Best practice for upgrading firmware?

[wrtmonkey]

I haven't been able to locate any documentation on the best practice for upgrading firmware. I checked the Documentation sidebar link, including the FAQ. I am running firmware from 3 years ago, figured its about time that I upgrade. I usually live by "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" but I'm sure there's been security and performance improvements since I last flashed. I know that its best practice to not keep settings from a previous version, so I already made screenshots of all of my settings so that I can manually set them after the upgrade.

What should the upgrade process be. Is it simply flashing the latest firmware?

Should I revert back to TPLink firmware, then flash the new Gargoyle firmware?

I see (2) different files, I assume I need to use 'systemupgrade.bin', correct?


--gargoyle_1.9.0-ar71xx-generic-tl-wdr3600-v1-squashfs-factory.bin

--gargoyle_1.9.0-ar71xx-generic-tl-wdr3600-v1-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

[Lantis]

Just a straight upgrade without preserving settings is all you need mate.
And yes the right file to use is the sysupgrade.

[jd45321]

I have the wdr-3600 also, I'd hold off upgrading to 1.9 for now. I loaded 1.9 but found it to be unstable (speeds would be ok, then slow down to 10% capacity say). I reloaded 1.8 and it has been stable again. The 1.9 version that can be downloaded is from Nov. If you are going to go with the 1.9 version, I'd at least wait until the next beta version is released.

[wrtmonkey]

I have the wdr-3600 also, I'd hold off upgrading to 1.9 for now. I loaded 1.9 but found it to be unstable (speeds would be ok, then slow down to 10% capacity say). I reloaded 1.8 and it has been stable again. The 1.9 version that can be downloaded is from Nov. If you are going to go with the 1.9 version, I'd at least wait until the next beta version is released.

Thanks for the suggestion. I will use 1.8 since its listed as stable and 1.9 is still experimental.

[tapper]

Hi i use 1.9 on my wdr3600 and it's very stable!
I have about 25 wifi devices and 2 hard wired pcs.
Try this build of 1.9:
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=8136