Bricked my XT8

[McGinty]

Hey folks - bought 4 XT8's.

TLR: Tried to downgrade the firmware on a new 2021 XT8 from 43170 to 25790 via the web UI. Did everything is was supposed to but failed to reboot. Now I cant reset it, soft or hard, and cant put it in to recovery mode. When I turn it on it goes straight to a solid white LED and does nothing. Am I screwed and do I need to send it back?

More details:
- Was setting up the second sets and noticed the firmware was way ahead of the two Black ones I bought.
- Paired it with the main XT8 (other 3 working fine, 1 on FW 43170 main and 1 node on 25790).
- Wanted to set them all to the same firmware so used the WebUI to try and update the FW. to 25790
- That porcess completes but the XT8 fails to reboot.
- Now it just comes on and goes straight to a solid white LED.
- Will not reset via method using the WPS button or the rest button that I see all over the web - it just doesnt respond
- Cant even do recovery mode so I can use the utility as that doesn't seem to work (turn off, hold reset, plug in while holding reset, LED never blinks)

Am I screwed and need to return? I figured recovery mode was a BIOS level reset and would always work - am I wrong?

 

[Tech9]

Are they all the same hardware revision?
Why did you want to downgrade the firmware?

 

[McGinty]

Hey, yea all HW revision 1.0. 2021 production years. Bought from the same supplier 1 week apart.

Wanted to downgrade to keep the same firmware as the main node as the RSSI on the new firmware XT8 node wasnt as good as the node with the old firmware. Significant difference in exactly the same positions.

 

[Tech9]

Try hard factory reset again, hold the button for >30 sec, on some routers it is slow.

[Wireless Router] ASUS router Hard Factory Reset - Method 6 | Official Support | ASUS Global

 

[McGinty]

Yep tried both the “reset” button method (to try get recovery mode) with a pin and the WPS button method to do a factory reset. 2 minutes each about 4 times. No joy at all. Surprised the hardware methods don't work at all as a fail safe - so feels like I'm stuck now

 

[Tech9]

Send it back or get RMA then. What else you can do?

 

[McGinty]

Guess that's my only option! Thanks anyway thought the problem might just be me