RT-AC-3200 Not Functioning

[Douglas Poole]

My apologies if this is in the wrong place/just generally incorrect, I'm brand new here. Anyways, I have a couple-year-old AC-3200 that has decided to go kaput. I may have suffered an ID10T error and went about rebooting the thing (wired connections were incredibly slow (about 200Kb/s) for no apparent reason, and rebooting has worked in the past) by pushing the power button, waiting 5 seconds, and turning it back on. It seemed to turn on fine, from what I remember, but a few minutes later the wireless network had not come back on. I went back to look, and only the #3 E-net light and the WAN light were on. No power light, nothing else. Tried to start in rescue mode: nothing. Tried to wire in with an E-net cable and search the IP, nothing. Holding the reset button does nothing, either. Both wired and wireless connections are offline. Does anyone know anything about this issue?
Edit: the LED button on the front does nothing, if that aids anyone. The only button that seems to be doing anything is the power button.

P.S.- I'm not super tech savvy, though I have some google fu skills. Please ELI5 a bit. Apologies again for my incompetence.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Unplug all cables and USB devices. Turn off the power for 60 seconds and then try this:

If your router fails to boot due to corrupted/invalid nvram settings, then you will have to turn off the router, press the WPS button (on Asus routers), then turn on the router. Wait about 10 seconds, then release the WPS button.

From: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/faq-nvram-and-factory-default-reset.22822/

 

[Douglas Poole]

Unplug all cables and USB devices. Turn off the power for 60 seconds and then try this:


From: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/faq-nvram-and-factory-default-reset.22822/

Unfortunately, both times just I tried this, every light came on but power and the two wireless lights, then they went out. I still can't get into it via hardwire. It recognizes the connection (light comes on on the 3200, laptop sees limited connection), but googling the basic IP doesn't work.

 

[st3v3n]

Douglas Poole, Are you running Asus stock or Merlin FW? Most of the time these 3200s are pretty good beasts and don't require much attention, but their lil electronic brains get confused from time to time. Odds are unless you had a power hit or were hacked (heavens no), it will be OK; they're pretty tough. If you've followed the Merlin wiki, whether you use Merlin or not, if you do a factory default reset, and that doesn't bring the router around, you can turn it off, then unplug the power cable or if you have it on a switch, turn the switch off and remove it from power. Let it sit for 15 minutes, then plug the router back into power, then do a normal reset. Waiting the standard 5 seconds is an estimate, sometimes it can take upwards of a minute in rare cases, if you're following the instructions for a factory reset.

Be advised that you should have saved your settings before doing any of this, and if you haven't, you'll have to restore each and every setting in the router manually. It's not that bad, and needs to be done every now and then, so that's what's probably going on with yours now, depending which/what version FW you're running. If your firmware is two years old, and you aren't running Merlin, I recommend reading up and either go to one of last year's Merlin versions, say, v380.68 to V380.68_4, just for the security updates, much less all of the extra functions you'll have over the stock FW, and it really makes the router much more robust. With the newest version of Asus latest code, if you update to Merlin NG (new generation), that hasn't incorporated 'AIMesh' yet, but that's beyond the scope of this problem. If you update Asus or Merlin to the very newest firmware, you will NOT be able to flash any previous version of the earlier versions. Many have reported success with the Asus version, but AIMesh has a lot of bugs to work through.

We've run Merlin v380.68_4 on our 3200 since last October, but I've had it on all of our Asus routers going back many years; it's stable, much more secure than the stock FW and has always served us well. We run two concurrent OpenVPN tunnels and that's not bad for the 64 MB of NVRAM in the 3200 (With the newer code, that's been expanded to 128 MB). We have no plans to upgrade to the newest code base until the more senior code wizards go through it, and AIMesh may or may not become a part of Merlin, it's too early to tell. AIMesh is a personal decision and if you haven't missed it yet, you probably don't need to worry about it.

If you get through a factory reset and get your router reconfigured and running decently again, you'll want to download the Asus rescue/restoration tool, to flash firmware version to firmware version. It sounds more complicated than it is, but if you're patient and follow the wiki, you'll be fine. We all have to start from the beginning, where you are now and learn by doing. Everything you might think of has been covered somewhere forums, so let the search function be your friend. Gaining confidence while you learn the ropes is never to be confused with incompetence. Good luck.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Unfortunately, both times just I tried this, every light came on but power and the two wireless lights, then they went out. I still can't get into it via hardwire. It recognizes the connection (light comes on on the 3200, laptop sees limited connection), but googling the basic IP doesn't work.

Can you just confirm that you did the above procedure with the WPS button, not the Reset button.

If that doesn't work, try Recovery mode (using the Reset button). But you will have to manually set the IP address and subnet mask for you PC's network card.

Q: How do I put the router into Recovery Mode?
A: Turn the router off. Press the reset button, and while keeping it pressed turn it back on. Wait a few seconds until the power led blinks, and then release the reset button. Router will now be in Recovery Mode, reachable at 192.168.1.1.

 

[Douglas Poole]

Can you just confirm that you did the above procedure with the WPS button, not the Reset button.

If that doesn't work, try Recovery mode (using the Reset button). But you will have to manually set the IP address and subnet mask for you PC's network card.

Yes, I made sure I used the WPS button. No change. Since I do not have internet (other than cell data to post here) and hooking into the router does nothing, I can't download the new firmware. Will it start in rescue mode without it? I haven't been able to get it to so far. P.S, my modem is buried in a ceiling, so I can't really get to it.

Edit: put the newest firmware on a flash drive, plugged in my laptop once again, couldn't get the power light flashing to indicate rescue mode. I went ahead anyway, because well, wth. Got to the step where one opens ASUS utility, but I don't have it.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Yes, I made sure I used the WPS button. No change. Since I do not have internet (other than cell data to post here) and hooking into the router does nothing, I can't download the new firmware. Will it start in rescue mode without it? I haven't been able to get it to so far.

If it isn't totally broken you should be able to get it into recovery mode, but if you don't have a copy of the firmware to upload it would be fairly pointless. Maybe you can go somewhere else and download the firmware onto a USB stick to take home. There are a few posts here that say that getting into recovery mode on the AC3200 can be quite tricky.

P.S, my modem is buried in a ceiling, so I can't really get to it.

Wow, clever design. Anyway, it shouldn't be a problem as you can unplug the modem's cable at the router end.

 

[st3v3n]

Not being snarky but I'd be hesitant to deal with any router buried in a ceiling, nothing cutting tools or a hammer couldn't alleviate.

 

[ColinTaylor]

...I'd be hesitant to deal with any router buried in a ceiling...

I took his words literally, meaning the modem is in the ceiling and the router isn't. Either way it's a bad idea just from the fire risk aspect.

 

[st3v3n]

Ah, my flub, sorry, thinking router, wrote router. No idea why anything that needs to be accessed would be built into a ceiling, even if there was an air space and/or dust/fire wasn't an issue. Perhaps the modem isn't actually 'buried' in plaster, but there's no easy entrance to the attic crawlspace where the modem lives. The mind always takes written words too literally when there's no visual reference.

 

[Douglas Poole]

Ah, my flub, sorry, thinking router, wrote router. No idea why anything that needs to be accessed would be built into a ceiling, even if there was an air space and/or dust/fire wasn't an issue. Perhaps the modem isn't actually 'buried' in plaster, but there's no easy entrance to the attic crawlspace where the modem lives. The mind always takes written words too literally when there's no visual reference.

The modem is under a drop ceiling that is very difficult to get to due to height. It is not sunken into plaster.

 

[st3v3n]

No, Douglas, I didn't preface it to Colin (or anyone), my mistake. It wasn't meant as a jest or a slight regarding the 'buried' device. No one would seriously think the modem would be actually encased or buried in plaster, though if you've been around over the decades, you'll have seen some strange if not dangerous installations. That's why service providers charge astronomical fees for service calls, even if their techs are the ones responsible. About 10-12 years ago a telecom tech came to check a malfunctioning modem, supposedly a simple swap for a good unit, but wound up having to spend 4 hours in a spider-infested crawl-space, replacing/rewiring all of the old cable that someone had installed under the house years before. Glad we paid the $2.50 per month extra for the ultimate 'in case you need a service call, you won't be billed for anything' situation.

Online descriptions (i.e., 'buried') usually prompt images to crop up and that's what happened when reading #7, of a modem being 'buried' in a ceiling. I speculated the unit was probably in an area difficult to get to, and you've now confirmed. No harm, no foul, no offense. Cheers.