Router Project

So after getting a bit annoyed at our electric bill being the same month after month I decided to get back onto building a mini smart router. Currently I use a P4 computer (under clocked) that hosts files, is a web server, print server and a quality of service for internet amongst other things. Most off-the-shelf router don't even come close except for one particular model.. a netgear wgt634u which is no longer made (shame).

So why use an out of date router? I had it and wanted to make the best of it, besides I have 2 so if i get one working then i can use the other for those network cameras :) The best part is that the 634u is a mips processor with 8mb of flash, usb, multiple network ports and wireless all in a 5w package.
*Here's an image of a semi-modified of the 634u.

I got this at CompUSA refurbished for cheap! The reason for refurb (my guess): overheating, hence the extra heatsinks. The black one is the processor (broadcom mips 200mhz) and is on with epoxy. The others use thermal tape is is of my doing. With an IR gun the heatsink gets up to 60C quickly.. a bit more than I appreciate so an addition of a small fan should suffice.

I found a nice initial disto: http://wiki.openwrt.org/OpenWrtDocs/Hardware/Netgear/WGT634U that is proving most useful. I had to buy some components to build a serial comunication interface and get a usb adaptor.
The chip is a SP232CP. When connected I'm able to talk with the router and load linux on it via some very old connumication ideas (tftp). So far I've been able to load usb drivers for the thumb drive. I found some extra commands to swap what the root is so I can use the thumb drive instead of flash which gives me much more space to load stuff :) Once I got this down (and revisited how to modify the rd.d) I started to load openssh and cups. I plan on more but need to ensure this minimum mount of tools works before going further.

Once I'm done I will cut my server energy usage by 24x (old server uses about 120watts)

If all else fails I'll just get an Intel Atom server for $70 which is about the same power consumption :) That way I can easily compile things on my own and use gentoo which is my preferred choice of linux.