RT-AC86U finally died looking for recommendations! :D

[John Fitzgerald]

It seems pretty normal to me. Not really seeing anything wrong all around. Pretty flat on the board as well. I don't see any oddities on any other components on the board either.

View attachment 40960View attachment 40961

you could try an ohm setting with the DMM on each side, no power or

with power, try reading that part, 25V DC.

In the meantime buy a new toy.

 

[Xruptor]

you could try an ohm setting with the DMM on each side, no power or

with power, try reading that part.

In the meantime buy a new toy.

Yep I'll give that a try. In terms of the new toy, that's still a work in progress as to which lol. Seems all indications are pointing towards RT-AX86U, though I'm open to any other possibilities. I had one person whom is a friend I know tell me Ubiquiti UDM. I'm unfamiliar with those products and I had another mentioned the Netgear Nighthawk products but I had issues with those years ago. I pretty much stick to ASUS lol.

 

[Xruptor]

you could try an ohm setting with the DMM on each side, no power or

with power, try reading that part, 25V DC.

In the meantime buy a new toy.

I checked using a DMM and the capacitor was coming back with roughly 19V+ 19.5 ~ 19.8. The AC Adapter that comes with it is 19V. I'm not assuming it was going to go past that. It seems to be getting juice and technically should be working. So the only assumption I can make it's something else entirely.

 

[ColinTaylor]

@Xruptor You seem obsessed with the "age" of the router. In your OP you say "relatively new" twice and "not 3 years old" twice.

The RT-AX86U may be two years "old" but that just means it's old enough for Asus to have fixed most of the problems with it. If you like living on the bleeding edge you could go with the newer GT-AX6000. That's so new that the very first Merlin firmware for it was only released two days ago. Is that new enough for you?

 

[John Fitzgerald]

I checked using a DMM and the capacitor was coming back with roughly 19V+ 19.5 ~ 19.8. The AC Adapter that comes with it is 19V. I'm not assuming it was going to go past that. It seems to be getting juice and technically should be working. So the only assumption I can make it's something else entirely.

I took a second look around and the only thing that looked off was:

and I can't tell from photo if it's burnt or just dirty.

 

[RMerlin]

The most common cause of the symptoms to describe is a burnt voltage regulator, a common failure point on the RT-AC86U. @Tech9 might know the exact location of that regulator.

 

[Xruptor]

@Xruptor You seem obsessed with the "age" of the router. In your OP you say "relatively new" twice and "not 3 years old" twice.

The RT-AX86U may be two years "old" but that just means it's old enough for Asus to have fixed most of the problems with it. If you like living on the bleeding edge you could go with the newer GT-AX6000. That's so new that the very first Merlin firmware for it was only released two days ago. Is that new enough for you?

I know and I don't want to seem confusing. I just didn't want something that was extremely old or will be out of date soon. I don't mind if it's a year or two old as long as it's stable. In terms of bleeding edge the AX6000 seems a bit pricey for what it is. There is no harm in wanting something that isn't completely outdated if I'm going to invest the money into something. I have to balance all possibilities Age, Stability, performance, and Specs in any purchase. So yes age is a factor But only one of them not exactly the primary one. Hopefully I elaborated a bit more what I was trying to convey heh.

 

[Xruptor]

The most common cause of the symptoms to describe is a burnt voltage regulator, a common failure point on the RT-AC86U. @Tech9 might know the exact location of that regulator.

Interesting thanks for the response I did a quick search and there is another thread on this.

Is my AC86U toast?

I know this thread is old, but I wonder how many rt-ac86u has died with the same symptom, ie only LAN4 led light up. My unit just died out of warranty and its the same Buck converter MT3125 that's burnt up. This class component is usually expected to last much much longer than just a few years...

www.snbforums.com

It seems the part in question is this one according to the article.

Going back to my photo though. I'm not seeing it as damaged as that picture above. Seems pretty smooth to me. HOWEVER that doesn't mean it's not the culprit LOL. The LAN5/4 Light being the only thing that turns on seems to be consistent with what I'm reading in the article.

Oh I should point out my Router is the 2018 version which seems to have issues apparently. Wonderful.....

 

[Xruptor]

I took a second look around and the only thing that looked off was:

and I can't tell from photo if it's burnt or just dirty.

View attachment 40962

I reviewed this as well. Its only dirty. It's pretty clear it's not burned or damaged. Just poor quality photo for that section. Hard to get zoomed in photos sometimes XD. Sorry about that.

 

[John Fitzgerald]

I reviewed this as well. Its only dirty. It's pretty clear it's not burned or damaged. Just poor quality photo for that section. Hard to get zoomed in photos sometimes XD. Sorry about that.

Looking at the other post, it would appear that it's time to let it go to recycling. Flow soldering is tricky and the part is small even with a hot air setup. Not your basic do-it-yourself.

Good luck with the new purchase.

 

[Xruptor]

Looking at the other post, it would appear that it's time to let it go to recycling. Flow soldering is tricky and the part is small even with a hot air setup. Not your basic do-it-yourself.

Good luck with the new purchase.

Many thanks for all your input. I'm going to review everything and look at the models one last time and budget in pricing vs stability and age. So far it's down to two models.

 

[radeon7750]

Get the GT-AX6000. Everything is awesome about it apart from usb to lan transfer. (see my post here on the forum).

 

[Clark Griswald]

Get the GT-AX6000. Everything is awesome about it apart from usb to lan transfer. (see my post here on the forum).

Everything Is Awesome

 

[Tech9]

I'm not seeing it as damaged as that picture above.

It's one of common AC86U failures. LAN4 LED only is this U335 component on the board, MT3125. The chip is bout $1.50, but usually available in Asian online stores with slow delivery. You need hot air station to remove it and solder a new one. My advice - replace the router. It has other issues too. RT-AX86U is a popular choice around, RT-AX86S is the cheaper version, GT-AX6000 is the current fastest hardware router.

 

[SAL9K]

I had the AC86U some time back, and I was always worried about the push-button power switch failing over time (luckily it worked fine for the 2 yrs I had it), as that kind of power switch can be unreliable. With your symptoms above it doesn't quite appear to be a push-button power switch failure (you would think that was an all or nothing failure), but that would be the first thing to replace IMO. Also, the AX86U uses a much more reliable rocker style switch, which I was really happy to see.

 

[Xruptor]

I switched over to a RT-AX86U and this thing is a beast. I even got the neat Zaku Red version since it was the same price all around and was more accessible. Besides I prefer the Red color XD. Thanks everyone for their suggestions. I just need to do all the settings all over again but I'm okay with that.

 

[Fam Money]

Funny, my AC86U died last Friday and had the same exact symptoms. Thanks to all that gave Xruptor feedback on troubleshooting this issue. I was hoping it would just be a cap and would try that but sounds like this is way outta my league.

Another, funny thing is I bought an AX86U to replace it. The Zaku II edition as well. I really wanted the black but Newegg had a deal on the Zaku one so I went with it to save $30 over the black one. It actually looks better than I thought it would. Luckily I had already settled on the AX86U and was just waiting on a deal when the AC86U died. Almost went with a TP-Link mesh system but didn't like how locked down it was compared to most other routers.

Good luck with your new AX86U!

 

[Xruptor]

Funny, my AC86U died last Friday and had the same exact symptoms. Thanks to all that gave Xruptor feedback on troubleshooting this issue. I was hoping it would just be a cap and would try that but sounds like this is way outta my league.

Another, funny thing is I bought an AX86U to replace it. The Zaku II edition as well. I really wanted the black but Newegg had a deal on the Zaku one so I went with it to save $30 over the black one. It actually looks better than I thought it would. Luckily I had already settled on the AX86U and was just waiting on a deal when the AC86U died. Almost went with a TP-Link mesh system but didn't like how locked down it was compared to most other routers.

Good luck with your new AX86U!

I'm glad the post helped you out. The folks here are very helpful and tried their best to analyze and resolve my issue. Although it wasn't anything burned on the board replacing it with the AX86U Zaku edition has been night and day. So I suppose in the long run it was a good thing that my AC86U died . XD

Good luck on your AX86U Zaku edition! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Also yeah that Red color is actually REALLY nice. I'm happy I got it over the black one.