kintamanate
New Around Here
Hello,
I'll break my story into 3 parts, history, issue(s) and what I've tried, if you want to skim or just read ahead.
My life's story
About 8 years ago I started out with an AC68U. I used Asus and Merlin firmware on it. Two years ago when I moved into a bigger place I got an AC86U to put both into AiMesh mode. At the time Merlin didn't have AiMesh capability so I flashed it (AC68U) with stock Asus firmware, updating regularly, but skipping every few updates, TBH.
For the last 6-8 months I'd have sporadic disconnects from the network (WiFi only), but my devices would fall back to my ISP's WiFi router signal which was still broadcasting for guests (being completely isolated from the rest of my network services). My parents had the AC68U and were tired of the lack of WiFi in the whole home so about a month ago they switched to Orbi mesh and 3 nodes. When I was resetting to factory I saw that Merlin had updated and AiMesh was available in the firmware. Having fond memories of Merlin firmware, last week I flashed both the AC68U and AC86U firmware to Merin, specifically RT-AC68U_384.17_0 and RT-AC86U_384.17_0. I came from FW_RT_AC68U_300438481049 and FW_RT_AC86U_300438481049.
Issue(s)
From Thursday, 3 days after the flashing my partner had complained about steaming shows stuttering and cutting audio out. This was happening with streaming shows from the internet and videos over the network. Friday I saw first hand on Amazon Prime a show would stream normally, notice picture degradation 1-2 second audio gap, then the picture came back to normal (this was connected via LAN). Happened a few times over the course of the episode. I had some other projects I was working on in the office so I didn't get to do anything with it until Sunday...but that was too late. It was mid afternoon and all of a sudden my wired and wireless connection dropped. I couldn't connect to my Asus router at all. I went to physically look at the AC86U router to manually reboot it and saw that there were no lights on except for a steady white light on port 4.
To this moment whether I have a LAN cable plugged into any of the LAN ports or not, only 4's light is on. No power lights, no WiFi lights, no activity lights, not even the white light on the Asus logo at the back of the router is on like on the AC68U. For all intents and purposes I do not have an AC86U router on my network.
What I've tried
Tried using the WPS method
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/ac86u-seems-to-be-stuck-in-boot-loop-after-firmware-update.49585/
https://icr-am.asus.com/webchat/icr...-US&treeId=AM.US.EN-US.Network&tenantId=EN-US
Tried the Asus Firmware recovery method (no power light, so no blinking power light), and various combinations of button presses 5, 10, 20 second holds of the reset button before and during power on.
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/a...-boot-loop-after-firmware-update.49585/page-3 Retried the above method plugged into all 4 ports.
Each time I tried to do a portscan using Angry IP scanner and it only saw my PC's IP I set to 192.168.1.10.
No matter what I do, the port #4 light is the only light that remains constant.
I know I'm doing the firmware recovery method properly because I successfully performed it on the AC68U node so I can have at least that one working as a standalone until I can repair the AC86U. As of right now it's on stock Asus 3.0.0.4.385__20490.
What else can I try to bring life back into my AC86U?
TL;DR
Flashed AC68U and AC86U from stock ASUS to Merlin firmware RT-AC68U_384.17_0 and RT-AC86U_384.17_0, respectively. Worked, okay (sort of) for a few days, but wired and wireless connections while streaming were cutting out more frequently than it ever did on stock Asus firmware. Few days after flashing the AC86U completely died except for a steady white light on LAN port 4. Nothing I've done (see above) has made a difference. No power lights of any kind, no connection of any kind, LAN port 4 is the only light on.
Update
My router was returned. Repair notes indicate they just swapped out the whole unit.
I'll break my story into 3 parts, history, issue(s) and what I've tried, if you want to skim or just read ahead.
My life's story
About 8 years ago I started out with an AC68U. I used Asus and Merlin firmware on it. Two years ago when I moved into a bigger place I got an AC86U to put both into AiMesh mode. At the time Merlin didn't have AiMesh capability so I flashed it (AC68U) with stock Asus firmware, updating regularly, but skipping every few updates, TBH.
For the last 6-8 months I'd have sporadic disconnects from the network (WiFi only), but my devices would fall back to my ISP's WiFi router signal which was still broadcasting for guests (being completely isolated from the rest of my network services). My parents had the AC68U and were tired of the lack of WiFi in the whole home so about a month ago they switched to Orbi mesh and 3 nodes. When I was resetting to factory I saw that Merlin had updated and AiMesh was available in the firmware. Having fond memories of Merlin firmware, last week I flashed both the AC68U and AC86U firmware to Merin, specifically RT-AC68U_384.17_0 and RT-AC86U_384.17_0. I came from FW_RT_AC68U_300438481049 and FW_RT_AC86U_300438481049.
Issue(s)
From Thursday, 3 days after the flashing my partner had complained about steaming shows stuttering and cutting audio out. This was happening with streaming shows from the internet and videos over the network. Friday I saw first hand on Amazon Prime a show would stream normally, notice picture degradation 1-2 second audio gap, then the picture came back to normal (this was connected via LAN). Happened a few times over the course of the episode. I had some other projects I was working on in the office so I didn't get to do anything with it until Sunday...but that was too late. It was mid afternoon and all of a sudden my wired and wireless connection dropped. I couldn't connect to my Asus router at all. I went to physically look at the AC86U router to manually reboot it and saw that there were no lights on except for a steady white light on port 4.
To this moment whether I have a LAN cable plugged into any of the LAN ports or not, only 4's light is on. No power lights, no WiFi lights, no activity lights, not even the white light on the Asus logo at the back of the router is on like on the AC68U. For all intents and purposes I do not have an AC86U router on my network.
What I've tried
Tried using the WPS method
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/ac86u-seems-to-be-stuck-in-boot-loop-after-firmware-update.49585/
https://icr-am.asus.com/webchat/icr...-US&treeId=AM.US.EN-US.Network&tenantId=EN-US
Tried the Asus Firmware recovery method (no power light, so no blinking power light), and various combinations of button presses 5, 10, 20 second holds of the reset button before and during power on.
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/a...-boot-loop-after-firmware-update.49585/page-3 Retried the above method plugged into all 4 ports.
Each time I tried to do a portscan using Angry IP scanner and it only saw my PC's IP I set to 192.168.1.10.
No matter what I do, the port #4 light is the only light that remains constant.
I know I'm doing the firmware recovery method properly because I successfully performed it on the AC68U node so I can have at least that one working as a standalone until I can repair the AC86U. As of right now it's on stock Asus 3.0.0.4.385__20490.
What else can I try to bring life back into my AC86U?
TL;DR
Flashed AC68U and AC86U from stock ASUS to Merlin firmware RT-AC68U_384.17_0 and RT-AC86U_384.17_0, respectively. Worked, okay (sort of) for a few days, but wired and wireless connections while streaming were cutting out more frequently than it ever did on stock Asus firmware. Few days after flashing the AC86U completely died except for a steady white light on LAN port 4. Nothing I've done (see above) has made a difference. No power lights of any kind, no connection of any kind, LAN port 4 is the only light on.
Update
My router was returned. Repair notes indicate they just swapped out the whole unit.
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