D-link Dir-615 Rev D3 Heatsink And High Gain Antenna Mod

[leef]

I'm looking to mod an N class router I just bought from here and I'm going to document my efforts here. There's not much to see yet but I'll document what I'm doing here. This is the router that I'm going to mod;

The first thing I wanted to do was replace the stock firmware with DD-WRT. This wasn't as easy as I expected it to be but it was possible. I followed this guide from the dd-wrt forums. To be specific it was the advice posted by tehnicaorg. I'll add full details later since tehnicaorg misses some steps.

Here is what the stock firmware looked like;

and here it is now;

Step 1 - Upgrade router to DD-WRT

1. Download "DIR-615_fw_revd_411DEb15_ALL_de_20100303.zip" from here;

ftp://ftp.dlink.biz/dir/dir-615/driver_software/

and unzip you should now have a file called "DIR-615D_FW411EUB15.bin" which is the firmware you need.

Go to the routers IP address which should be http://192.168.0.1 and login

upload this to your router (TOOLS>FIRMWARE) and select Browse locate the "DIR-615D_FW411EUB15.bin" file on you harddrive and click upload.

2. Once the firmware upgrade is done you are ready to upload the initial DD-WRT firmware image. to do this Download "dlink-dir615d-factory-webflash.bin" from here;

ftp://dd-wrt.com/others/eko/BrainSlayer-V.../dlink-dir615d/

and upgrade the router as in step one substituting "DIR-615D_FW411EUB15.bin" for "dlink-dir615d-factory-webflash.bin".

you should now be able to access your router by visiting http://192.168.1.1 in your browser. It should ask you to set a username and password.

3. Once that is done you can finally upgrade to the final image. Download "dir615d-revb-ddwrt-webflash.bin" from here;

ftp://dd-wrt.com/others/eko/BrainSlayer-V.../dlink-dir615d/

and upgrade by visiting http://192.168.1.1 and logging in as the user you created in step 2. Go to "Administration > Firmware Upgrade" and select "Choose file" browse to "dir615d-revb-ddwrt-webflash.bin" on your harddrive and click ok. Then press the "Upgrade" button.

4. When it has finished upgrading you should have full DD-WRT!!!

Step 2 - Benchmark the current performance of the router

Now this was interesting for me I wanted to be sure that I have actually improved the routers performance. To do this I needed to test the router as it is/was before I hacked it. To do this I wrote two programs (sorry linux only :();

1. This program logs the quality signal provided by the router over a period of 60 seconds;

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#define WRATIO    1.428571429

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {

  FILE *wireless;
  FILE *output;
  char line[255];
  char output_text[255];
  char iface[5];
  char status [3];
  float link = 0;
  float level = 0;
  float noise = 0;
  int nwid = 0;
  int crypt = 0;
  int misc = 0;
  int i = 1;
  int mode = 0;


if ((output = fopen ("output.csv", "w")) != NULL) {
    fprintf(output, "Second,Link,Level,Noise\n");
    fclose(output);
}

while ( i <= 60 ) {
    sleep(1);
                  
  if ((wireless = fopen ("/proc/net/wireless", "r")) != NULL) {

   fgets(line,sizeof(line),wireless);
   fgets(line,sizeof(line),wireless);

      if (fgets(line,sizeof(line),wireless) == NULL) {
    mode = 0;
      } else {
    sscanf(line,"%s %s %f %f %f %d %d %d",
           iface,status,&link,&level,&noise,&nwid,&crypt,&misc);
    mode = 1;
      }
   fclose(wireless);

      switch (mode) {
      case 1:
    sprintf(output_text,"%d,%f,%f,%f",i,link * WRATIO,level,noise);
    printf("%s\n",output_text);
    if ((output = fopen ("output.csv", "a")) != NULL) {
        fprintf(output, "%s\n",output_text);

        fclose(output);
    }
    i++;
    break;
      case 0: 
    break;
      };

  } else {
    printf ("File /proc/net/wireless not found\n");
    exit (0);
  }

}

exit (0);

}

To compile it execute this command "gcc filename.c -o filename". I found that taking 60 samples of the wireless signal strength should eliminate anomalies from the results. Here is a screenshot of the program running;

and here is the graph it produced;

2. The second program was written to have a gtk interface, it's less useful but it updates every 250mS unforunately I'm not ready to release the source of this program yet but here's a screenshot;

The lower the value of noise the better, the higher the value of "Other" the better (bare in mind that these are negative values) and the higher the value of Signal the better.

Step 3 - Analyse current hardware

The next thing I needed to do was look at the current hardware and how it could be made to suit my purpose. To do this I needed to look at the properties of the DIR-615 revision d3 hardware. The first thing I noticed was the non-detachable antennae;

This is no good at all but I was prepared to deal with the extra work due to the cheap price of the DIR-615. I needed to have a look at the DIR-615 rev D3's internals :) ;

Edited November 6, 2010 by leef

[leef]

Reserved 1

[leef]

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[mphymel]

Did you ever figure out how to mod the router for the external antennas?

[jobdone]

I don't own the above device , but replacing them looks like you just need a soldering iron and a couple of pig tails from ebay. The hardest part being how to remove the old antenna's and leave a roundish hole (may require a dremmel) SW4 and SW5 did look like antenna connectors too - maybe these van be utilised?