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Asus RT-N66U stuck in rescue mode after a reboot ...

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Like i have said on my first post you must disable completly your firewall if you want to make sure the ICMP packets are reaching the router, i'm 100% sure you are blocking them or you could never upload the FW via Asus Recovery Tool, and it doesnt surprise me either if that's the root / main cause of your bricked device, it's never a good idea having firewalls running when messing with FWs, i remember that kind of scenario in the past when ESET Firewall was running, i noticed the problem when i set it to Interactive Mode (real time), it was blocking what it shouln't.
 
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I found something very interesting it seems that my router ignored all the reset tries and FW recovery and still store it's last working 192.168.7.1 as it's ip so i did config the lan adapter to 192.168.7.11/255.255.255.0 and now the router is ping-able while i'm speaking i'm trying the asus recovery tool and if it's not gonna work I'll try tftpd32
 
IF ASUS Recovery Utility can find it than you must ping it without a problem, check if the router IP is correct...

It will work just fine, as usual the problem is PEBKAC. :)
 
Ok asus recovery tool didn't work, after router reboot it's back to rescue mode , will try tftpd32 ...

EDIT : After using TFTPD32 the upload was a success ... but after the router self reboot .. it's back to rescue mode !! , I'm gonna dig in more in Linux as the 1st thing I encounter in Linux is the "tftp" didn't work in terminal .
 
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Serial cable will tell you what is happening, since you don't have warranty on the router, just open it and give it a try.
 
After the last try the ASUSTeK - CFE miniWEB Server start working but that didn't solve anything further , I'm gonna see if I can get USB to Serial TTL as hggomes suggest , will report if I can make any progress , can you point to a beginner guide on how to use this serial cable ? I'm searching on the net for such thing , is it working on Linux only ?
hggomes, wh7qq thank you for your help.
 
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I would order this one. http://www.dx.com/p/usb-ttl-converting-board-207841#.VdKHc0r3aK0
The adapter should have the pins labeled. You will only need to use ground, tx and rx.
You can use windows.
Plug the adapter in, it should download the drivers.
Then download a program called putty.

Open up the router. 4 screws under the rubber feet.
Look for 4 pins labeled vcc, ground, tx and rx. Only use ground tx and rx.
Plug 3 wires into the router's serial pins and 3 in the adapter.
Rx from the adapter to tx on the board, tx from the adapter to rx on the board.
Configure putty this way.
Serial line = The COM port your using for serial (check in device manager if need be. )
Speed (baud) = 115200
Data bits = 8
Stop bits = 1
Parity = None
Flow control = None

Have the router connected to the pc with an Ethernet cable to a lan port.
Power up the router. You should see output in putty. If you don't, turn off the router and cross the rx and tx wires.
If you see output, you need to quickly hit the Control and the C key at the same time to stop the boot process.
You should then see a cfe> prompt.
Type, nvram erase, then hit enter.
Have the firmware ready to tftp.
Type: flash -noheader : flash1.trx hit enter then upload the firmware.

You should be running a continuous ping: ping 192.168.1.1 -t
When you do the nvram erase the ping response should be ttl=100.
When the router is done, if it works it should be ttl=64.
 
After the last try the ASUSTeK - CFE miniWEB Server start working but that didn't solve anything further , I'm gonna see if I can get USB to Serial TTL as hggomes suggest , will report if I can make any progress , can you point to a beginner guide on how to use this serial cable ? I'm searching on the net for such thing , is it working on Linux only ?
hggomes, wh7qq thank you for your help.

Have your tried cleaning the NVRAM on the CFE miniWEB Server link?
 
Yes I did , it reset the router back to it's default IP 192.168.1.1 but again nothing further , I'm gonna see if I can find the serial cable in our local market if not then I need to order it online and wait .
 
Good luck. :)
 
I would order this one. http://www.dx.com/p/usb-ttl-converting-board-207841#.VdKHc0r3aK0
The adapter should have the pins labeled. You will only need to use ground, tx and rx.
You can use windows.
Plug the adapter in, it should download the drivers.
Then download a program called putty.

Open up the router. 4 screws under the rubber feet.
Look for 4 pins labeled vcc, ground, tx and rx. Only use ground tx and rx.
Plug 3 wires into the router's serial pins and 3 in the adapter.
Rx from the adapter to tx on the board, tx from the adapter to rx on the board.
Configure putty this way.
Serial line = The COM port your using for serial (check in device manager if need be. )
Speed (baud) = 115200
Data bits = 8
Stop bits = 1
Parity = None
Flow control = None

Have the router connected to the pc with an Ethernet cable to a lan port.
Power up the router. You should see output in putty. If you don't, turn off the router and cross the rx and tx wires.
If you see output, you need to quickly hit the Control and the C key at the same time to stop the boot process.
You should then see a cfe> prompt.
Type, nvram erase, then hit enter.
Have the firmware ready to tftp.
Type: flash -noheader : flash1.trx hit enter then upload the firmware.

You should be running a continuous ping: ping 192.168.1.1 -t
When you do the nvram erase the ping response should be ttl=100.
When the router is done, if it works it should be ttl=64.

Thanks alot very good guide , today I bought the USB-TTL Converting Board from local market (it was expensive ) so I start reading about using the TTL and when I powered the router it worked , it seems shutting down the router for few days did some discharge or something , anyway it's back to work now thanks everyone .
 
It happened again after normal reboot the router stuck in recovery mode ... now after connecting through serial and using PuTTY and tftpd32 I'm gonna put the info I got from PuTTY :

CFE version 5.100.138.20 based on BBP 1.0.37 for BCM947XX (32bit,SP,LE)
.
.
Boot partition size = 262144(0x40000)
et0: Broadcom BCM47XX 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet Controller 5.100.138.20
CPU type 0x19749: 600MHz
Tot mem: 131072 KBytes

CFE mem: 0x80700000 - 0x80935930 (2316592)
Data: 0x8072F740 - 0x807329A0 (12896)
BSS: 0x807329A0 - 0x80733930 (3984)
Heap: 0x80733930 - 0x80933930 (2097152)
Stack: 0x80933930 - 0x80935930 (8192)
Text: 0x80700000 - 0x8072F73C (194364)
.
.
.
CFE> nvram erase
*** command status = 0
CFE> flash -noheader : flash1.trx
Reading :: TFTP Server.
TFTP_BLKLEN!!
Done. 26271744 bytes read
Download of 0x190e000 bytes completed
Write kernel and filesystem binary to FLASH
Programming...
copysize=26271744, amtcopy=26271744
done. 26271744 bytes written

it ends here , I don't get "CFE>" prompt again , I'm gonna leave it there and wait (I have the power led on , no blinking )
 
Look at your memory size, you have a faulty memory / HW problem in there.
 
I didn't noticed that, 128MB out of 256MB RAM is down ... officially bricked , any recommendation for something more reliable , I know ASUS suppose to be good but I'm not gonna buy ASUS again.
 
No, its normal, i connected on mine in here just to check/confirm, its OK. :)

I guess CFE only allocate 128MB for some reason.
 
Really !!! so what do you suggest to do ? wait for PuTTY ? cause it's still there , I didn't closed it .
 
Something really weird is happening in there, wait probably a few more time and check if it worked for you, if not i guess you will have to try it again.

But IMO you have something wrong in there, it could be something with the router HW...

You can also check your CFE version, its not the first time we see funky CFEs versions like 1.0.1.2 on RT-N66U or 1.0.1.9 on RT-AC56U.
 

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