‘m sure many of you have network routers at home for your DSL or Cable internet connections. Some of you may have even went ahead and did a firmware update to get the latest drivers for it. It’s a smart move to upgrade the firmware, especially when the update will give you new updates or improve security. There is always the rare case of a router not working after an upgrade. It’s happened to me once.

I have a linksys router, and during the firmware update, something went wrong. The update failed and it become what is known as a “brick”. The term means that it’s as useful as a brick, it won’t do a thing. I had the unfortunate experience of having the router become unresponsive, with a blinking power light, that could not be pinged.

I did some searching online for solutions. Most of the solutions didn’t work, or recommended doing things that would void the warranty; to me this was not an option. After a few hours, I stumbled upon by accident a trick to get the router into what is known as “Firmware Management Recovery Mode”. I’ve have not heard of this before, and everything I read made no mention of this feature. When the router is in “Firmware Management Recovery Mode”, it is responsive and you can access a specialized control panel. It won’t function as a router, but it is accessible to make what changes you need to make to correct the problem and get it back to functional status. I have done this on two seperate linksys routers, and they both worked. The admin password was still intact on one of them.

Here are the steps I did:

• Hold down the reset button for at least 30 seconds.
• While still holding down the reset button, unplug the device.
• While still holding down the reset button, leave the unit unplugged for at least 5 seconds.
• While still holding down the reset button, plug the power cord back into the router.
• After 5 seconds, you can stop holding down the reset button. (I know, your finger must be tired by now).
• Go to the webpage of the router. It’s usually http://192.168.1.1/ or http://192.168.2.1/
• You should see the special mode.
• Upload the firmware you were trying to load up, or try resetting it.
• Follow the remainder of the instructions in the admin and that’s it.

This should get your router back to working mode, and you didn’t have to call anyone or spend money to fix it.

- Happy Saving.