Table of Contents

Compex WP543AHV

This device is NOT RECOMMENDED for future use with OpenWrt due to low flash/ram.
DO NOT BUY DEVICES WITH 4MB FLASH / 32MB RAM if you intend to flash an up-to-date and secure OpenWrt version onto it! See 4/32 warning for details.

1) This device does not have sufficient resources (flash and/or RAM) to provide secure and reliable operation.
This means that even setting a password or changing simple network settings might not be possible any more, rendering the device effectively useless. See OpenWrt on 4/32 devices what you can do now.

2) OpenWrt support for this device has ended in 2022.
19.07.10 was the last official build for 4/32 devices.

Supported Versions

Hardware Highlights

Installation

→ Install OpenWrt (generic explanation)

Restore mode

If you want to upload firmware to router by tftp, you will have to turn your device to this mode. The procedure is following:

  1. Turn off the device.
  2. Press and hold the reset button.
  3. Plug the device (still hold the button).
  4. Wait until the Diagnostic LED (second from the left) starts flashing quickly. (This will happen almost immediately.)
  5. Now release the reset button. Your router is in Restore mode.

TFTP installation notes

Set your ethernet interface into static mode (IP address 192.168.168.10, netmask 255.255.255.0, default gateway 192.168.168.1), put your router into Restore mode and upload the firmware by TFTP using the following commands (replace XXXXXX with wp543): 

$ tftp 192.168.168.1
tftp> binary
tftp> trace
tftp> put openwrt-ar71xx-wp543.bin

Diagnostic LED will now stop blinking for a while; if the flashing procedure is successfully done, it will start blinking slowly. Now reboot your router manually (turn off - turn on) and OpenWrt will boot.

Upgrading OpenWrt (on compex Myloader)

Minimum Requirement

  1. Compex loader version 2.54 or above.
  2. OpenWrt will only be supported on WP543 with 4MB NOR flash and above.
  3. Please ensure that the Ethernet connection is able to ping address = 192.168.168.1
  4. If there is a USB NAND flash available on board, you would need to change the loader configuration. Please refer to “what to do if there is a onboard NAND Flash”.

Compiling OpenWrt suitable for use on WP543

  1. Getting source codes 
    $ svn co -r 12448 https://snv.openwrt.org/openwrt/trunk
  2. Apply patches from the files mod-wp543.tgz (resource url)
    $ tar -zxvf mod-wp543.tgz
$ cp -a mod-wp543/* trunk/
  3. Compile
    $ cd trunk
$ cp wp543.config .config
$ make

OpenWrt Firmware will be in bin/openwrt-ar71xx-wp543.bin

Uploading the OpenWrt firmware to WP543 running MyLoader v2.54.0717

a. Via Compex Firmware

b. Via TFTP

Hardware info

Architecture MIPS
Vendor Atheros
Bootloader CFE
System-On-Chip AR7161
CPU Speed 680 Mhz
Flash size 8 MB (up to 16 MB)
RAM 32 MB (Max 64 MB) DDR SDRAM
Wireless 2 × MiniPCI slots, support all Compex MiniPCI cards
Ethernet 1 × 10/100 Base-TX Ethernet Port (with Auto MDI/MDIX)
USB 2 × USB 2.0 ports (optional)
Serial yes
JTAG yes

Wireless

Both madwifi and ath9k work well with all Compex MiniPCI cards. You will need some wireless authenticator and/or supplicant (wpad-mini/wpad/wpa-supplicant/hostpad/hostapd-mini).

:!: Madwifi doesn't support MAC changes through UCI on this architecture. If you want to change of wireless MAC, see this.

Useful sources

This page has been assembled from a number of different pages from the old wiki and the current wiki. Refer to them for more (possibly outdated) information.

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