Broken power button

[KGB7]

As the old saying goes; you get what you pay for. In this case, Asus used a chepo power switch.

Half the times with my router, it feels that the switch wont stick in ON position, yet it does. But the the feeling in my index finger as i slowly press the power switch to ON position, always leaves me with lack of confidence in the quality and reliability of the switch it self.

If it fails, i will permanently glue the switch in ON position and use the power cable to power cycle the router.

The self proclaimed engineers with a certificate from online pimp coolage, are in need of regular bitch slap every moon cycle.

 

[allan]

Plus one power switch down...

Las week was my turn...
Suddenly my connection went down, I thought was the VDSL modem, but then I check the router and the lights were off. Checked the power supply, was ok, then I noticed the power button wasn't going all the way down.
Plugged the PS back and confirmed the issue.
I'm from Brazil but I bought the router on Amazon and a friend brought to me.
Unfortunately the warranty period is over and even if wasn't, ASUS would not cover, as they only fix routers they sell in Brazil.

I'll keep that in mind when I chose the next router brand...

 

[Deleted member 22229]

Have to agree the switches are cheap China's junk. I doubt when I decide to buy a new router it will be from Asus. I use to like there products but I am ready to move on. It seems from what I have read that I am not alone.

 

[Briant73]

I just sent my Asus n66u router in for this issue, hopefully all goes well but I am disappointed a device less than two years old had such a mechanical failure.

 

[gregnukem]

Sad to admit, but I am joining your club today with an RT-N66U... I have used the power switch maybe 10 times during whole router's lifetime. The warranty expired. I opened the router, but there's really nothing one can try to fix. Probably I'll use some plastic tighteners - seems sturdy and least intrusive.

Update: okay, here's what I did after opening the router. I removed a small metal bracket and a spring from the faulty switch. Now it's always on. Not the most elegant solution but better than always off or the risk of powering off randomly (with duct tapes etc.) I guess. Obviously, should I need to turn off or power-cycle the router I'd have to remove the power cable.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
Any thing on any thing can break. Even on space shuttle. If it happened to me, I'd just replace it with better switch myself. I have a big hell box.

 

[dazz87]

This just happen to me tonight. People who did sent their router in for service how many days did it take you to get it back? I had bad experience with Asus tablet back in 2011. Took 1 month to get it back.

 

[Pierino]

This just happen to me tonight. People who did sent their router in for service how many days did it take you to get it back? I had bad experience with Asus tablet back in 2011. Took 1 month to get it back.

Less than 2 weeks for me, in the US, with round trip from Ohio to California.

 

[ChristineBCW]

As the old saying goes; you get what you pay for...

Or in this case, you get what THEY pay for.

Out of curiosity, if you've disassembled the case, does the Power Button have a plastic-studded connection to the outer-case that, when depressed, touches a plunger on the circuit board?

Or is the power-button directly connected to the circuit board? (Probably using a single plastic lever instead of million-dollar spring - uh huh...)

The below example is a solid plastic connector that serves as a spring.

This will fail, at some point, to 'bounce back' but because it's path is so sturdily guided, the plastic 'flipper' that bounces it back probably can't be perverted off-course to create an initial 'tear' and create the Fail Break.

The Toothpick Solution would probably be as good as any. I'm just curious about this power-switch assembly.

 

[gregnukem]

I wish I had taken a picture of the actual switch. But it looks very similar to this: http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/power-switch-KDC-A20-key-lock_348976880.html. It's soldered with 3 pins and with 2 more it gets attached to the board.

Yes, anything can break, but I barely used it. Can't help feeling a little pissed.

 

[ChristineBCW]

That plunger mechanism - a real metal spring with pure plastic housings to guide the plunger-piston. No telling what the contact-point looks like - these have changed, always 'to the cheaper'.

I'm shocked that the whole world isn't full of kajillionaires considering all the vast fortunes we've 'saved' by reducing our products to cheaper and cheaper alternatives. (cough cough)

Thanks for the pix. I think! This would put stress points from your fingertip onto the solder points, too. My beating it with the heel of my stiletto might not help it one bit, therefore. ("Help IT? That'd help ME, though!") But if the Solder Points are solid, then the Toothpick Solution means the plunger-with-plastic-guides are the problem. When one of those guides snaps (inevitable), the plunger is forever misaligned as the others hold, or snap off eventually, too.

 

[Pierino]

I have bought and sold probably a dozen of these, fu\innaly got one with the power button issue.

 

[PiCASSiMO]

Now it's my turn... had my router for about 3+ years. Worked flawlessly until the power button decided to not stay in. Tried initially tape, then electrical tape, and now a dime and electrical tape. I may just glue the f*cking thing together if my current solution doesn't work for me.

Sad to see a $200 router have this 15-cent as a failure mode.

 

[Pierino]

I superglued mine in the on position.

 

[Bitgod]

Yay, my N66U joined the crowd today too, a few months away from having it for 3 years. It was just sitting there and the button decided to die. Tried using tape but the spring was just too strong. Toothpick worked, but I actually switched to a bit of a green twist tie (you know, from the produce section of the grocery store) so I could snip it down a bit, not as long as a toothpick.

Anyone know what the warranty length is on these in the US? I couldn't find it listed on the ASUS site or box. I don't know if there was another warranty card in the box, but I found the "VIP warranty card" which basically gets you to sign up, it doesn't have any info on it. Not sure if I'll deal with it if it is.

 

[Bitgod]

The answer apparently is 2 years in the US, according to the dates ASUS support is giving me. Jamming things into the power button FTW.

Kinda stink, I (along with several people on another forum) have been recommending ASUS routers to people.

 

[W4RH34D]

Open the thing up, pull out the spring, glue the button down. Done.

 

[john9527]

Did anyone write down the P/N of the switch?

 

[Wizard19]

It was my turn today. Power button failed some time last night. ASUS N66U - two years and two months. Toothpick worked until I can go get another router. Last year I went thru three Samsung Galaxy S3 phones with bad power switch part ...switched to iPhone 6 two months ago. Feels like we are back in the 80's when every time you opened a new product it was broken or missing parts.

 

[mvirard]

My turn too. My two and half years old RT-N66U blanked out. Before that I had occasional losses of wifi I could not identify properly. It took me some time to realize the Power On button was actually a full mechanical toggle switch and not the usual simpler push-button + electronic toggle switch we find nowadays on almost all electronic equipment. Rather a strange design choice for Asus and unfortunate since the RT-N66U is otherwise an excellent multi-function router (about the best I ever own so far). I solved the problem with my number one saver: a paper clip and my faithful wire cutter. Like new Beside, who needs a power switch on a device which is on 24x7 ? It beats me: not a single Linksys, D-Link, Cisco device I own has a power switch! I guess it is the perfect example of why «the Best is (often) the enemy of the Good».