Got bricked AC5300 after updating firmware

[nikki]

Hi,

I bought AC5300 in the middle of 2016 from US Amazon and setup Merlin firmware on it. In December I updated to the very recent Merlin firmware (most probably - to 380.63 or 64, possibly 64beta, I don't remember it well) and soon after that I noticed that something strange happens with the router. I lost wifi every few minutes, also I experienced lagging on my home ethernet segment.

Then I reset the router with reset button and it started to boot into CFE mini web server. I also erased NVRAM to defaults through that web server. But not the router reboot itself every 30 seconds or so, and it is impossible to flash the firmware on it.

So, when I turn it on, it boots into the CFE mini webserver, then after 30-40 seconds it reboots itself into the same CFE webserver and so on.

Frankly speaking I'm not sure if this is the hardware or software problem. Someone on the russian local forum mentioned that it might happen because of some loader locking or loader incompatibility.

Is it a way to reflash the low level loader and recover my 5300?

 

[Bartman]

I used this method on my Bricked 5300, it has a bit of bad language in (swearing) but it worked for me:

Good luck

 

[swetoast]

lol best pootube ever if all else fails RTFM

 

[nikki]

Finally I was able to flash firmware with tftp. Thank you.

But now I'm stuck with WiFi configuration. I'd like to configure 5G-1 for 36 channel and 5G-2 for 100+ channel. However the firmware only allows me to select channels 149-165 for both radios - 5G-1 and 5G-2. This really means that I can get only one 5G radio working (5G-1). I suspect it may be because of 802.11h / 802.11d issues.

Interesting that I have AC3200 and AC88U in the same house, and they do not have such a problem. I'm able to use 36 channel on one radio and 153 - on another on RT-AC3200 and RT-AC88U

 

[nikki]

Update: looks like it cannot start one radio interface during the boot. It should have 3 interfaces - eth1, eth2, eth3, but have only 2 of them: 2.4G and 5G-2.

Spoiler

et_module_init: txworkq set to 0x0
et_module_init: et_txq_thresh set to 0xce4
et_module_init: et_rxlazy_timeout set to 0x3e8
et_module_init: et_rxlazy_framecnt set to 0x20
et_module_init: et_rxlazy_dyn_thresh set to 0
fwd0: Broadcom BCM47XX 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet Controller 7.14.131.4402 (r628786)
fwd1: Broadcom BCM47XX 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet Controller 7.14.131.4402 (r628786)
eth0: Broadcom BCM47XX 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet Controller 7.14.131.4402 (r628786)
PCI_PROBE:  bus 3, slot 0,vendor 14E4, device 4365(good PCI location)
PCI: Enabling device 0001:03:00.0 (0140 -> 0142)
dhd_attach(): thread:dhd_watchdog_thread:186 started
ring_info_raw: 56
dc 53 3f 00 ac 64 3f 00 c0 66 3f 00 d4 68 3f 00
da 68 3f 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 0a 01 00 00
CUR_ETHERADDR : 6
9c 5c 8e 4b 9b c0
Dongle Host Driver, version 1.369.1 (r628771)
Compiled in drivers/net/wireless/bcmdhd on May 30 2016 at 12:03:39
Register interface [eth1]  MAC: 9c:5c:8e:4b:9b:c0

PCI_PROBE:  bus 4, slot 0,vendor 14E4, device 4365(good PCI location)
PCI: Enabling device 0001:04:00.0 (0140 -> 0142)
dhd_attach(): thread:dhd_watchdog_thread:18a started
dhd_detach(): thread:dhd_watchdog_thread:18a terminated OK
dhd_attach(): thread:dhd_watchdog_thread:18b started
dhd_detach(): thread:dhd_watchdog_thread:18b terminated OK
dhd_attach(): thread:dhd_watchdog_thread:18c started
dhd_detach(): thread:dhd_watchdog_thread:18c terminated OK
dhd_attach(): thread:dhd_watchdog_thread:18d started
dhd_detach(): thread:dhd_watchdog_thread:18d terminated OK
dhd_attach(): thread:dhd_watchdog_thread:18e started
dhd_detach(): thread:dhd_watchdog_thread:18e terminated OK
PCI_PROBE:  bus 1, slot 0,vendor 14E4, device 4365(good PCI location)
PCI: Enabling device 0002:01:00.0 (0140 -> 0142)
dhd_attach(): thread:dhd_watchdog_thread:18f started
ring_info_raw: 56
dc 53 3f 00 ac 64 3f 00 c0 66 3f 00 d4 68 3f 00
da 68 3f 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 0a 01 00 00
CUR_ETHERADDR : 6
9c 5c 8e 4b 9b c8
Dongle Host Driver, version 1.369.1 (r628771)
Compiled in drivers/net/wireless/bcmdhd on May 30 2016 at 12:03:39
Register interface [eth2]  MAC: 9c:5c:8e:4b:9b:c8

So, is it the hardware problem for sure? Or can it be still the software problem (e.g. CFE misconfiguration)?

 

[hggomes]

HW issue, RMA it.

Quite cases on RT-AC5300 model like your shared here in the forum, definitely something wrong on that model.