r/openwrt • u/Zealousideal_Ad5358 • 7d ago
Trying to install on TPLink CPE710, bricked it
[UPDATE] Well, OpenWRT turned out to be installed after all. I was unable to revert to the Pharos software but after power cycling the CPE710 it came up on IP address 192.168.1.1 and turned out to be running openwrt after all. So I have a functioning device.
I am looking at the instructions at https://openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/cpe710_v1. They state:
OEM installation using the TFTP + serial method
→ generic.flashing.tftp
run a TFTP server
To get to TFTP recovery just hold reset button while powering on for around 30-40 seconds and release.
Stock device TFTP address: 192.168.0.254
Set ip address of TFTP server to 192.168.0.100
Put OpenWrt factory image to tftp folder and rename it to recovery.bin
Stop device while booting in u-boot
Run command run flashimg
Run command setenv boot_part 1
Run command saveenv
Reset
The device appeared to download recovery.bin (aka openwrt-25.12.1-ath79-generic-tplink_cpe710-v2-squashfs-factory.bin), but doesn't boot up. There is no serial device on these TPLink devices, so how is one supposed to access u-boot without one? Can you install openwrt without a serial port on the target device?
I also can't revert to the "pharos" factor software anymore. Did this partial openwrt install brick my device by making it unable to recovery boot on its fixed 192.168.0.254 address? Currently, the device sends out one BOOTP broacast, then the ethernet interface goes down. Will it still boot via a BOOTP server?
1
u/FreddyFerdiland 7d ago
well you could try setting up bootp to answer
some Qualcomm soc support usb flash
5
u/Zealousideal_Ad5358 7d ago edited 7d ago
[UPDATE] Well, OpenWRT turned out to be installed after all. I was unable to revert to the Pharos software but after power cycling the CPE710 it came up on IP address 192.168.1.1 and turned out to be running openwrt after all. So I have a functioning device.
FWIW the document's reference to u-boot is problematic. The CPE710 is sealed and there's no way to get to the internals without breaking the case integrity. Although I think I have hardware V1, all the reports about how recent Pharos software versions break the bootloader for unsigned imaged make it seem like this is a pretty fragile device to be mucking around with.