[Q] Might have brick the new TM-AC1900 during flash.

[tg9413]

Here is the run down of what happened.
I was trying to flash the TM-AC1900 to stock asus firmware.

First I had some trouble getting to the router respond to the firmware restoration utility, so I went ahead and just did the html hack on the web GUI and enabled telnet.

Next I followed one of the youtube video to patch up the cfe file with mac address read out from the new TM-AC1900. I double checked all 3 mac address is changed properly.
Now, here is the thing, that particular video didn't mention anything about I have to patch up the WPS pin as well, so I went ahead flashed the cfe file with just 3 patched address. But I read somewhere that just going to set my WPS pin to 123456 as default.

Right after flashing, I tried to use the holding WPS button method to erase the NVRAM. LED indication seems alright, after holding the WPS button while powering up the router the power button did flash rapidly till I release.

Situation now is the router is booting up fine. The power led is solid, lan port led is correctly indicating the port I am connecting to, and whenever I try to ping the router it did flashes. No other led is on, no wifi, or even the logo at the rear is lit up. I can't ping / telnet / browser to router on 192.168.1.1/192.168.29.1 with either DHCP or manually setting static IP. I am just getting a bogus 164.x.x.x ip assigned to me after an extended period of time. I can still using the reset button to put the router into recovery mode ( at least from the power led blinking state shows), but the restoration utility can't find it, tried to tftp the firmware file to it getting Connect request failed error from powershell. holding WPS to erase NVRAM seems responding alright, at least the led flash rapidly till I release, but whether it actually does anything I am not quiet sure.

So is the this new router is gone for good or there is still some hope? with all the button combo still working and led showing its correct status, I think I am not at the point of no return yet. I have a n66u for couple years now, and actually at times can't do anything to it to get it back online, but after letting it sit out for couple days thing magically came back again.

Any input will be much appreciated!

Regards
G

 

[tg9413]

Got it fixed.
Went through a 30-30-30 resest. Then manually setting the IP to 192.169.1.10, and ran the firmware restoration tool again.
One thing i noticed here vs my old n66u, this new router seem to be a window ( and a rather short one ) where the router will actually be in recovery mode, even afterward the power led will still just keep blinking slowly. Thus I can't connect to it via firmware restoration utilities a while ago, I keep waiting windows to settle on identifying the network.

 

[Hien]

Got it fixed.
Went through a 30-30-30 resest. Then manually setting the IP to 192.169.1.10, and ran the firmware restoration tool again.
One thing i noticed here vs my old n66u, this new router seem to be a window ( and a rather short one ) where the router will actually be in recovery mode, even afterward the power led will still just keep blinking slowly. Thus I can't connect to it via firmware restoration utilities a while ago, I keep waiting windows to settle on identifying the network.

Hi,
I am having the same problem as you. got the to same point after flashing that 3 files and seems like my router got bricked. I tried to do the 30/30/30 but it seems like nothing is working. how are you setting the ip manually? any help will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Hien

 

[tg9413]

Hi,
I am having the same problem as you. got the to same point after flashing that 3 files and seems like my router got bricked. I tried to do the 30/30/30 but it seems like nothing is working. how are you setting the ip manually? any help will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Hien

To be honest, when I was at that point i was a bit desperate, and tried a lot of reset method in sequence. 30/30/30 follow by pressing WPS button while off and turn on power while continuously holding it for about 20~30sec more, then just holding reset while the router is on, so I don't know if any of those helped. But one thing I am pretty sure is that my NVRAM is probably not properly cleaned with the WPS button.

What end up helped me is that, I manually set up my network adapter ip to 192.168.1.10 / 255.255.255.0, then open up firmware restoration utilities and select the firmware asus 376.3626, the one that supposed expend your rootfs to 64mb, but don't click upload yet. connect your pc to your router on lan port 1 while off. Then hold the reset button and turn on the router while keep holding the reset button until the power led start blinking slowly. At that point don't wait for your network to do all the identifying stuff, just quickly click upload on the firmware restoration. I kept waiting for too long to see if windows can detect the router gateway before I upload the firmware from the previous fail trials.

In my case that's what saved my router, i just wait till the restoration finished, and fully booted with all the wifi led are on etc... then switch the network adapter back to DHCP.

One note is that after restoration, the gateway still stuck at 192.168.29.1 and default login still admin/password from the T-Mo version, even after restored with a asus firmware, I had to do a factory reset in the web ui to get it reset to 192.168.1.1. So I think my nvram reset didn't do any cleaning thus maybe lead to things getting stuck.

Hope this helps you, don't get frustrated if things aren't working out, might take couple tries to get that firmware restoration to start kick in. Timing on clicking that upload is very important... at least in my case.

Good luck~

 

[tg9413]

Also try disable all the other network adapter like wifi adapter, any vpn / vm network adapter, and only leave the one you connecting to the router enabled.

 

[Hien]

To be honest, when I was at that point i was a bit desperate, and tried a lot of reset method in sequence. 30/30/30 follow by pressing WPS button while off and turn on power while continuously holding it for about 20~30sec more, then just holding reset while the router is on, so I don't know if any of those helped. But one thing I am pretty sure is that my NVRAM is probably not properly cleaned with the WPS button.

What end up helped me is that, I manually set up my network adapter ip to 192.168.1.10 / 255.255.255.0, then open up firmware restoration utilities and select the firmware asus 376.3626, the one that supposed expend your rootfs to 64mb, but don't click upload yet. connect your pc to your router on lan port 1 while off. Then hold the reset button and turn on the router while keep holding the reset button until the power led start blinking slowly. At that point don't wait for your network to do all the identifying stuff, just quickly click upload on the firmware restoration. I kept waiting for too long to see if windows can detect the router gateway before I upload the firmware from the previous fail trials.

In my case that's what saved my router, i just wait till the restoration finished, and fully booted with all the wifi led are on etc... then switch the network adapter back to DHCP.

One note is that after restoration, the gateway still stuck at 192.168.29.1 and default login still admin/password from the T-Mo version, even after restored with a asus firmware, I had to do a factory reset in the web ui to get it reset to 192.168.1.1. So I think my nvram reset didn't do any cleaning thus maybe lead to things getting stuck.

Hope this helps you, don't get frustrated if things aren't working out, might take couple tries to get that firmware restoration to start kick in. Timing on clicking that upload is very important... at least in my case.

Good luck~

Thanks for taking your time and write this up! Very much appreciated. But man... I think I bricked it. I tried, and can never get the power led to blink. The only light stay on is the USB 2 and the LAN port that is plugged to my computer. It is frustrating. I will keep on trying.

Thanks and again I appreciate your time!
Hien

 

[tg9413]

Thanks for taking your time and write this up! Very much appreciated. But man... I think I bricked it. I tried, and can never get the power led to blink. The only light stay on is the USB 2 and the LAN port that is plugged to my computer. It is frustrating. I will keep on trying.

Thanks and again I appreciate your time!
Hien

No problem, i know it sucks to just staring a brand new router and can't do much with it.
Here is another post that I dig up during my recovery process, it's a bit more involving that you gonna need some external cables to gain access to the terminal via cables. I can't say for sure it will work or not, but the people in that post are certainly more knowledge than me. So you may try ask over there to see if you can get any help.
http://www.snbforums.com/threads/tm...d-while-flashing-from-tomato-to-merlin.29077/

Good luck.