TomatoUSB

Today I started from factory WNR3500L firmware.

First I flashed "dd-wrt.v24-17084_NEWD-2_K2.6_mini-WNR3500L" as all of the guides I've read told me to go DD-WRT before flashing to Tomato.

Without changing any settings, I logged in to the DD-WRT interface and flashed "tomato-K26USB-1.28.7476MIPSR2-Toastman-RT-Ext.trx". I tried to verify that this was a version that specifically worked with the 3500L, as I already bricked this thing once (and de-bricked it using the serial cable trick).

After flashing, I can't log in to the web interface, and it won't respond to pings. I'm trying to access 192.168.1.1 (my computer's IP is set correctly).

When the router turns on, the power light and the "1" light both light up for a while, and after a minute or two, the blue light comes on as well. The lights blink away like I would expect. It makes me think I'm just not trying to log in using the correct IP address, but I can't imagine why it would be different than the default!

What should I do :(

Did you set your PC with a fixed IP? All toastman build disabled DHCP by default.

I did. I set myself to 192.168.1.5, subnet 255.255.255.0

I just did some more testing though, and this is even stranger: I plugged my computer directly to the router (no switches like before) and then attenpted to renewed my IP. I got a new IP in the 192.168.1 range (my regular network is on 192.168.0) which means DHCP must be functioning on the router, right??

Trying to access 192.168.1.1 (which is what my gateway got assigned to) still didn't work though. I even tried Angry IP Scanner to scan the whole /24 range on port 80 and I got nothing.

Update: FIXED!

A 30-30-30 reset fixed the issue. I had tried simply holding the reset button for 60 seconds but I hadn't seen anything about the 30-30-30 method until a buddy on another forum suggested it. For anyone running across this in the future:
myopenrouter DOT COM /article/18623/How-to-Hard-Reset-Your-NETGEAR-WNR3500L/

(it won't let me post a real link)