T11M

Hacking your Firmware on any device is always risky but that’s part of what makes it fun. On one hand if you mess up you are left with a “brick” (a damaged/not working device that is about as good to you as a brick) but if you succeed you gain some amazing capabilities.

So for those of you who enjoy a bit of a challenge and the benefits of enterprise grade routing software check out DD-WRT. It’s an open-source firmware platform that extends the functionality of consumer grade routers. I had flashed my router to it about 4 months ago and after struggling with it gave up and went back to the original Linksys firmware. The only problem is I’ve noticed a very large difference in the quality of wireless the router puts out. Today I set out to fix the problem and flashed back to DD-WRT. After about 20 minutes of installation and configuration I was back up and running with my WPA/AES encrypted wireless network. The speed difference is incredible. I would say at least a 100% boost in bandwidth. Why I went back to the original Linksys firmware I’ll never know.  If you have installation questions or want to know more hit me up in the comments.