I’ll be moving to a new house next week, my first move in a decade. To make the switchover as smooth as possible I decided to set up and test the broadband connection and router at the new location ahead of the move, so I’d only have to bring along my PCs and everything should work on the new router that will duplicate the existing setup.
I chose the Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH because it is supported by DD-WRT, Linux-based open source firmware that I also use on my Buffalo WHR-HP-G54. The new router has 32 MB of flash vs. 4 MB on the old one and 64 MB of RAM vs. 16 on the old one, which will make it much easier to add more features. It also offers 11n with wireless speeds up to 300 Mbps versus up to 54 Mbps on the old router that supports 11b and 11g. One USB-port provides access to mass storage for hosting a website, for audio or video files or for a Samba file server.
Installing DD-WRT was much easier on the Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH than on its predecessor, as the DD-WRT team offers a special firmware version that can be flashed directly from the firmware upgrade menu of the standard Buffalo firmware. The older router required the use of TFTP for that and the steps involved were more complicated.
Here is what I did:
- Go to http://dd-wrt.com/site/support/router-database and search for WZR-HP-G300NH. Open the page for this router and download file buffalo_to_ddwrt_webflash-MULTI.bin to the local hard disk.
- Connect one of the LAN ports of the router via an Ethernet cable to your PC. You can leave the blue WAN port disconnected. Check with ipconfig on Windows or ifconfig on Linux that you receive an IP address like 192.168.11.2. Start your Browser and open http://192.168.11.1/ (enter user name root and leave the password empty).
- Select the firmware upgrade link on the initial configuration screen or Admin Config / Update in the regular menus. Select local file and browse to the buffalo_to_ddwrt_webflash-MULTI.bin downloaded above. Start the upgrade. This takes about 6 minutes, during which you must not reset or power off the router. When the progress bar reaches 100% and the DIAG LED stops flashing you’re done.
- Start your browser and open http://192.168.1.1/ — you should see the DD-WRT menus. Assign a new user name and password.
- Reset the router using the 30/30/30 procedure: Push the reset button at the underside of the router and keep it pushed for a total of 90 seconds. After the first 30 seconds, pull the power cable without releasing reset. After another 30 seconds reconnect power, still holding down reset. After the final 30 seconds release reset. This clears the non-volatile RAM (NVRAM) for a factory reset.
- Start your browser and again open http://192.168.1.1/ — again assign a new user name and password, which were cleared by the factory reset.
Congratulations! You now have a Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH running English language open source DD-WRT firmware.
Kudos for Buffalo for making the 3rd party flashing easier and thank you for the report. This is good news and very helpful.
Thank you very much!!! Great help!
UPDATE: I have had a few problems with the WZR-HP-G300NH running DD-WRT and decided to switch back to my old WHR-HP-G54.
First of all, the wireless signal has been too weak with the WZR-HP-G300NH because the ability to control radio power is still missing. I ended up having to use a spare WLAN access point connected to a wired switch to get WLAN access in all rooms of the house.
Secondly, the WZR-HP-G300NH seemed to spontaneously reboot itself at random intervals. My uptime measured from several hours to a few days, while I had gone for months without reboots on the WHR-HP-G54.
I will experiment with putting OpenWRT on the WZR-HP-G300NH, which is supposed to be more stable.
Meanwhile I’m getting good signal strength from the WHR-HP-G54. I did have some problems with that router in August, but they could have been from overheating as it was sizzling hot here all month and they went away once I reduced the radio power from 70 mW to 28 mW.
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I also have random reboots every few days with WZR-HP-G300NH running OpenWRT.
I have not had one random reboot since switching from DD-WRT to OpenWRT on this router. My current uptime is almost one month now. CPU load is usually shown as “0.00 0.00 0.00”, i.e. virtually idle. It also doesn’t get that warm.
What is your maximum uptime? Does your router get hot at all?
I had such difficulty with the WHR G300N (with this same sort of random rebooting problem that everyone complains about) that I finally sold it to an IT guy (who’s delighted with it). I don’t read the Japanese only menu well enough to translate the English instructions for flashing, etc. so now I need a new router. What do I get? Another Buffalo? It still won’t have an English menu… but maybe it won’t drop signal or will be easier to flash… who will guide me?
Hello William,
you had the WHR-G300N, not the WZR-HP-G300NH that I used? It uses a different chipset (Atheros 7240 on the WHR-G300N vs. 9132 on my WZR-HP-G300NH).
I am still completely happy with my WHR-HP-G54 (available here: http://kakaku.com/item/00774010692/ for 8,280 yen).
It’s been running without reboot for 25 days on my FLET’S Next (Family Type) connection, with 56 GB received from the net and 18 GB sent out during that period.
Joe I have the WZR-HP-G300NH A0 A1 (Japanese ver) and can not get the upgrade to work. It keeps saying the file is wrong please wait 80 sec to reboot. Any pointers/help?
BTW Router works great no issues with rebooting etc. But nice to have english menu to faff around with it and get the most out of the device.