Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 20:05 Post subject: Bricked Asus RT-N16
According to the peacock thread i have a bricked router...
"A brick will normally not respond to pings at all. Often, all the lan lights and the power light are lit when a router is bricked, even those with no cable in the lan port."
This is exactly what i am getting even after trying 30-30-30 several times. I have tested both my lan cable and port on the PC and both work fine with my regular trendnet router, but nothing happens when i connect the RT-N16. Obviously i am getting "PING: transmit failed. General failure." when trying to ping the router (pc running win 7 64 bit).
I have no idea whether the router has stock firmware or has been flashed with dd-wrt, tomato or whatever else since it was in this inaccessible condition to begin with.
Aside from taking the router apart and going wild on it with a soldering iron in hopes that i don't melt the whole thing into a pile of burning plastic and then attempting to flash it using the jtag port, is there anything else i can try to unbrick it?
After a little digging i've found that this router has serial pins which means that serial recovery is possible right? However...
"You MUST have a working boot loader on the router to use serial commands. If your boot loader is corrupted, you MUST use jtag to recover."
Unless i have stupidly missed something obvious then my PC can't even see that the router is connected let alone get any pings to it. So i have no idea what state the bootloader is in.
ping the router. ttl=64 is bootloader. ttl=100 is the firmware.
get a copy of tftp2, open/run it, and put 192.168.1.1 in server box, set it to flash factory firmware, and type 10 for number of retries. now to the router...
...hook it up to ethernet but keep it powered off. on your computer, set a static ip like 192.168.1.10, 255.255.255.0 for subnet, and 192.168.1.1 for gateway. now onto tftp2....
...click upgrade and then turn on the router. you either instantly or shortly after see a box saying "upgrading flash". from there on, let the router do its thing. let it sit for either 3-5 minutes or until "the lightshow is over" and the router shows its default lights when in operating mode
Before i go through the trouble of looking for the appropriate firmware and that tftp exe, is it even worth doing when my network adapter doesn't react to the router being connected at all? I have some very limited experience of flashing bricked terrestrial television decoders via serial port but i am no expert. Is it possible to force flash a router via lan cable when i am getting no confirmation of the connection even being made?
Edit: Well according to a tftp guide on netgear site i have to be able to ping the router which i am unable to do.
http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/19841/~/reinstall-the-firmware-on-a-router-without-the-setup-cd-recovery-tool
I did set my network adapter to the static IP etc, but i fail to see the point of all that when my PC just doesn't see anything on the other end of that LAN cable. "transmit failed" is all i am getting from pinging.
Last edited by atsaldetais on Thu Jan 30, 2014 21:42; edited 1 time in total
Just do a serial recovery if you have the equipment. _________________ SIG:
I'm trying to teach you to fish, not give you a fish. If you just want a fish, wait for a fisherman who hands them out. I'm more of a fishing instructor.
LOM: "If you show that you have not bothered to read the forum announcements or to follow the advices in them then the level of help available for you will drop substantially, also known as Murrkf's law.."
Just do a serial recovery if you have the equipment.
I'm afraid i do not. I do have a bunch of scrap cables and wires and one of my older PC's has a serial and a printer port too. Could this be enough or do i need a circuit of some sorts between the PC and router to reduce voltage or whatever?
Sorry. Time for serial. At least the rt-n16 I did serial on already had the header soldered in. Maybe yours does too. _________________ I am far from a guru, I'm barely a novice.
Sorry. Time for serial. At least the rt-n16 I did serial on already had the header soldered in. Maybe yours does too.
If you mean the 4 pins yeah i can see them through the went holes, that's why i'm asking about the serial recovery. For jtag i would have to do soldering on the board in which case i rather return the router to the seller getting at least a partial refund, highly unlikely that i would also get refunded for postage...
Serial may work. It's fun to try. Where are you located. I can try for you if you not have a serial cable and are willing to pay two way shipping. _________________ I am far from a guru, I'm barely a novice.
Just do a serial recovery if you have the equipment.
I'm afraid i do not. I do have a bunch of scrap cables and wires and one of my older PC's has a serial and a printer port too. Could this be enough or do i need a circuit of some sorts between the PC and router to reduce voltage or whatever?
You need a level shifting ttl serial, not some random loose cables. See the serial recovery wiki if you wish to do it yourself. _________________ SIG:
I'm trying to teach you to fish, not give you a fish. If you just want a fish, wait for a fisherman who hands them out. I'm more of a fishing instructor.
LOM: "If you show that you have not bothered to read the forum announcements or to follow the advices in them then the level of help available for you will drop substantially, also known as Murrkf's law.."
You need a level shifting ttl serial, not some random loose cables. See the serial recovery wiki if you wish to do it yourself.
Figured as much. Unfortunately i won't get anything like this from local retailers and it'll probably take a month or longer to ship one from an ebay seller.
