Did I brick it? RT-N66U Dark Knight

[SomeWhoCallMeTim]

I've been running Merlin's 380.57 firmware on my RT-N66U since December with no issues. I've been running his firmware since I got my router and have contributed because I've been so pleased with the firmware.

Last night I wanted to tweak some of the parental settings and tried to access 192.168.1.1 but I could not connect. My browser would just say it couldn't connect after trying for a bit. I tried Firefox, Chrome, IE. I tried http://192.168.1.1, https://192.168.1.1 but no luck. I ran the ASUS Utility>Device Discovery and it said that my RT-N66U was there on 192.168.1.1 as expected. Note that our internet connections were working fine, I just couldn't connect to the admin login page.

Hmmm...I thought that perhaps the last time I had changed something I might have changed a port number of something else or someone might have hacked my router so I would try and reset it.

This is where things went wrong, likely due to my making mistakes.

I turned off the power to the unit, then while pushing down the reset button, I plugged the power in and continued holding the reset button for 10 seconds. On my browser I got a "mini browser" ASUS window that offered the option of uploading firmware or doing an NVRAM reset. I chose to upload Merlin's 380.57 again, but after it completed I could not connect to the admin login page. So I did the reset thing again and this time chose first the NVRAM reset, followed by the uploading the firmware again. I'm hazy on the sequence at this point, but I think I didn't get the mini browser page again but got nothing and a slow blinking power light on the router...which I think means it is in recovery.

I connected a laptop directly to the router but although the laptop can see that the ethernet cable is connected it can't see the router.

That was 8 hours ago, and I still have that slow blinking power light.

Did I brick it? Any suggestions on what I might do next? Buy a new router?

Thanks!

 

[hggomes]

First turn it off and press RESET button without releasing it for 10s while you power on.

You are in recover mode, go to http://192.168.1.1 and upload the file again, on RT-N66U it can take 1H until it reboot automatically after the uploaded file, so just wait until you see a reboot, if not power cycle it and see if it boots.

As last resort upload the file via TFTP.

 

[SomeWhoCallMeTim]

Thanks for the suggestion.

I connected the router to a laptop with an ethernet cable. The laptop has wi-fi turned off. The laptop can see that the ethernet cable is connected to the RT-N66U, as when I remove the cable the laptop notices. The laptop has a self-assigned ip address. When I attempt to connect to 192.168.1.1 with a browser I get a browser message "You are not connected to the Internet". Attempting to ping 192.168.1.1 returns "No route to host".

On RT-N66U the power button continues its slow blink and the led for the ethernet cable plugged into the laptop is on.

I tried removing the power cord on the router, pushing the reset button, and reattaching the power cord, while holding down the reset button for 10 seconds. Same results.

 

[hggomes]

You must set a static IP on your laptop. (192.168.1.20) or other.

Also check if the router is responding via cmd:

ping 192.168.1.1

 

[SomeWhoCallMeTim]

Thx hggomes for the manual ip suggestion.

Got a little further by setting the IP manually. I've set the laptop up to configure the IP manually, with an IP address of 192.168.1.20, Subnet mask of 255.255.255.0, and router with an address of 192.168.1.1. The laptop thinks it is connected. The router led for the ethernet cable is lit and flickers when I attempt to connect from the laptop to the router.

Using the browser now gives a different error message: "Safari can't open the page https://192.168.1.1 because the server where this page is located isn't responding".

Using the url http://192.168.1.1 doesn't generate any message in the browser, it doesn't display anything, although I get a visual indicator of progress by the browser I don't see anything rendered.

 

[SomeWhoCallMeTim]

Holding down the WPS button didn't seem to change anything unfortunately.

And Holding down WPS button while power on and release WPS after 10 secs?

 

[thelonelycoder]

Holding down the WPS button didn't seem to change anything unfortunately.

Dumb question, is your routers IP still 192.168.1.1?
What's your Macs DNS Server or Gateway Setting?

 

[SomeWhoCallMeTim]

My DNS Server is unset, and the Gateway Setting is unset.

Ok...I had 802.1X on a default setting of "Enable automatic connection". When I unchecked, at least I think that was it, I now get the "ASUSTek - CFE miniWeb Server" page. Woot!

Woot!

Now what, Should I attempt to upload RMerlin firmware again and just let it run for a couple of hours? Should I try the restore of the NVRAM default values? Should I upload another firmware file?

Dumb question, is your routers IP still 192.168.1.1?
What's your Macs DNS Server or Gateway Setting?

 

[SomeWhoCallMeTim]

So I uploaded RMerlin's 380.57, got the screen that states "Upload completed. System is going to reboot. Please wait a few moments."

The power led light is out, the ethernet port 1 is lighted.

I'm going to wait until the power led light comes back on before doing anything else.

 

[RMerlin]

The RT-N66U can take close to 30 minutes to flash when going through the firmware recovery process, as it has rather slow flash, and the recovery process is nowhere as efficient as a regular firmware upgrade.

Give it time. Once done, it will reboot itself, and you will be able to tell it has by the wifi LEDs which will be back on.

 

[SomeWhoCallMeTim]

Phew! It has rebooted and is now accessible. I must have just been too impatient before, combined with not correctly setting my laptops configuration to use the manual ip settings.

I very much appreciate this community and its helpfulness.

Thanks!

The RT-N66U can take close to 30 minutes to flash when going through the firmware recovery process, as it has rather slow flash, and the recovery process is nowhere as efficient as a regular firmware upgrade.

Give it time. Once done, it will reboot itself, and you will be able to tell it has by the wifi LEDs which will be back on.

 

[hggomes]

I'm glad it worked for you.

 

[bbunge]

I had much the same thing happen with a N66R. Used the recovery program to get it back to latest Asus firmware then upgrade to latest Merlin. Suspect a failing USB drive caused issues...

Sent from my P01M using Tapatalk

 

[hggomes]

You should avoid updating the FW with USB devices connected.

 

[vincom]

router is "almost " brick proof