WL-500g Premium V2

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Revision as of 17:30, 30 October 2008 by Acid-Drop (Talk | contribs)
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Contents

Introduction

Thought this would be a good place for ASUS WL-500G Premium v2 specific information similar to what has been added for other router makes and models. It would probably be relevant to merge any existing and future v1 content here if anyone wishes, as the differences are relatively minor.

Details on version 1

http://oleg.wl500g.info/devices.html

General Router Observations

At its heart, the ASUS WL500PV2 is your basic Broadcom-based, Wireless 802.11g router. It sports a modern veneer of white and silver colored plastic. The length and width dimensions are slightly larger than your typical Linksys router. The status lights on the front are lit with orange LEDs. It is silent, passively cooled with plenty of ventilation holes along the top and bottom surface. The orange LEDs shine through the holes, but are only noticeable in dark lighting conditions. The AC adapter is fairly slim and does not hog up multiple spots on a standard power strip.

It offers several advantages over more popular G routers like the venerable Linksys WRT54GL. The most predominant advantage is the 8MB flash and 32MB of SDRAM, allowing DD-WRT Mega builds and plenty of resources for increased IP connections, ipkg installs, JFFS2 partitions, etc. The dual USB 2.0 ports allow USB printers and storage devices to be connected, and the 240MHz BCM5354 is faster than the 200MHz BCM5352 found in the WRT54GL.

One drawback of this router is the single antenna pole. It may be the case that dual antennas is just an illusion of signal range, I cannot say for sure. Also, no overclocking support in DD-WRT as of v24 SP1 and no integrated GigE switch.

Device Photos

Image:asus_wl500gpv2_mini.jpg Image:asus_wl500gpv2_back_mini.jpg

Hardware

  • Platform: Broadcom MIPS
  • CPU: Broadcom BCM5454 at 240 MHz (130nm construction) Technical Overview
    • NOT overclockable in DD-WRT as of v24 SP1
    • /proc/cpuinfo output
root@DD-WRT:/mnt# cat /proc/cpuinfo
system type             : Broadcom BCM5354 chip rev 2
processor               : 0
cpu model               : BCM3302 V2.9
BogoMIPS                : 239.20
wait instruction        : no
microsecond timers      : yes
tlb_entries             : 32
extra interrupt vector  : no
hardware watchpoint     : no
VCED exceptions         : not available
VCEI exceptions         : not available
  • Flash: 8 MB NAND, single chip
  • System Memory: 32MB 16-bit DDR SDRAM
  • USB: dual USB 2.0 ports
    • VIA 4-port USB controller model ???
  • Wireless Radio: Broadcom BCM43xx 802.11b/g
    • 2.4 - 2.5 GHz, 11 channel increments
    • PCI Device 14e4:4318
  • Antenna: Single, detachable/replaceable antenna
  • Network Switch: (4) 10/100 LAN + (1) 10/100 WAN, Auto MDX
  • Internal Pics: external link

Firmware

Flashing

The easiest, most reliable method to flash to 3rd party firmware is to use ASUS Firmware Restoration tool that comes on the CD included with the product. There is firmware size limit requiring you to flash mini first, you can go ahead and flash Mega right from the start.

When flashing from 3rd party firmware to other 3rd party firmware, just use the firmware upgrade utility located on the device web management page.

The ASUS Firmware Restoration Utility comes with the CD-ROM included with the device and by default installs to

  • WinXP / Vista 32-bit C:\Program Files\ASUS\WL-500gP V2 Wireless Router Utilities\Rescue.exe
  • Vista 64-bit C:\Program Files (x86)\ASUS\WL-500gP V2 Wireless Router Utilities\Rescue.exe

ASUS stock firmware

Of course this ASUS device works with the latest ASUS firmware. Patching to the latest ASUS firmware provides a notable improvement over earlier versions, even those shipping as of Oct 2008. The interface has undergone a cosmetic makeover and provides a straightforward GUI to easily set up shared printers, shared storage, Samba file serving with user credentials and of course typical router functionality. However, the firmware is unstable and requires a reboot every day or two as functionality seems to randomly break.

DD-WRT

Here is a great chart from the DD-WRT Wiki comparing the different builds .

micro

micro (1.7 MB)

I do not recommend micro. While it has an amazing amount of functionality for such a small image, you lose out on the SSH server, JFFS2 file system support, ipkg, WDS and more. The embedded Linux does not even have the /proc filesystem enabled, nor is their even /bin/ls available. Great build, just not for tweakers/hackers.

mini

mini (2.8 MB)

standard, vpn, voip

standard (3.6 MB)

VPN (3.5 MB) VOIP (3.6 MB)

Mega

Mega (6.6 MB) builds. Mega is the only build that includes USB support "baked in", although there is at least one non-Mega build that also includes this, the Eko v24 NEWD mini USB firmware. It is also possible to configure USB support on any v24 DD-WRT firmware release as long as the proper USB drivers are loaded.

Tomato

Accepts latest Tomato firmware, but no USB support is officially possible. I have never tested it, but apparently it is possible to add USB support to Tomato.

OpenWRT

OpenWRT page for this router

How To's

Links

ASUS Product Page