Gargoyle on the TP-Link WR1043ND

July 6, 2012 Chilling_Silence How-To's / Guides / Tech info

Updated 29/6/2013:

Gargoyle is some of the best custom firmware you can get for a lot of routers. In fact, it’s better than a lot of standard firmware by a long shot. Gargoyles benefits are summed up well on the ‘shop” page of the gargoyle-router.com website:

Gargoyle is the only solution on the market that lets you monitor and set monthly bandwidth caps for every connected computer.

Effortlessly identify the users abusing their network privileges and lock them down.

Best part is they’re right! It’s incredibly easy, and I’m going to show you how to do it here. It’ll only take a couple of minutes, and there’s nice images to guide you the whole way.

Starting off with ordering, just be careful when you order the router.

I have previously ordered the cheaper TP-Link WR741ND in the past and hit the snag of it being a “too recent” model and it’s not supported because of the SoC (System on Chip) used in it. Basically TP-Link completely changed the guts of that model and so the newer revisions basically don’t work with OpenWRT (Which Gargoyle is based upon).

So stick with the TP-Link TL-WR1043ND and you should be fine!

I picked mine up from PBTech for $85, it’s well worth the investment! http://pbtech.co.nz/index.php?z=p&p=NETTPL1043

Once you have it home and unpacked, you’re going to want to pre-download the firmware:

You want to go to http://www.gargoyle-router.com and click on Downloads. Change the Architecture to Atheros AR71XX and choose the one for the TL (For TP-Link) WR1043ND

Now, there are two options: one is “factory” and the other is “sysupgrade”. You want the factory one, so that it factory-resets the data (It won’t upgrade from  the TP-Link standard firmware anyway).

This version shown in the screenshot is Gargoyle 1.5.5, but there are newer versions coming out all the time. As a rule of thumb, always start with the latest Experimental Version and work backwards if you run into issues.

NOTE: Don’t get anything older than 1.5.6 if your TL-WR1043ND is version 1.10, it WILL brick the router: http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wr1043nd#warnings.gotchas
And by “brick the router” I mean you’re going to have to return the unit because it’s completely dead, so ALWAYS start with the latest Experimental version of Gargoyle experimental DO NOT use the older 1.4.X branch, ever… Just don’t.

Now, get the firmware saved to your PC, then it’s time to get your PC plugged in to the back of it. Ignore the sticker on the back of it telling you to run the CD first, you specifically don’t wan’t to run the CD for Gargoyle. peel it off and plug in to one of the LAN Ports.

You technically can also do the initial part via WiFi because it’s initially an open un-encrypted network. However, once you’ve flashed the firmware you’ll definitely need to be plugged in, as Gargoyle safely keeps WiFi turned off by default:

Once you’re either wirelessly connected or plugged in, you’ll want to tell it that you’ll connect to the network without setting it up. Then, select “Business Network”. It doesn’t matter if you choose “Home Network”, but it just skips asking if you want to use a Homegroup:

Once connected, you’ll want to login to the routers WebUI: http://192.168.0.1

When prompted, enter the username of “admin” and the password of “admin” as well:

Now, on the left-hand side, click on System Tools –> Firmware Upgrade:

Click on “Choose File” and browse to your newly downloaded firmware file, then click Upgrade:

It’s going to ask you to confirm if you want to wipe the firmware. This is the point of no return. Click on OK to continue:

If you’re in Chrome, you can look down the bottom-left and see the upload progress. It should only take around 30 seconds:

Once it’s uploaded, it’ll start processing the firmware and flashing it to the router:

TIP: If you run into any issues with the Gargoyle firmware filename being too long, it’s not the end of the world, just rename it to “gargoyle.bin” and try again. (Thanks Mac for the heads-up!)

It’ll take around a minute to flash it. Once it’s completed, it’ll then start rebooting:

Now, this is the point that you *must* have your PC plugged in to the back of it in any of the ports.

You should shortly afterwards be presented with another login prompt. If not, click on here: http://192.168.1.1

The default password for the Gargoyle firmware is “password” all in lower case:

It will go through a real quick “First run wizard” asking you to change the password (Go on, you know you want to, keeps it safe), and change the time-zone as applicable:

That’s it, you’re all good to go, firmware is installed!

However, before you go jumping for joy, there are TWO gotchas to watch out for:

Firstly, the LAN IP address of your Gargoyle should not be on the same range as your DSL Router.

For example if your DSL Router has an IP address of 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.1.254 as most do, then you’re going to want to change the LAN IP address of your router to something different.

Do this under Connection on the left-hand side, then change under “Local Network / LAN” the Router IP to something such as: 192.168.122.1

Finally, you probably want to turn on your WiFi by going to “Connection” on the left-hand side and then scroll down to “Wireless” at the bottom. Change the Wireless Mode to “Access Point (AP)”:

You probably want to try and use the WPA2-PSK where possible because it’s the most secure. That said, even WEP is better than nothing.

Finally now, when it comes to getting it connected to your router, for the better part you can leave the WAN connection (Also at the top of the same page where you’re setting your WiFi settings) set to “DHCP”. Then, just plug the WAN port of the Gargoyle router into the “LAN” port of your normal broadband router.

If you’re technically minded there are a few things that you can do, some routers work better than others. For example, if you use this Gargoyle router in combination with the likes of the Linksys AM300, you can run the AM300 in half-bridge mode. You can also use the likes of the Draytek DV120 in PPPoA -> PPPoE Passthrough mode. Not only are those two ADSL Modems some of the most reliable available for <$150, but they’re also ideal because they alleviate the “double NAT” issue.

However, for most home users, that’s a complete non-issue, and so simply plugging the Gargoyle Router into the back of your ADSL Router is going to work just fine, while still giving you a ton of benefits from this router!

If you ever have any connectivity issues, ditch your ISPs router and get a Draytek DV120. They’re cheap as chips and INSANELY reliable. That, or if your WiFi is dropping, check nearby cordless phones, try unplugging them for a bit.

If this has helped, leave me a comment below and say hi.

Gargoyle, Router, router reliability, TP-Link, WR1043ND,