FYI, possible help re: instability on the RT-AC66U

[bobfandango]

This post is informational/placekeeping only. I wanted to post my experience to hopefully help others who may run into the same issues and not get anywhere on the forums.

I ran an older version of Asuswrt-Merlin for quite a while and it was rock solid. I had updated to .32 without taking the recommended steps of reverting to factory settings and wiping the NVRAM (since the older version was too old). After reverting and re-flashing .32, problems remained. Essentially, everything would run fine for a time and then 2.4 Ghz radio would just stop working. 5 Ghz would work fine, and I could get to the router from the WAN as well. Nothing would solve the problem aside from a reboot.

While trying to solve the problem, I upgraded to .33 to no avail. That included a reversion to factory settings and re-entering all configuration by hand. So, as a "last resort", I tried to totally wipe everything as thoroughly as possible. I reverted to factory settings, flashed .33 over again, reset to factory settings *again* (even though I'd setup only the minimum required settings), and then tried to enter the configuration once more.

At that point, the router was even *less* stable than ever. When applying one setting change, the router actually reverted itself to factory settings all on its own. All the settings I'd entered were lost. So that was a failure....

As a truly last resort, I decided to flash using the Asus firmware restoration utility. I followed the basic steps outlined below:

Here's the whole recommended method for recovery that I use myself in case of problem:

To reset the router settings:

1) Turn the router off
2) Unplug modem and every computers from ther outer except for one single computer
3) Press the WPS button, and keep it pressed
4) Turn the router on
5) Wait 10 seconds, then release the WPS button
6) Wait about 10 seconds, then turn it off

For the recovery flash:

1) Start the Firmware Recovery tool on your computer. Select the file, then click on Upload. It will start looking for the router.
2) Press the reset button, and while it's pressed turn the router back on
3) Give it about 20 seconds - the Recovery tool should then detect the router, and start uploading the firmware.

The reason I like to start the upload process BEFORE turning the router back on is that sometimes, you might have a timing issue where you start the upload too late. So long you turn the router on within 5-10 seconds after clicking on "Upload" you should be fine.

This basically works fine, and I may not understand it entirely, but clicking upload anytime before releasing the reset button would not work for me. The utility would instantly return an error of invalid IP . Instead, based on instructions I found re: DD-WRT (http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Asus_WL-520GU#Asus_Firmware_Restoration_Utility), I held the reset button until the leftmost light is flashing on and off slowly, then released the reset button. At that point, the utility would find the router and the upload worked fine.

Short story long, if reverting to factory settings/resetting NVRAM from the web UI (which is the only method I'd ever tried) does not solve your stability issues, try a full blown firmware restoration. I'm currently running .33 with no further issues...

One last note, if you're like me, you ignored the hell out of the CD included with the router and eventually tossed it. Well, it apparently contains the restoration utility. You can find the utility here: http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&p=11&s=2&m=RT-AC66U&os=8

FYI, be sure to select an OS, or you won't be shown the utilities (Thanks jlake!).

Best of luck...

 

[jlake]

This post is informational/placekeeping only. I wanted to post my experience to hopefully help others who may run into the same issues and not get anywhere on the forums.

I ran an older version of Asuswrt-Merlin for quite a while and it was rock solid. I had updated to .32 without taking the recommended steps of reverting to factory settings and wiping the NVRAM (since the older version was too old). After reverting and re-flashing .32, problems remained. Essentially, everything would run fine for a time and then 2.4 Ghz radio would just stop working. 5 Ghz would work fine, and I could get to the router from the WAN as well. Nothing would solve the problem aside from a reboot.

While trying to solve the problem, I upgraded to .33 to no avail. That included a reversion to factory settings and re-entering all configuration by hand. So, as a "last resort", I tried to totally wipe everything as thoroughly as possible. I reverted to factory settings, flashed .33 over again, reset to factory settings *again* (even though I'd setup only the minimum required settings), and then tried to enter the configuration once more.

At that point, the router was even *less* stable than ever. When applying one setting change, the router actually reverted itself to factory settings all on its own. All the settings I'd entered were lost. So that was a failure....

As a truly last resort, I decided to flash using the Asus firmware restoration utility. I followed the basic steps outlined below:



This basically works fine, and I may not understand it entirely, but clicking upload anytime before releasing the reset button would not work for me. The utility would instantly return an error of invalid IP . Instead, based on instructions I found re: DD-WRT (http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Asus_WL-520GU#Asus_Firmware_Restoration_Utility), I held the reset button until the leftmost light is flashing on and off slowly, then released the reset button. At that point, the utility would find the router and the upload worked fine.

Short story long, if reverting to factory settings/resetting NVRAM from the web UI (which is the only method I'd ever tried) does not solve your stability issues, try a full blown firmware restoration. I'm currently running .33 with no further issues...

One last note, if you're like me, you ignored the hell out of the CD included with the router and eventually tossed it. Well, it apparently contains the restoration utility. Asus, kindly enough, does not make the utility for the AC66U available online. A utility is available for older models of router, but I have no idea if it would work with the AC66U. You can find a copy of the utility here: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Networ...ASUS-RT-AC66U-Wireless-Router-Utilities.shtml

Best of luck...

I found your post somewhat incredulous when you said that ASUS didn't provide the firmware restoration utility online. So I decided to check for myself. I googled ASUS AC66u firmware, and then selected my OS and found the utilities which included the restoration utility. This only took me about 15 seconds to accomplish.

 

[bobfandango]

I found your post somewhat incredulous when you said that ASUS didn't provide the firmware restoration utility online. So I decided to check for myself. I googled ASUS AC66u firmware, and then selected my OS and found the utilities which included the restoration utility. This only took me about 15 seconds to accomplish.

I generally find myself incredulous and see that others likewise may be left feeling incredulous in the face of snarky comments, but never have I found a post itself incredulous since it in all likelihood is incapable of forming an opinion. But I do get the gist of what you were trying to say....

Do you see any utilities whatsoever shown here:

http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&p=11&s=2&m=RT-AC66U&os=8

How about here for the N16?

http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=RT-N16&p=11&s=2&os=30&hashedid=WAa6AQFncrceRBEo

One shows utilities, the other not. Of course, I should have selected an OS because it is common sense that selecting an OS will EXPAND the possible number of downloads. But yes, thank you, that is a good catch.

 

[RMerlin]

Re-flashing the same firmware rarely does anything, as a bad flash would exhibit issues as serious as the router flat out crashing or failing to boot.

One thing that might have helped fix your issues however is the fact that, while doing the whole procedure of flashing from the recovery mode, it required you to actually power off the router for at least a few seconds, then turn it back on. That operation can sometimes resolves random issues related to wifi (it happened to me on a few occasions while moving back and forth between different driver versions for testing purposes) that the usual flash/reboot/factory default/reboot process doesn't cure, because throughout those operations we rarely think about turning off the router completely for 5-10 seconds.

From now on, whenever a reset back to factory default is recommended, I think it would be wise to also recommend an actual "power off - wait 10 secs - power on" procedure.