TP-Link routers and ADSL/VDSL modems have suddenly become very popular with everyone. Everywhere you go, they are using TP-Link Wi-Fi routers and ADSL modems or a combination of them. Three of my friends have TP-Link Wi-Fi routers, my office has many TP-Link devices and the restaurant I usually go for lunch has TP-Link Wi-Fi router. In fact, the other day I helped one my neighbors update her router’s firmware to the latest version. The firmware is the small program inside the router that makes it possible for the router to work correctly and interact it with various networks and devices. By upgrading the router, you may gain new features or make the router much more stable. If you are also wondering how to upgrade the firmware of your TP-Link router then read on.
The first thing that you have note down is the router hardware version for your TP-Link device. Usually, it is printed somewhere on the router itself. For example, in the TP-Link WR740N Wi-Fi router, it is printed on the bottom side of the router. In my case, the hardware version is 4.27 and the model is TL-WR740N.
Now visit TP-Link website, search for the model of your router or modem, when the information page for the device is opened, click on the Support and then Firmware sections. Select the hardware version (for our case it is version 4.xx) for your router, and then download the latest version of firmware for that hardware version. Extract the downloaded file to a folder, you will see two files a PDF file and a BIN file. The PDF file contains instructions to upgrade the firmware and the BIN file is the firmware itself.
Turn on the Wi-Fi router and connect it to your PC through a LAN cable. Do not try to upgrade the firmware over Wi-Fi network, the router should be connected to the PC through a LAN cable. Type http://tplinklogin.net/ in your web browser and press Enter to open the web based interface for the router. You may have to enter the login username and password (by default both are “admin”).
Select System Tools → Upgrade Firmware from the left side, click on the Choose button and select the firmware BIN file that you downloaded and extracted earlier. Click on the Upgrade button to initiate the firmware upgrade. It will take a few minutes (1-2 minutes) for the firmware to be flashed into the router. Upon successful upgrade, the router restarts and you can continue to use the router as before.
The instructions might be a little different for different models of the routers/modems, but the process is more or less the same. One precaution that you should take is connect the device to a stable power supply during the upgrade. This is because a power failure in the middle of the upgrade process could possibly brick the router.