FIXED! Tomato FW on WHR-HP-G54, don't see in list of available wireless networks

[Muse]

I was running an old version of dd-wrt, flashed Tomato today. I don't know Tomato, never used it before. I gave my network an SSID, but don't see it in the list of available wireless networks from my wirelessly connected (usually) laptop. Why?

The only thing I could think to change was Advanced>Routing and changing Mode from Gateway to Router. But doing that I lose my internet access from my ethernet cable connected desktop, so I suppose that's not it.

[Muse]

Well, I see around 8 or so wireless networks in the vicinity and the only one that could possibly be mine is called "wireless" and it's unsecured. I tried to connect to that from my Win7 64 laptop and couldn't. I tried from my XP laptop and could. Is it mine? I tried to get into my router by entering 192.168.1.1 and got into my router's config. Does this mean it's actually my network I'm connected to? "wireless" is NOT the SSID I chose...

I selected WPA Personal AES encryption, so why would my network be unsecured?

Edit: Ooo, my SSID is "wireless"! Oh, man, I don't even see where I change that now. I hit the Save button after making my configurations but it didn't take... Argh.

OK, I think I found the settings I made, I reset them, saved... will see if I can connect wirelessly. I really don't know networking.....

[VirtualLarry]

use a hardwired connection to connect to one of the router's LAN ports.

Go to your default gateway's IP address in your web browser. Login to your router, and config from there.

[Muse]

Originally Posted by VirtualLarry

use a hardwired connection to connect to one of the router's LAN ports.

Go to your default gateway's IP address in your web browser. Login to your router, and config from there.

Yup, that's what I've been doing, otherwise I could never post here! I think I maybe have it now, for some reason my original settings weren't saved.

[Muse]

I'm wirelessly connected now with my WinXP laptop! Couldn't see the network from wireless clients until I rebooted the router. My encryption is WPA Personal (PKS) AES. Is that OK? Didn't see PKS when I chose it.

[VirtualLarry]

WPA Personal PSK AES is fine.

Choose a long non-dictionary-crackable passphrase.

[Muse]

Well, one of my wireless laptops (WinXP) is connected but my Win7 64 laptop says it's connected to my network but I have no access to the internet or my LAN. Don't know what to do. Power cycled the router and the Win7 machine, nothing has changed. Weird. Says it's connected to my network (correct SSID) but can't see my mapped drive on my server, can't hit internet sites. The funny thing is I didn't enter the shared password on that machine, but it knows what it is (I revealed it there!). Windows troubleshooter was useless as always.

[Muse]

Originally Posted by VirtualLarry

WPA Personal PSK AES is fine.

Choose a long non-dictionary-crackable passphrase.

I think my passphrase is decent, if not great. It's 12 characters long, has one integer in there. I could strengthen it but I would like it if I didn't have to look it up when I need it. Don't know what you mean by non-dictionary-crackable. There are no embedded words that you'll find in any dictionary, if that's what you mean.

[Muse]

I have now lost internet connection from my WinXP machine too (it WAS connected to the Tomato flashed router just a few minutes ago!). Says it's connected, signal strength is "Very Good" but there's limited or no connectivity. Have no idea. Rebooted router. Laptop says Signal Strength Very Good, but Limited or No Connectivity.

Wireless Mode is Access Point.
Connection type: DHCP
DHCP Server was NOT checked (i.e. which was the default) I'm going to check it to enable it and see if that makes a difference. What I don't understand is that the WinXP laptop was connected a few minutes ago. I think the only change I made was rebooting the router.

[Muse]

Yep, enabling DHCP server got the WinXP laptop connected. But it was connected before. I did not disable DHCP server!

Man, if I keep having problems I'm going to have to install some other FW.

Edit: Took some more struggling to get my Win7 machine working in the network but finally, success. Hope problems don't crop up again, this was a little nutty. The network diagnostic utility in Win7 did succeed in repairing the connection, those things never work, but this time it did.

The acid test will be if I'm still getting dropouts every 5 minutes or so when doing Webex video/audio live streaming. Won't be able to test that for almost 2 days (Monday morning).

[s44]

Did you remember to clear NVRAM or (equivalently) run a 30/30/30 reset on the router after flashing it? Otherwise you can have some weird stuff happening with settings left over from the past firmware.

Also, ALWAYS do setups over Ethernet.

[Muse]

Originally Posted by s44

Did you remember to clear NVRAM or (equivalently) run a 30/30/30 reset on the router after flashing it? Otherwise you can have some weird stuff happening with settings left over from the past firmware.

Also, ALWAYS do setups over Ethernet.

Yup, I've done every bit of it I could from my ethernet connected desktop and I followed this plan:
- - - -
from Migrating (to Tomato) from DD-WRT Firmware via Windows

You can use the DD-WRT web interface to flash to the Tomato firmware.
First, obtain the password for the router: In the web interface, go to Administration -> Commands. Type "nvram get http_passwd" into the text box and click "Run Commands". When the page reloads, it will show the password below. Make note of this password for later use.
Alternatively, you can obtain the password via telnet. Assuming your router can be found at 192.168.1.1, you'd type "telnet 192.168.1.1" at a command prompt to login to the router. Once logged in, type "nvram get http_passwd" and write down the result.
Download the Tomato firmware and extract it. In the "trx" subfolder, rename the file code.trx to code.bin. (DD-WRT does not recognize the .trx file extension as firmware.)
Update the firmware via the DD-WRT web interface. The Tomato firmware is now installed.
Access the Tomato web interface. Use the username "root" and the complete password provided by the "nvram get http_passwd" response above.
Browse to Administration > Configuration > Restore Default Configuration. Then select "Erase all data in NVRAM memory (thorough)" and click OK.
Please note that the instructions for flashing the firmware via the web interface will only work once you've installed DD-WRT (or perhaps another 3rd party firmware).
- - - -

From my perspective the tough part of all this was figuring out (stumbling quite a bit) what configurations to make in Tomato once I'd flashed and cleaned out the nvram, in order to get my wireless laptops up on the LAN. I didn't come up with it searching, just had to drill down into the menus/screens, poke and try some stuff. I really don't know that I have it set up right, and I have almost no idea how to "get the most" out of Tomato. I watched an 18 minute video a few days ago that showed it off by an obviously really smart guy who had just gotten into it on I guess a fancy Asus N router: TomatoUSB (shibby) firmware on Asus RT-N66U. Guess I should watch it again now that I've installed it. I don't have Shibby version installed, though. I have a Toastman version: tomato-ND-1.28.7633.3-Toastman-IPT-ND-Std.bin, it was recommended to me by Toastman himself at the Tomato forums a few days ago.