PostDowngrade D-Link DIR-655 1.3x Firmware

January 31, 2010 – 2:17 pm
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I have been debating whether or not I should put this up, however after much testing I have concluded that it is safe, it works and many other people have used this method, it goes without saying that this is still quite dangerous to do as nobody knows why D-Link doesn’t allow the downgrade to take place and they may believe it can cause bricked routers.

There is firmware floating around that allows a D-Link DIR-655 to downgrade to pre-1.3x firmware (and also to other countries’ firmware), here are the results of my testing:

First I factory reset my router, it was running the 1.33NA b01 firmware, then I firmware upgraded it to the DIR655A4_FW131RUB10 firmware file that I will make available at the end, this is a modified version of an official Russian firmware, (apparently 2 bytes is all that has been changed).

D-link DIR-655 Downgrade 1

The first step, upgrade to the RU firmware

Once this was complete I was running the modified firmware, as you can see it is still in English.

D-link DIR-655 Downgrade 2

Here I am running the modified firmware

Then I was free to upgrade/downgrade to any firmware I wished, so I decided to try the official Australian Firmware 1.21 and this worked perfectly.

D-link DIR-655 Downgrade 3

Back on the Australian firmware

Here is the chklst.txt info on the firmware to prove it downgraded successfully.

D-link DIR-655 Downgrade 4

chklst.txt of AU firmware

You can download the modified firmware below:
Modified RU DIR-655 firmware (1.49 MB) 31-01-2010

Written by Ben

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PostD-Link DIR-655 1.33NA Firmware final released

January 31, 2010 – 1:24 pm
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D-Link have been quick to release new versions of the 1.33NA firmware recently, now they have released the final 1.33NA version.

In my experience it is one of the better versions of the 1.3x firmware family, here is the changelog:

  • Fixed: Correct HNAP issue.
  • Fixed: DNS relay issue ( WAN Slowdown )
  • Added: Advanced DNS descriptions

Remember this cannot be downgraded by official means to anything pre-1.3x or other international firmwares, however you can always try the unofficial way.

You can download it here:
D-Link DIR-655 Firmware 1.33NA (1.47 MB) 31-01-2010

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PostD-Link DIR-655 Firmware 1.33b01NA

January 16, 2010 – 7:52 pm
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Update 31-01-2010: There is a new firmware version 1.33NA final that can be found here.

D-Link has released a new firmware for the DIR-655, version 1.33b01NA.

It’s not known yet what has been changed though it appears to be working quite well for people.

You can get it here.

Remember that this is the North American firmware so while it is compatible with other countries’ hardware it cannot be downgraded to pre 1.3x NA firmware OR to any other country’s firmware, so once you go NA, you can’t go back.

Please visit the D-Link forums post about it here before you install the firmware as this doesn’t have support from the usual places. Feedback can be left in this forum post.

Also let us know how it goes in the comments below.

Written by Ben

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PostD-Link DIR-655 1.32NA Build 09 BETA

November 12, 2009 – 4:22 pm
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Update 16th January 2010: 1.33b01NA has been released.

D-link have released an unsupported beta version of the DIR-655’s firmware, this supposedly fixes only the DNS Relay bug.

You can get it here, they seem to be pretty insistent that the firmware shouldn’t be used if you’re worried about your warranty etc so I will just leave it at that link, I’ll be testing this seeing as my router is stuck as a glorified Wireless AP and Gigabit switch due to it’s bad behaviour so it can’t really get much worse.

Written by Ben

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PostD-Link SharePort Update

August 20, 2009 – 9:07 pm
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Update: D-Link has released a new firmware for the DIR-655 here, it contains a version of SharePort that is newer than SX Virtual Link.

I haven’t been following D-Link’s SharePort fiasco since the first few months of my previous blog posting about it here. This is due to the fact that as many users have experienced since the original release it appears to have gained more and more bugs in each new version and we only occasionally see them being fixed.

A forum post in the official D-Link forums about the Apple OSX users of the software pointed me to the fact that the drivers and software used to connect to the router appears to have been made by a company called Silex Technology.

I searched around and found SX-Virtual Link, the original name of the D-Link SharePort Utility, upon downloading and installing the latest version 3.2.3 I found that the application was the same as the SharePort Utility except for the branding and the version. D-Link’s latest SharePort Utility has the date 2009/01/06 and theirs is 2009/02/02, there is also a major version difference, the specific version number for the utility/drivers with SharePort is version 4.9.5 and SX-Virtual Link is up to version 5.3.0.

Upon using the utility I had no problems at all connecting to my D-Link DIR-655’s device, I used a wireless mouse to test the functionality and it worked flawlessly for some time, so I am encouraging users who currently have issues with SharePort to uninstall it and install SX-Virtual Link and see if it fixes any of the issues you are currently having with your devices.

For OSX users I have not been able to test out the OSX version and I am unaware of any changes you might need to make to get it working but I will provide a link below for those users to test if they so wish.

You can get the latest version of SX-Virtual Link just below:

These are updated versions (3.4.0) 31/12/2009

SX Virtual Link 3.4.0 Windows
SX Virtual Link 3.3.0 Mac OSX

Please comment below with your experiences.

Written by Ben

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PostD-Link SkinIt

January 8, 2009 – 4:14 pm
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I’m not sure if this is new or old news but D-Link are advertising that SkinIt skins are now available that can be used to customise D-Link products such as their newer routers.

I had a fun playing around with the skin making software, it’s easy to use and I got the hang of it straight away, I haven’t purchased a skin yet, however I might in a few weeks time.

The skins are $19.95 USD however currently the coupon ‘dlinkskins’ will get you 10% off.

You can get started here.

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PostWindows 7 at the PDC

October 29, 2008 – 3:07 am

For now I do not have access to Windows 7 so I can only go on other peoples’ experiences and of course the live stream of the Microsoft PDC, but so far it looks amazing, take a look at some screenshots here at my favorite tech site, Neowin.

From a UI standpoint I am very excited about the possibilities that will be available.
From a web developer standpoint I’m eager to learn how it fits in with Windows Azure and the cloud computing vision.

I hope to do a review once it is available and look forward to other peoples’ reviews, expectations and experiences.

In other news I put Xubuntu on my laptop, I’m actually using it at the moment, It’s a great OS to run when you have an older PC, in this case 4 years old, my laptop maintenance guide will be up soon, I’ve been meaning to finish it but it’s one of those articles you can take forever to write if you wanted to.

I have decided to put up interesting facts, the first fact is that my review on D-Link SharePort on the DIR-655 has had the most views of any posts, you guys seem to like it so I will hopefully bring more of the same in future reviews.

Written by Ben

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