New Asus AC88U Bricked when installing Merlinwrt

[izzner]

Make sure you use LAN ports 1 through 4 with your recovery computer. 5 through 8 are on a different switch, which probably doesn't work in recovery mode.

i tried that but still nothing... it just wont ping..

is there anyway i can mount a flash drive in console ??

may be i can dd a img to the mtdblock(linux)

 

[RMerlin]

i tried that but still nothing... it just wont ping..

is there anyway i can mount a flash drive in console ??

may be i can dd a img to the mtdblock(linux)

Not that I know of.

Your CFE output confirms that the router's network interface was properly configured for 192.168.1.1, so I see no reason why it would fail to communicate with a client connected over Ethernet.

 

[izzner]

can you give me nvram settings for AC88U.
May be some settingis preventing it from enabling eth
i have done a hard reset and nvram erase but above is just a hunch...

 

[hggomes]

The NVRAM was cleaned already (WDS button procedure), so defaults settings are there.

You are definitely failing in some step, your router is not bricked.

You see the POWER LED blinking and still can't ping it?

 

[ElectronDF]

AC88= 8 lan ports
Ac3100 = 4 lan port

Thank you.

 

[sfx2000]

The NVRAM was cleaned already (WDS button procedure), so defaults settings are there.

You are definitely failing in some step, your router is not bricked.

Definitely missing a step somewhere, as Recovery should just work, but the steps need to be followed exactly...

Asus could have done the world a favor and not included Chinese in the screenshots, IMHO... and I would pick LAN4 as the port for the local PC, as that is pretty consistent across all the screenshots.

 

[izzner]

almost impossible to kill these things
........

https://www.asus.com/support/faq/1000814/

Thanks for the above hint..

My hunch was 100% correct

1)I erased the NVRAM couple of times(CFE> nvram erase)

Then i went on the hunch that the existing firmware(wrong firmware as stated by Merlin) was somehow messing some nvram settings.

2)So i did a complete reset(WPS button+PowerOn) and through Putty went to CFE> and backed up NVRAM default settings using Putty Log file(CFE> nvram Show)

3)Then allowed the wrong firmware to load (CFE>go) and went to the Firmware Console(Press "Enter" Key during boot in Putty)

4)Once at the console
>cat /proc/mtd
to list all mtd partitions
that showed me all the partitions/mtdblocks

i knew i should not touch the mtd0 as it is where CFE is kept
and the rest i could safely erase to force CFE to get into recovery

/#mtd-erase2 nvram
above was successful
/#mtd-erase2 linux
above was successful
/#mtd-erase2 rootfs
above gave error
/#mtd-erase2 brcmnand
above gave error
/#mtd-erase2 asus
above gave error
/#reboot

5)At next boot as expected CFE halted saying unable to load image blah blah blah
again no ping
I did reboot
again no ping so i again did a out put of the nvram settings using putty and compared it it default settings already with me taken at Step 2 and compared them
and "eureka"
For some unknown reasons
et1macaddr=xxx
0:macaddr=xxx
1:macaddr=xxx
vlan1ports=xxx
vlan2ports=xxx

were not the same
so i manually specified the following from by output from step 2

CFE>nvram erase
CFE>nvram set et1macaddr=1C:B7:xx:74:xx:68
CFE>nvram set 0:macaddr=1C:B7:xx:74:xx:68
CFE>nvram set 1:macaddr=1C:B7:xx:74:xx:6C
CFE>nvram set lan_ipaddr=192.168.1.1
CFE>nvram set lan_netmask=255.255.255.0
CFE>nvram set lan_gateway=192.168.1.2
CFE>nvram set vlan1ports=1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8*
CFE>nvram set vlan2ports=
CFE>nvram commit
CFE>Reboot

PLEASE NOTE I HAVE HIDDEN THE MAC ADDRESS with XX

and did a (Reset+Power Button) to directly go to recovery
Ping achieved..
and restored sucessfully with ASUS Firmware restoration Utility...

 

[chris n]

this post has been immensely helpful. i have a RT-AC-88u thats pretty much bricked.


CFE is working however, and i can interupt and jump into it. i dont seem to have mtd5.
anyone have ideas on how to get that theyre? if i boot this guy it always seem to boot loop, always crashed at the same point. sorry for hijacking your thread,but it seemed to be the only thing i see from your rtr and mine, is you have a mtd5 named asus. im trying to mount this/create this and then try to flash again,maybe then i get boot this guy out of CFE.




/ # cat /proc/mtd
dev: size erasesize name
mtd0: 00080000 00020000 "boot"
mtd1: 00180000 00020000 "nvram"
mtd2: 03e00000 00020000 "linux"
mtd3: 03c49e38 00020000 "rootfs"
mtd4: 04000000 00020000 "brcmnand"
/ #
/ # df -h
Filesystem Size Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/root 32.9M 32.9M 0 100% /
devtmpfs 251.5M 0 251.5M 0% /dev
tmpfs 251.6M 32.0K 251.6M 0% /tmp