle.

Thanks again Tapper.