Gargoyle Forum

Hello, I spend a couple hours this morning getting my new router flashed so I thought I would at lease capture the process for the community as it's not currently completely straight forward...

First the background. I purchased the router because a cursory glance of the OpenWRT compatibility list showed both 1.2 and 2.0 as supported, so I thought it a safe bet. Deeper research before attempting to flash uncovered two issues disallowing an easy transition to Gargoyle.

• Starting December of last year, the v2.0 hardware changed(a new flash chip was used) with no version bump...so if the serial is 215C or later, old builds brick the router(possibly soft brick, but regardless, it no longer works). Support for the new version was added in 1.9.1, so use that version and all is well.
• The router also came with a US specific new firmware 3.14.3 Build 151014. It apparently preemptively implements proposed FCC safeguards against installing 3rd party software. So, simply trying to flash from the stock UI threw an error back.

So, much googling of OpenWRT and DD-WRT forums led to multiple workaround options that I unsuccessfully tried. It was found scripts could be run by entering them in the SSID field, and I attempted a couple different methods of doing that to run a script that would supposedly allow flashing of the 3rd party firmware, but neither worked for me. Others said that TFTP worked, so I settled on that method.

• Downloaded Gargoyle 1.9.1
• Downloaded OpenWRT build from http://luci.subsignal.org/~trondah/arch ... actory.bin
• Rename OpenWRT build to ArcherC7v2_tp_recovery.bin
• Downloaded TFTP 32 bit from http://tftpd32.jounin.net/tftpd32_download.html
• Followed directions for TFTP de-brick Alternative section at https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wdr7500

Now, for the final details. I flashed the above OpenWRT build first because it was mentioned as a working version in a forum post. You might be able to directly flash Gargoyle 1.9.1... I'm not entirely certain if the OpenWRT build has something different in the headers that allow it to flash versus the latest Gargoyle or not. I know what I did worked, so that's what I'm outlining.

The flashed succeeded and the OpenWRT build linked has UI, so I was able to login and flash the latest gargoyle from there. Couple minutes later I was presented with my familiar purple admin page...

So far, everything looks good. 2.4 and 5Ghz wifi are functioning as expected.

Thanks for sharing.
I believe for now the "lockdown" is simple and circumventable, gargoyle hang implemented it yet (it's part of openwrt DD).
Hopefully it gets no more complex!

Thanks Codertimt!

For anyone else following these steps, make sure you rename the file as codertimt says:

Rename OpenWRT build to ArcherC7v2_tp_recovery.bin.

The OpenWrt wiki is ambiguous and I set to *v3* based on my reading of the wiki. I found out it was looking for *v2* filename by running WireShark while the router was booting.

I know this is a dumb question, but how does one login to OpenWrt Luci? I see https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/firstlogin and tried '' (empty), 'password' and 'empty password' (all without quotes) both with Firefox and Chrome, with/without incognito/private session. I tried user 'root' and 'admin'. I can't believe I'm stuck here...

Any help/tips appreciated.

Hi mate if you flashed with Gargoyle then the user name is root and the password is password.

Thanks tapper,

I've only gotten to the point where I have "flashed the above OpenWRT build first", so I've not installed Gargoyle yet.

Woo Hoo!

I skipped trying to login to OpenWrt and put 1.9.1 download (gargoyle_1.9.1-ar71xx-generic-archer-c7-v2-squashfs-factory.bin) in my TFTP directory and renamed it to ArcherC7v2_tp_recovery.bin.

Upon bootup, the TFTP download occurred (I was worried that it might not since I had installed OpenWrt) and after a couple of minutes, I logged in to the "familiar purple admin page...".

Thanks again codertimt!

Glad you got it working mate. (highfive)

Newie to Gargoyle though knowledgeable to technology. I have followed the steps up to installing OpenWrt on my new tp-link ac1750 and things went smooth till I attempted to login. I can't get past the login screen. I've tired using root and a blank password, root password, admin admin with no luck in both the web interface presented and ssh prompt. I've even tried renaming gargoyle_1.9.1-ar71xx-generic-archer-c7-v2-squashfs-factory.bin to ArcherC7v2_tp_recovery.bin and flashing it as I did to get the OpenWrt installed and still no luck. Also, tried to failsafe the router to no luck, Can anyone give me more suggestions so I can try tonight, or is there another password I should be using?

Depending on what version you're using, you usually need to Telnet in to set a password first.

https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/firstlogin

Thanks for your response. For the past couple of nights I have continued to attempt to get a telnet response from the router without luck. I just notice though when using the tftpd32 the logs are showing an error "Read request from for file <ArcherC7v2_to_recovery.bin> Mode octet [07/01 01:38:33:363] File <ArcherC7v2_tp_recovery.bin> : error 2 in system call CreateFile The system cannot find the file specified [07/01 01:38:33:363]" Not sure what this is telling me, but perhaps the whole file isn't writing to the TP-Link AC1750 Archer C7.