I decided to try and make my network bridge from my office to my entertainment center a little faster by upgrading from the Linksys WRT54GL to the wireless N capable Netgear WNR3500L. My first thoughts of the device were it is a small box but it does pack some power with a 453MHz CPU, 64MB of RAM, and 8MB of flash storage. The only drawback I see is the inability to attach an external antenna which really isn’t that bad considering my bridged devices are not terribly far from each other. Below is the first steps in initialing upgrading the firmware to DD-WRT:

***DISCLAIMER***
I am/will not be held liable for your mistakes or lack of knowledge that may cause you to brick your router. Nor do I offer any kind of support or technical assistance.

After doing much reading I found the best firmware version to use was version release 14929 of the NEWD-2 K2.6 DD-WRT firmware. The trick is a .chk file must be uploaded first before the actual .bin file. Below are some links to the said versions. I recommend the standard bin with USB and FTP support. I read the mega firmware is a no no and to stay away from it and evidently mega = big. So the firmware labeled big is actually the mega firmware. I had it on the router for a few minutes and changed some settings before I realized it was the same thing but it did not do any damage. I am also going to link to some of the sites I used to guide me through the DD-WRT install process.

First upload this .chk file using the Netgear GUI
dd-wrt.v24-14929_NEWD-2_K2.6_mini-WNR3500L.chk

Finally upload this .bin file to get more functionality
dd-wrt.v24-14896_NEWD-2_K2.6_std_usb_ftp.bin

Link to download many different files for firmware version 14929
Link to release 14929 of NEWD-2_K2.6

Link to Howto on DD-WRT’s website is here.

Recommendations that swayed my choice for which revision to install were found here.

To return your Netgear WNR3500L back to its factory firmware please follow these instructions.

And finally I’ll include a link to the instructions I’ve followed in the past to setup a wireless bridge with DD-WRT and unmatched routers.
DD-WRT Wireless Bridge

Hope this helps. More posts to follow and some screenshots of speed tests using jperf.