Bricked RAX50

[liqili2005]

My first ever post of SNB so please go easy on me.

I have a Netgear RAX50 and I tried to flash a merlin firmware however thing's going well with the new firmware and it didn't boot. Then I hooked up the serial cable and entered the console and I saw it stayed on a line showed as below. Then I typed some default value and it went to the cfe commnad line. Then I enter the command - reset and the router rebooted then it seems bricked(stopping at a line saying wrong memory size specified) as shown in the second photo.


My router has 512MB ram and 256MB flash but it seems the CFE was misconfigured as 8GB ram. I just flashed the firmware and I can't figure out why it can alter the CFE config. The reset button doesn't work at all. I also can't find the JTAG port. I also attached the photos of the board.

Any advice or help is appreciated. Thank you in advance!

 

[microchip]

You cannot flash/use RMerlin firmware on non-ASUS/NETGEAR routers! Who gave you the stupid idea to flash your RAX50 with Merlin's firmware?

 

[sfx2000]

I have a Netgear RAX50 and I tried to flash a merlin firmware however thing's going well with the new firmware and it didn't boot. Then I hooked up the serial cable and entered the console and I saw it stayed on a line showed as below. Then I typed some default value and it went to the cfe commnad line. Then I enter the command - reset and the router rebooted then it seems bricked(stopping at a line saying wrong memory size specified) as shown in the second photo.

Well - you're probably toast at this point - if you're in warranty, I'd reach out to support and play dumb - "used to work, now it doesn't"

If you don't have a backup for the CFE, you're done unless someone can source one, and then go into rescue mode and load up the netgear firmware - that should get the router up and going, but there's a good chance that you've smoked the RF cal info along the MAC addresses and other useful things.

 

[liqili2005]

I do have the backup of mtd0 partition, but I don't have a way to flash it. If I can find the jtag port that would be easy. Currently there is nothing mentioned online about this chipset and it's a black box to me.

 

[liqili2005]

I have checked the J2 tag beside the UART tag, it doesn't look like a JTAG as per measurement of the pin voltage.

 

[liqili2005]

You cannot flash/use RMerlin firmware on non-ASUS/NETGEAR routers! Who gave you the stupid idea to flash your RAX50 with Merlin's firmware?

It's my silly idea. I think it shouldn't be that bad it will corrupt the CFE.

 

[monocle]

I totally bricked my RAX50 using the Netgear IOS app. The router has a build in firmware flash sequence supported by hardware rom (no-flashable = still working after bad flash). Look at the links in this thread: https://community.netgear.com/t5/Ni...wk-RAX50-when-upgrading-firmware/td-p/2116139

You need to pay attention to my last comment in the thread. Timing is everything when trying to flash. I needed some attempts before I got it working.

If you really really really want to run Merlin, this Chinese site has working firmware (I am running it). I figure out that the chinese is already controlling my routers so what the hell. https://fw.koolcenter.com/KoolCenter_Merlin_New_Gen_386/Netgear/RAX50

I flashed the 5.2 chk file.

I have run it in both router and access point mode with great success.

 

[Hawk]

Using Asus firmware non-Asus router is forbidden, including discussion related to it. You can read more about it here

[Announcement] Running Asuswrt-Merlin and forks on non-Asus devices is ILLEGAL

Asuswrt-Merlin contains numerous proprietary components that are only licensed for legal use on original Asus devices. These include (but are not limited to) components from Asus themselves, Broadcom, Trend Micro and Tuxera. Using any of these components on devices for which they haven't been...

www.snbforums.com

 

[sfx2000]

If you really really really want to run Merlin

then buy an Asus router - there's 3rd party code that is directly licensed to Asus for their hardware only...

 

[RMerlin]

As others indicated, Asuswrt and Asuswrt-Merlin are only legally usable on Asus routers. Discussions on running it on other manufacturer's hardware is not allowed on these forums. Locking this.