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GT-AC5300 wireless radio off / will not turn on

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Tlacaelel Flores

New Around Here
So I have this router which any time I want to make configuration changes to it, which I should be able to change the settings as I please, something goes wrong the router stops working (boot loop, Ethernet connects/disconnects constantly), best case scenario I can still reach the the GUI.

So, I needed to put the router temporarily in repeater mode, I went to make the changes and then WiFi is gone, 2.4 and 5 GHz both gone, the led lights remain off, the channel is set to 0, tried putting back to router and the same issue, tried rolling back to an older firmware, update to latest, put one, two, three versions older, tried clearing NVRAM, resetting, tried pretty much anything I could think off.

Usually this problems goes away after the router is been unhooked from the power for a ~day, we will see if this time is also true.

In any case, I am tired of dealing with this router, I paid good money for it because I wanted to avoid any issues yet have a strong signal, at this point my raspberry works better as a router than this Asus GT-AC5300.

In any case, I was able to reach the GUI again turned on/off WiFi and still nothing so I decided to go SSH to see if there was anyway I could figure out via shell what could be the problem, I really have never used shell on a router and found that with the wl command I could bring up and down the WiFi and probably even do some diagnosis so I ran it and got this:

Code:
tlakdev@GT-AC5300-2590:/tmp/home/root# wl ver
wl: wl driver adapter not found

and pretty much any command I run with it I get the same wl: wl driver adapter not found, then I read somewhere that some routers, don't have a chip that can be managed with wl.

So my question is, does anyone have any experience with this router or a similar one with SSH, and if so is there any command I can use to check and bring up the WiFi?

I can almost say for certain is not a hardware problem since the WiFi both 2.4 and 5 GHz were working before I started with the settings.

Another note, when I got into the shell, I checked the value of the NVRAM for the wl_radio and it was set to 0, I tried changing it to 1 and reloading the NVRAM to see if it was due to that value considering that 0 means radio is off.

Thank you all for your input.
 
What do you get from the output of this command?
Code:
nvram show | grep wl.*radio= | sort
 
Code:
tlakdev@GT-AC5300-2590:/tmp/home/root# nvram show | grep wl.*radio= | sort
size: 70094 bytes (60978 left)
wl0.1_radio=1
wl0.2_radio=1
wl0.3_radio=1
wl0_radio=1
wl1.1_radio=1
wl1.2_radio=1
wl1.3_radio=1
wl1_radio=1
wl2.1_radio=1
wl2.2_radio=1
wl2.3_radio=1
wl2_radio=1
wl_radio=1
 
Note, that is with the 3 interfaces enabled in the GUI, here is if I disabled 2.4
Code:
tlakdev@GT-AC5300-2590:/tmp/home/root# nvram show | grep wl.*radio= | sort
size: 70178 bytes (60894 left)
wl0.1_radio=1
wl0.2_radio=1
wl0.3_radio=1
wl0_radio=0
wl1.1_radio=1
wl1.2_radio=1
wl1.3_radio=1
wl1_radio=1
wl2.1_radio=1
wl2.2_radio=1
wl2.3_radio=1
wl2_radio=1
wl_radio=1

Then 2 and 5GHz 1 disabled

Code:
tlakdev@GT-AC5300-2590:/tmp/home/root# nvram show | grep wl.*radio= | sort
size: 70178 bytes (60894 left)
wl0.1_radio=1
wl0.2_radio=1
wl0.3_radio=1
wl0_radio=0
wl1.1_radio=1
wl1.2_radio=1
wl1.3_radio=1
wl1_radio=0
wl2.1_radio=1
wl2.2_radio=1
wl2.3_radio=1
wl2_radio=1
wl_radio=0

Then all three disabled

Code:
tlakdev@GT-AC5300-2590:/tmp/home/root# nvram show | grep wl.*radio= | sort
size: 70178 bytes (60894 left)
wl0.1_radio=1
wl0.2_radio=1
wl0.3_radio=1
wl0_radio=0
wl1.1_radio=1
wl1.2_radio=1
wl1.3_radio=1
wl1_radio=0
wl2.1_radio=1
wl2.2_radio=1
wl2.3_radio=1
wl2_radio=0
wl_radio=0
 
Thanks. That all looks correct. So it does appear to be a hardware issue (as indicated by the bogus "channel 0").

The usual recommendation in this situation is to unplug the power cable from the router and leave it for 5 - 10 minutes. Then turn it back on. If the problem persists it is assumed to be a hardware fault and the router needs to be replaced.
 
Thanks. That all looks correct. So it does appear to be a hardware issue (as indicated by the bogus "channel 0").

The usual recommendation in this situation is to unplug the power cable from the router and leave it for 5 - 10 minutes. Then turn it back on. If the problem persists it is assumed to be a hardware fault and the router needs to be replaced.

So you think that both interfaces got damaged because I changed the settings in the router?

Because what caused this initially was just a change of settings.

Do you know what commands (other than wl) can be used to bring the interfaces up or down?
 
So you think that both interfaces got damaged because I changed the settings in the router?
No, I think it's just a random hardware failure. It could have happened at any time. From what you said it sounds like you've had this problem coming for some time.

Do you know what commands (other than wl) can be used to bring the interfaces up or down?
With the nvram variables set correctly (as they were) then the usual command would be:
Code:
service restart_wireless
 
No, I think it's just a random hardware failure. It could have happened at any time. From what you said it sounds like you've had this problem coming for some time.


With the nvram variables set correctly (as they were) then the usual command would be:
Code:
service restart_wireless

Tried that, did not work either.

I see what you mean with the random failure, but I really have a hard time believing it happened exactly at the same time I changed a setting, it could just be a coincidence yes but still I like to see if there is anything I can try.

In any case thank you for your help.

For now I will leave the device off the power for a day, usually that does the trick, I am just tired to have to always wait for a day before I can change any settings and am trying to figure a better way.
 
Before junking the router, you may want to try the following to try to verify (once more) if it really is a hardware failure.

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/ax88-packet-loss.62891/#post-563326

Follow that up with an M&M Config and ideally a Nuclear Reset, and don't use a saved backup config file, don't 'blindly' use settings/customizations/scripts that 'once' worked either. See if the router is stable with the suggested defaults in the M&M Config guide and proceed slowly by adding your customizations (manually) one by one from there.

See the link in my signature below for the guides suggested above (and more).

HTH. :)
 
Before junking the router, you may want to try the following to try to verify (once more) if it really is a hardware failure.

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/ax88-packet-loss.62891/#post-563326

Follow that up with an M&M Config and ideally a Nuclear Reset, and don't use a saved backup config file, don't 'blindly' use settings/customizations/scripts that 'once' worked either. See if the router is stable with the suggested defaults in the M&M Config guide and proceed slowly by adding your customizations (manually) one by one from there.

See the link in my signature below for the guides suggested above (and more).

HTH. :)


Thank you, will try your suggestion, then there is also the Asus repository of the firmware for this router, if what you suggest does not work I will try modifying the firmware to add extra tools to diagnose. I will be out of the office for about two months so I wont be able to do any of this until I return.

@ColinTaylor I did wait as I usually do, about a day but this time no luck.

If I do find a solution I will post it here in case someone else runs into the same problem.
 

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