RT-AC5300 Ethernet and WAN dead?

[Edropian]

First of all let me say hello to everybody!

I have been reading this forum for some time now and because of this community
I have decided to take the leap of faith and buy an RT-AC5300 because of Mr Merlin's
support on it.

To the meat and potatoes now.

I bought this Router from Amazon.it and it was delivered to me on 5th of this month.
After I went through its setup customization and had everything working ... (keeping aside for
now some "issues" I have spotted) ... I woke up 2 days ago to realize that the Router was Dead in a
way and after all I did it remains as such.

Let me walk you through the problem.

-It worked for a week and now the router suddenly is refusing to communicate through any of its Ethernet ports.
Its WAN also won't communicate with the modem and the modem won't even see it as a hooked up device and its WiFi is dead.

- I can't enter the router's CP as long as any of my pcs won't establish an Ethernet connection with the router
and each of the 4 different ethernet network adapters I have tested will continuously try to establish connection
but they will never do (on the router's side the ethernet led is off when an ethernet cable is hooked up).

- WiFi is not an option as long as no SSID can be found even with the device right next to the router
(tested with 2 mobile phones - 2 laptops - 1 desktop ... no device can see any of the 3 bands while the leds on the router are on which indicates that the WiFi should have been visible .

- Asus Device discovery won't find it

- Numerous restarts did not fix it

- Reset / factory reset won't fix it
(the strange thing here is that when I keep the reset button pushed for 5 to 10 seconds,
the power led won't start blinking as it should based on the official asus guides and nothing happens.
The only time it will start blinking is after a minute or so with the reset button being pushed continuously and after it will start to blink and I will release the reset button,
it will never stop blinking and it will remain like that even for 2 hours ...!)

- Power cycle won't fix it ... I nearly left the router unplugged for a day to try that out

- Firmware restoration won't fix it ( while it is strange that the program managed to upload the rescue firmware
which was the firmware RT-AC5300_3.0.0.4_384_45149-g467037b but after the Router reboots
it will keep denying to communicate through Ethernet / WiFi {absent} / WAN {won't appear on the modem side at all}

- CMD ipconfig won't see a default gateway as expected as long as communication is never established between my adapters and the router.
(I even did a windows network reset to avoid any software conflict but nothing came out of this)
Ipconfig /renew or /release won't bring any different result

Obviously we are talking about a dead router right?

Let me Describe to you now how it behaves
in case this might be helpful for some of you in order to identify the issue or the status of the router.

With the router turned off I plug into the wan port the Ethernet cable from the modem and on ethernet 1 the ethernet cable which is hooked up on my pc.

When I puss the power button the first led that comes on is the WAN led (!) which blinks continuously and in the meanwhile the power led comes on.

After a couple of seconds that the power led is turned on the wan led turns off and a some seconds after that the WiFI leds turn on.

A second later the WAN led turns on again blinking and after a couple of seconds later the power led turns off ...
The WAN led follows right after it (turns off) and then the Power led turns on again ...
a second later the wan led will turn on blinking again and the previous "dance" between the power led and the WAN led will happen 3 to 4 times before the WAN led turns off permanently and the only leds on will be the Power led and the 2 WiFi leds (even if the WiFi is dead).

In the meanwhile the LAN led will remain off during the whole procedure and it will never turn on....(like if there is no cable on any of its ports)

That explains of course the fact that no matter what I do PC aside the default gateway remains blank on IPCONFIG return.

A thing to consider is that it was working properly for less than a week :S so with cable been tested to be fine
I remain scratching my head on WTF is wrong with this router and trying to avoid get frustrated to the point I will get into rage mode

Any ideas ?

Based on your experience guys what should be my next step from this point and on?

PS: I have submitted a ticket to Asus technical support already and I am waiting for a response with fingers crossed!

Thank you all for your time in advance!

 

[degrub]

do you have a compatible power adapter you can swap out with the current one ? Match the Vdc and Current and DC plug.

 

[Edropian]

I don't know what to think about this Router but it bugs me the fact that as a new product instead of being rock solid it is acting funny ... and this is not funny

Back to my issue now ... I kept trying to figure this out after posting this thread and I came up with the idea of trying to "Rescue" my all new Router (For the 3rd time)
by using as a rescue Firmware the Merlin one and use this function more like an update function in order to eliminate the option of me being locked out from the
router to be a firmware bug or something ....

So I am going through the rescue procedure (the only thing which was able to communicate with the router through Ethernet or at all) and I applied as the rescue
firmware the 384.8_2 Merlin for AC5300.

Guess what .... it bloody worked (!!!) and the router was able to boot properly after the reboot it does on its own! Now I only remain with the thought that I might be having
a not so well made device and I am afraid of this happening again in the future.

So for now we can say that this issue is solved and I am saved by the Merlin's bell!

PS: Thank you degrub for being the only one so far to through an idea in an attempt to help me out ... I appreciate it!
PPS: 2 different Asus firmware did not manage to solve this like the Merlins did ... what a shame for a company like Asus to be the shadow of what
it once was as a company and I am saying it coming from a recent experience with PG279Q too which took me 5 RMAs before I get a solid unit on my hands!
I think that this is the last time I invest my money to Asus ... period!

 

[degrub]

the device may have had corrupted NVRAM. Glad that you got it to clear. Whether it will do it again, hard to say. Power can be an issue, particularly with the wall wart supply.

i would return it while still under Amazon seller or manufacturer warranty as there may be a hardware issue. i would quote the number of times you have had to "rescue" it as the reason for suspecting a faulty device.

 

[Edropian]

I am going to try to replicate the issue and make it happen again by running virtually some real life scenarios like power loss etc and see if it comes up again.
Keeping that aside there is also another thing that bugs me and this is the fact that the 5G_2 is completely absent and no device will find no matter what I do.

I only saw that once or twice when I first used the router but now it is long gone for some reason ( it is activated on the router though I cant change channel
because it will give me only the auto option and the band says that it uses channel 0 :S )

In addition to that when I change parameters to the wireless while with merlin Firmware the interface becomes buggy after any "apply" I will make and in general
moving from page to page is a pain because it crawls and loads pages really slow!)

I will try to define if what I am facing is firmware related otherwise it is going to be returned during the next week for sure.