NETGEAR WNR834B

NETGEAR WNR834B

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.

Hardware Versions

Model	CPU	Wireless	Flash	RAM	FCC ID
WNR834B v1	BCM3302	BCM4321 (PC-card)	4MB	16MB	PY306100032
WNR834B v2	BCM3302	BCM4321 (integrated)	4MB	16MB	PY307100061

Supported Versions

Hardware Highlights

Installation

→ Install OpenWrt (generic explanation)

Please add the installation procedure here.

Important Information

This router contains a hidden partition called board_data. This partition contains essential information for the bootloader to function. A patch was introduced in trunk revision 22475 that provided support for this router by skipping over this essential area of flash.

Hardware

Architecture	MIPS (low endian)
Vendor	Broadcom
Bootloader	CFE 1.0.37
System-On-Chip	BCM4704KFBG
Processor	BCM3302 v0.6
CPU Speed	264 MHz
Flash size	4 MiB
RAM size	16 MiB
Wireless	BCM4321 b/g/n Wireless (v1:mini-PCI card, v2:integrated)
Ethernet	BCM5325
USB	No
Serial	Yes

Circuit board - v2

Pads on PCB - v2

There are 3 sets of pads on the PCB of the WRN834B v2:

Solder pads - JTAG - near radio shield, top edge of board. (unconfirmed)
JP1 - Serial console, 3.3V, 115200/8/N
J12 - JTAG (Confirmed working)

JP1

3.3v TTL Serial, 1 row of six pins

Pin 1	3.3V
Pin 2	RXD
Pin 3	n/c
Pin 4	n/c
Pin 5	TXD
Pin 6	GND

J12

10-pin JTAG, 2 rows of 5 pins

R374 through R378 and R343 remain un-populated

Pin 10	GND	Pin 9	TCK
Pin 8	GND	Pin 7	TMS
Pin 6	GND	Pin 5	TDO
Pin 4	GND	Pin 3	TDI
Pin 2	GND	Pin 1	TRST

Solder pads

JTAG, 5 large pads

R470	TCK
R471	TMS
R472	TDO
R473	TDI
n/a	TRST

Circuit board - v1

Pads on PCB - v1

There is 1 set of holes on the PCB of the WRN834B v1:

JP1 - Serial console, 3.3v, 115200/8/N
There are no obvious or labeled solder pads for JTAG on the v1 circuit board. There are numerous small test points labeled TPnn on both sides of the board which may provide JTAG capability. The vacant mini-PCI pads on top of the board are another possibility.

JP1

3.3V TTL Serial

Pin 1	GND
Pin 2	TXD
Pin 3	RXD
Pin 4	3.3V

TJTAG command parameters

If you were to somehow erase the board_data partition, this command will restore the data.

-flash:custom /window:1fc00000 /start:1ffe0000 /length:10000

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