Flashing bricked TP-LINK AC1200 Archer C5 v1.20 using JTAG cable
Here is a short list of steps involved.
- Connect JTAG cable to 3.3V capable serial interface.
- Make sure that cable has TX and RX swapped and only GND is connected, VCC should not be.
- Run putty or other terminal software. Use baud rate 115200, 8 data bits + 1 stop bit, no parity or flow control
- Boot router into UBoot by holding WPS/Reset switch when powering up. This will set router's IP address to 192.168.0.86 and it will try to boot from TFTP server 192.168.0.66 and download ArcherC5v1_tp_recovery.bin file from root drive. This way any firmware without boot can be flashed without JTAG cable. Firmware with boot (in name) should be stripped of it by running:
dd if=firmware.bin of=stripped.bin bs=512 skip=257
But yours is bricked, right?
- Get access to the UBoot console: when the message "Autobooting in 1 seconds" appears, quickly type "tpl". Remember - you have 1 second to type it :) UBoot console will welcome you with ap135> prompt.
- Put "firmware_noboot.bin" in a root directory of your TFTP server and run following commands:
setenv ipaddr 192.168.0.86 setenv serverip 192.168.0.66 tftp 0x81000000 firmware_noboot.bin erase 0x9f020000 +f80000 cp.b 0x81000000 0x9f020000 0xf80000 bootm 0x9f020000 (or reset)
After router reboots or 5 minutes passed it should now work (finally). Console should show normal linux boot process instead of an error loading kernel.