Installing DD-WRT on the Linksys EA2700

So I had this router for quite a while. I bought the EA2700 when I moved to the US, without doing much research. That was a mistake. I had a bunch of the famous WRT54GL routers before and was super happy with them, mainly due to the flexibility of installing an alternative OS on it, which unleashes a lot more power and functionality.





However, the WRT54GL was just too dated in 2012, so I decided to get a newer model and got the Linksys Cisco EA2700. I don't want to go into too many details, but this was a pretty bad decision. The software is just really bad. Almost no functionality and on top they tried to put some 'cloud-connection' stuff that is not only unnecessary, but counter productive. They tried to market it as a "Smart Router". A bit later I bought myself a TP-Link TL-WR1043ND and have been using it ever since.

However,  today I found the (now old) EA2700 in a moving box. This inspired me to check the interwebs for the current status of DD-WRT support... and voilà, it appears like DD-WRT is now supported (though the model doesn't show up in their official database).

This thread has the details. I copied the steps here and modified them a bit to reflect changes that happened in the meantime. This worked for me without any issues:
  1. Download and unzip Linksys classic firmware. If the download doesn't work, try the support page to get the archive.
  2. Get the latest DD-WRT build for the router. At the time of this writing it's r25309. But I encourage you to navigate the FTP and see if a newer version is available. Also check the thread I linked above for potential issues with specific revisions.
    (**Update 2: I recently upgraded the device to r30471 and it's working fine so far! **)
  3. Reset the router by pressing the RESET button for ~10 seconds. The green power LED will start blinking.
  4. Log into the router with the default password admin.
  5. Go to Connectivity -> Basic  and click on Choose File under the manual firmware update section. Select the SSA file you unzipped earlier. Hit Start and Yes.
  6. After the router restarts use admin as the username and password to log in. Even this step is quite satisfying already since this classic firmware removes all the "Smart" junk that they tried to add to the device to make it more appealing. Now the interface is back to what I am used to from the stock WRT54GL. But we are not done yet!
  7. Now is a good idea to do a good old 30-30-30 hard reset to clear the memory.
  8. Afterwards log back into the router, which now asks you whether you don't want to install the more shiny rubbish you just uninstalled...  refuse and continue to the classic interface. Under Administration go to Firmware Upgrade. Choose Manual Upgrade. Select the TRX file you downloaded from DD-WRT earlier and hit Start Upgrade.
  9. After the devices rebooted, DD-WRT should greet you. Enter a username and password and be happy :)
Here is what my status page tells me after I have DD-WRT running. Not a lot of free memory, but so far it's been running stable for me:


Next I will probably try to do the same for my TL-WR1043ND V1, which is still running the stock firmware.

Comments

Greg M said…
Thanks for this post, clear steps helped me get my EA2700 converted to DD-WRT firmware in no time. :)
harkor said…
Hello,

Your tuto is really good !

Juste one thing, I tested the last dd-wrt for the ea2700 (dd-wrt-26138-ea2700.trx) and this firmware doesn't work.

"dd-wrt-25628-ea2700.trx" is ok for me
Anonymous said…
Thank you for good advice, it worked like a charm after install.
Hi, thanks for the tutorial. I followed all your steps, but after the dd-wrt firmware upload, the router reboots 3 times in a loop and then falls back on the Linksys firmware. Any ideas why? Thanks!
Sascha said…
Thanks guys, I am glad this was helpful.

@Fun Guy Production: Make sure you do the 30-30-30 hard reset. If there are old values stored it can lead to the new OS not booting up right.

Luckily this router is keeping the original firmware so it can always fall back if it needs to.
Unknown said…
Hi Sascha, its working fine after that, but, what software you use to show the CPU and memory information?
Unknown said…
Hi Sascha, its working fine after that, but, what software you use to show the CPU and memory information?
Larry Mark said…
It works for me, but I can only use 2.4 ghz and the 5ghz does not show up for me.
Anonymous said…
Thanks a lot. I will finally take control on my router.
mikkie said…
Thanks for your clear commands. It worked for me. I installed the latest firmware 27096 from 28/05/15 (beta). Works great. 5GHz wifi not supported tho..
70年代 said…
that works for me.
I got the latest firmware from ddwrt which is 27332 build and it does the find job.
thanks!
Unknown said…
Hi
Just upgraded to the latest available version (build 27378). The only thing I had to do is to limit my computer eth to 100Mb, it does not work reliaby on 1000. Except that works like a charm. A lot of usefull options available.
Anonymous said…
Thanks Mate!
I am Henk and I am a stupid Linksys EA2700 buyer, too.
I bought mine 12/2013. After a week of frustrations I tossed it in a drawer, where it remained until I found it again 2/2015. I turned it into a wireless hub for a while, running it in bridge-mode. But, like you, I really needed something to replace my old router. Thanks for putting your experience online, so we could find it and use it to get some use out of this hardware.
Like some others, I had to do an install of the classic firmware over top the install of the classic firmware, but that was it. The DD-WRT installed without a hitch and the capabilities are nice. Cheers.
Anonymous said…
It would be nice if somebody else would confirm/disprove that LAN ports work only at 100 mbit after upgrade to DD-WRT.
I need 1000 mbit.
Cristian said…
Hello!.
Excellent Post!. I followed all the steps but after step 8, when the router restarts (few times - 3 I guess), the old firmware (the one that I uploaded in step 6)still there.
I tried the same procedures with other version of dd-wrt but same results. Any clue that can help me?.

regards

Cristian
Drew said…
Thanks you this worked great. I wasn't going to attempt putting dd-wrt on my EA2700 as it wasn't in the database but this blog fixed thaqt.
Unknown said…
HI

I am trying to install the linksys classic FW, it does not find it, instead only finds the trx file

What do i do?

Cheers
Unknown said…
Hi, i would like to install it too but the download doesnt work... also there's no .SSA file but .trx If someone still have the right firmware please post me the link.
Rodrigo said…
Anyone got it to work in multiband? I see 2.4ghz only. :(
Rodrigo said…
Anyone got it to work in multiband ? Only 2.4ghz option available. :(
Unknown said…
Hey ! successfully made it ! thanks !
Unknown said…
Do the latest builds support 5GHz radio?
I can't unzip an SSA file....does it need to be unzipped? When I use winter or extractor the sea file is greyed out, i can't select it
Unknown said…
Me salvaste la Vida!!!! Gracias Maestro!!
Rauglothgor said…
Wanted to send a note to say thanks for these instructions. I had one of these lying around and I got it working using your instructions. I then used dd-wrt to act as a repeater for my Karma Go. Rural internet hurray!
Unknown said…
Link for ddwrt please !
Anonymous said…
Thanks so much for this, have been looking all over for a custom firmware to use.

I successfully flashed my firmware using the instructions provided. Now running DD-WRT on my Linksys EA2700.
Anonymous said…
Just upgraded, used
ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/2016/03-22-2016-r29316/linksys-ea2700/ firmware
Unknown said…
This is really interesting and knowledgeable. Thanks for sharing. I really appreciate it a lot. Please do more blogs in the future. Thank you and God bless to the blogger!
Linksys Router Support
Pro VPN said…
This is a good guide, many of our customers keep telling us they have used this guide to flash DD-WRT and connect their entire home network by VPN.
Anonymous said…
Thanks this helped me a lot. I also found this awesome DD-WRT guide which helped me set up even more settings on my DD-WRT
PS said…
Awesome, thanks
Peter said…
For anyone else finding this, I got dd-wrt 25628 running on my EA2700 and gigabit routing does work. iperf shows it routing at over 500 Mbps.
Unknown said…
Thank you so much for this
How to open ports on linksys smart wifi
Sascha said…
FYI Just re-installed the device and how have r30471 running without any issues so far.
Anonymous said…
Spot On Blog up and running no issues noted.
ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/2016/09-09-2016-r30605/linksys-ea2700/
Atlanntas said…
Just like it has already been mentioned in the comments above, my router reboots three times (continuously) following a trx flash and reverts to classic firmware as well. No matter if hard reset (30/30/30) after the third reboot, the dd-wrt flash does not finish. I feel like I'm just resetting the official firmware that the router has already defaulted to.

I might end up looking deeper into it, but perhaps someone else has any insights?
Atlantas said…
I had some trouble, because I didn't wait long enough for the dd-wrt startup to complete. Make sure you do that. Straight after the trx flash, don't log into the router, give it a solid 12-15 minutes, then do a 30/30/30, only then log in.
Unknown said…
I was having the same problems as a few users here. The router would go back to the classic firmware everytime I would flash the DD-WRT. The solution was to flash the classic again after a 30-30-30 RESET. I was in the latest firmware and flashed the classic after a 30-30-30 RESET and then I tried the ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/2016/11-01-2016-r30826/linksys-ea2700/. No work. I did the 30-30-30 RESET again, flashed the classic again and did the 30-30-30 RESET again. After that I flashed the latest DD-WRT (ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/2016/11-01-2016-r30826/linksys-ea2700/) and bummm it was working in DD-WRT!
Hope this helps other users.
Thanks.

Regards!
Unknown said…
I installed the version dd-wrt-30949-ea2700 without any problems.
Atlanntas said…
A good post. But this particular sequence didn't work for me as my router just kept cycling at step 8 only to revert to the classic FW in a few minutes (3-5 cycles).

Here is what I've done based on mxzhang instructions (you can Google the original source):

1. As the router was already on classic firmware, I upgraded it to the "smart" one, reset factory settings and downgraded to the classic FW once again.

2. Did a 30/30/30

3. Flashed the classic FW yet another time, even if was already present (mxzhang stresses that this is crucial)

4. Did another 30/30/30

5. Flashed a DD-WRT build 30805, which works post flash with no long term guarantees as of now.

6. Ran this script on boot (via DD-WRT administration panel > commands), it's quite self explanatory, otherwise upon restarting the router there might be a problem:
nvram set partialboots=0
nvram commit

7. Did yet another 30/30/30, which cleared boot commands. Those needed to be added once again as in step 6.

I have found these instructions to work very reliably. While earlier I had flashed DD-WRT onto an EA2700 through trial and error, this is much more consistent.
ingjcgonzalez said…
Hi! That's what I was waiting for for so far. I just have some questions. Is the 5ghz band working too?
Anonymous said…
Thanks for your post.
2017 Update... Hope it helps:
ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/2017/02-07-2017-r31277/linksys-ea2700/
Anonymous said…
Thanks for the updated link for 2017. It is functioning for now but with some errors. Sometimes router web UI not accessible but internet is working fine. Using it as a repeater Bridge.
Anonymous said…
I'm unable to load the DD-WRT firmware because the basic firmware from cisco linksys is not letting me. Now I have a brick with old firmware unable to update, not even to a linksys upgrade
Anonymous said…
Thank you very much, there was a great improvement in the performance of the device!
Anonymous said…
I had some problems following this guide, it just didn't the dd-wrt firmware so when I was about to give up I researched and found that after flashing the dd-wrt firmware you have to do again a hard reset 30-30-30 without anything connected to the router and without login in again, and worked! Now running v31825 without issues so far. Also I discovered that DD-WRT doesn´t support 5 Ghz bandwith so I will consider tomato. Thanks for the guide anyway, it was useful (just you guys were luckier than me!). This guide I followed for the 30-30-30 if you want to read it yourselves: https://zitseng.com/archives/5625.
Unknown said…
Bits and Pixels
Sascha Häberling blogs about software, hardware, photography and music.
Installing DD-WRT on the Linksys EA2700

Sascha, do you know or anyone else know any long-range router (3000 meters+) that support DD-WRT upgrade and which is affordable (US $90--) ?
----
Michel
Sascha said…
Thanks for the good comments all.

Michel, I haven't done much research on this recently. However, I actually went ahead and bought a hi-end model from Asus (ASUS RT-AC3200) which comes with a modified DD-WRT version they all ASUS-WRT right out of the box, which I am pretty happy with.

Since you're asking for something cheaper, it seems like their ASUS RT-ACRH13 model comes with ASUS-WRT as well, but I have not done a ton of research on the model. Amazon reviews look promising though, so maybe it's worth checking out.

// Sascha
Anonymous said…
Hi there, just wanted to mention, I liked this article.
It was practical. Keep on posting!
Unknown said…
Thanks!!
Unknown said…
Can someone please tell me if any DD-WRT firmware version for this router supports the 5GHz band?

Popular posts from this blog

Setting up Arduino IDE 1.0 and 1.6 for ATtiny and Manchester library

Backing up a NAS to CrashPlan using a Raspberry Pi