Netgear WNDR3700v5 hardware observations / experiments

[se325919]

If anyone has been following my other thread where I am trying to get Tailscale working on my Netgear WNDR3700v5, they will recall that one of the first problems I came across was lack of space on chip to install Tailscale, which was forcing me to come up with other ideas.

I've been doing some research on this device with a view to seeing how I can expand internal storage capacity because I need to occupy the sole USB port with my 4G LTE modem as that is my only source of internet in my home.

Let it be known that I have no knowledge of embedded Linux, Linux commands, Linux folder structures, config files etc. I've only ever worked on Windows and DOS so Linux itself is something new and strange to me, so please excuse me if I ask stupid questions or appear to get stuck on what may be considered basic things.

I do have a background in audio-visual equipment repair so working with PCBs, schematics, circuit diagrams, soldering and physical modifications I am pretty ok with.

PLEASE RIGHT CLICK ON IMAGES AND OPEN IN NEW TAB TO SEE THEM LARGER

THE NETGEAR WNDR3700v5 is produced for Netgear by a company called SerComm. Apart from perhaps the feature set and the plastic casing, it has almost nothing in common with earlier versions of the WNDR3700. This v5 is based around the Mediatek MT7621ST System On Chip.

A good point of reference for the technical specs is this page:
https://techinfodepot.shoutwiki.com/wik ... WNDR3700v5
As far as I can see, this page appears to be accurate, except for where it claims the RAM chip to be a Nanya NT5CB64M16FP-DP. In my case it is a Nanya NT5CB64M16FP-DH as can be seen in this photo (The DP/DH may just be a typing error on that website as I can't seem to find reference of a DP existing):

This is inkeeping with other SerComm produced Netgear products that share the MediaTek_MT7621 - namely the Netgear R6220 router, the Netgear R6230 router, and the Netgear WAC104 Wireless Access Point. These products, and mine appear to share the same FCC ID according to the Netgear section of this table on the page:
https://techinfodepot.shoutwiki.com/wik ... Tek_MT7621
That makes me think they could all be based on the same PCB. What differs between mine and those other ones is that mine has only 16MB of NOR flash and the others have 128MB of NAND flash on board. The other difference you will notice is that while mine is advertised and sold by Netgear as a WiFi b/g/n device, the others add a/c connectivity. It is already a proven fact that installing Gargoyle (OpenWRT) on my device has in fact unlocked a/c functionality, so that brings me one step closer to the R6220 for example.

While the url https://techinfodepot.shoutwiki.com/wik ... WNDR3700v5 states that it has internal images of the WNDR3700v5, it actually has only a single image of the PCB of an R6220, which I will embed here:

The NAND flash clearly visible at the right hand side of the photo.

Now to open my WNDR3700v5 and have a look inside.

Very interesting. The NAND flash of the R6220 is indeed substituted for a Macronix MX25L12835FMI-10G NOR chip, BUT the solder pads for the NAND chip remain on the PCB. There are a few SMD capacitors and resistors (possibly 0 ohm resistors) around it, which can obviously not be there if a NAND chip were in place. Similarly there are R10 and C27 unpopulated which appear to be populated on the R6220.


Armed with this new found knowledge, 2 things are ringing in my head.
1 - Could it be as simple as removing the NOR chip, and replacing it with a larger capacity version of itself?
There appears to exist a MX25L25635FMI-10G https://www.digikey.co.uk/en/products/d ... 0G/4211590 which is double the capacity of the existing MX25L12835FMI-10G NOR chip. This would be a doddle to solder in due to the large legs with wide spacing, but the question remains, would I be able to flash the image onto a fresh chip of a different size?

2 - Could a NAND flash chip (as per the R6220) be put instead of the NOR chip and relevant SMD components moved? Without access to a circuit diagram or component list it would be difficult if not impossible to determine the values of those tiny components. Again the question remains. Would I be able to simply flash the same WNDR3700v5 image now that we have NAND in place of NOR, and the capacity is different OR would I be able to simply use the R6220 image instead?

I have the manufacturer's datasheet for the MediaTek MT7621ST System On Chip (complete pinout diagram included), and have learned that despite all of these Netgear routers only having a single USB port, the chipset actually supports 2 of them. It also supports SDXC card readers. A visual scan of the PCB revealed no unpopulated USB headers, so where were the pins of the second USB going? Were they even connected or simply ignored?


On quite a different note, the current DD-WRT image for the WNDR3700v5 is broken. Flashing that to my device caused it to get stuck in a boot loop. In order to help provide information that could help the developers at DD-WRT to fix their image I will try to get serial communication with my router. I found the 4 pin serial header on the PCB, but my attention also got drawn to something else.

In this photo you can see to the left of the serial header is an unpopulated mPCIe position on the PCB, which you may have spotted in an earlier image.

Searching around for "adding a USB port to MT7621ST", I came across this url:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/ ... 1608-zbt)/
Here the writer discovers that in his router (not a Netgear by the way) he was able to use the microPCIe connector with a USB adapter to gain an extra USB port. I shall embed his image here:


Does this open up another avenue of opportunity? More questions to be asked. Can I simply solder on a mPCIe socket and use a USB adapter as he did, or is there more to it than that? To further neaten it up could I even use a TF card adapter instead like this?

OR could I even use a micro PCI-E SSD which I happen to have a few spares of?


Due to it being the only router at home, I can't have it out of service for long. That's one of the reasons why the photos are so poor as I literally got up in the middle of the night and opened the router, took the photos and put it back before anyone knew.

The only other thing to tell you about is that there is another area of unpopulated solder pads on the board as well.

I don't really have any ideas at the moment of what this area of the board has been made for. I can see it is also unpopulated in the image of the R6220 PCB. It may be obvious to someone else what it is for. If you know, please comment.

Finally here is a photo of the sticker on the PCB in case it is significant.


Please let me know your thoughts.

[pythonic]

Any hardware changes of the sort you're looking at very likely require at least the following:

• a different bootloader to account for any flash and RAM changes
• a custom firmware incorporating a customised device tree for the changed/added hardware and possibly additional drivers
• copying parts of the existing flash to a new flash chip, particularly things like radio calibration data, MAC addresses and other info not usually included in firmware images

If you can use components in another existing OpenWrt supported device, e.g. R6220 (and especially if that device is built on the same PCB design), then with the right bootloader installed you might be able to either use that device's image or adapt the current device tree from the component donor device trees. You can also probably find hardware mod discussions in the OpenWrt forums that might be helpful, especially mods related to flash.

From what I understand, the bootloader image is not included in all OEM firmware images (it is in some especially if it's an updated version). There are devices where OpenWrt has UBoot support which you might be able to leverage to build a custom UBoot for your modded device.

Before starting hardware modification, I have 2 very strong recommendations:

1. get a spare router so you don't get caught short when something goes wrong!
2. become familiar with building OpenWrt and Gargoyle from source before starting hardware modification, as you'll need to build and install firmware to use the modifications (the USB port mod perhaps could wait for a subsequent firmware update but flash and RAM changes almost certainly need an updated firmware to boot).

I mention OpenWrt simply as that community is a great deal larger than Gargoyle's and you're more likely to find assistance getting mods to work in the OpenWrt forums; once you have OpenWrt working, getting Gargoyle working is usually very straightforward and it is just a sysupgrade from OpenWrt to Gargoyle (and vice-versa, modulo some software version and configuration issues as configurations normally can't be transferred directly between the two).

[se325919]

Thanks for your contribution Pythonic.

As I know nothing about building from sources, or how and where the bootloader is stored or modified, do you think this would be possible?

Use CH341 programmer to get a dump from the existing 16MB NOR chip, and flash that same data onto a new 32MB NOR chip?

I'm sure that would copy across the MAC address and calibration data you mention, but would it still boot, and would the extra capacity be detected as available space?

[pythonic]

As I know nothing about building from sources, or how and where the bootloader is stored or modified, do you think this would be possible?

I've read a couple of flash mod threads on the OpenWrt forums and with this class of device I'd think it's possible, with a lot of research and effort.

Use CH341 programmer to get a dump from the existing 16MB NOR chip, and flash that same data onto a new 32MB NOR chip?

That's the way most flash mods seem to start, at least with NOR flash (NAND flash has additional complexities I gather).

I'm sure that would copy across the MAC address and calibration data you mention, but would it still boot, and would the extra capacity be detected as available space?

If the flash chip is a larger variant of the existing flash chip, there's some probability it will boot, but IF it boots it will still behave as though it was the same size as the original flash chip because these details are encoded in the bootloader (including at least some partition details so the bootloader can find the kernel and pass info to the kernel to find the root filesystem) and/or other flash partition(s), and the kernel device tree (which the kernel uses to configure hardware as well as storage. Embedded devices, other than x86 devices, don't have anything like the automated means of configuring from the hardware that x86 devices have developed so a lot of information that is "plug and play" in the x86 sphere has to be encoded in embedded devices in the bootloader (equivalent to a PC's BIOS), special flash partitions and the Linux kernel (via the device tree binary).

I suggest searching the OpenWrt forums for flash mod threads and perusing them to start learning about what you're trying to do.

[se325919]

Hi Pythonic. I kind of thought that might be the case about no auto-detection of additional space. I might re-create this thread in the OpenWRT forums as well. In the meantime I will try to get hold of an R6220 to put in the home while I mess about with the WNDR3700v5.

[Lantis]

OpenWrt forum is the right place for these questions.
Just be prepared for some level of naysayers and people who would suggest you just buy a higher spec device.

They are inevitable and can be grouchy

[pythonic]

To give you a starting point, I stumbled over this flash mod info just today.

[se325919]

Thanks for that link Pythonic. That gives me the belief that it is definitely possible to upgrade the NOR chip with a higher capacity one. The hardware part is simple enough. Unfortunately for me, the software side of things looks very much out of my depth.

[se325919]

OpenWrt forum is the right place for these questions.
Just be prepared for some level of naysayers and people who would suggest you just buy a higher spec device.

They are inevitable and can be grouchy

Yes I have noticed that about some over there. Everyone has to start somewhere - even the grouches had to learn at some point. I'm surprised nobody here on on DD-WRT has told me to buy a better router already. Of course I could do that. This router cost me pennies anyway, and I like the challenge of putting old hardware to use while learning things along the way.

[Lantis]

I try not to unless the situation absolutely dictates it. I think EVERYONE understands (whether they want to accept it or not) that money solves most of their problems lol.

But when people come with $10 routers and ask why they can’t get their full internet bandwidth there is usually only 1 answer.