RT-AC66R - Update from 376.44 to 380.70

[ArMouReR]

Hi,

I have one dinosaur that running Merlin 376.44 from 2014 I think. (Wow !!! SIX years without touching anything, is not it amazing and unbelievable. Thanks to Merlin to make it happen !!!)
Recently I have found issues that 5G network disappears. It do coming back after restart.

Before retiring the HW I was thinking to add automatic reboot at night to minimize the problem.
I recall that in the latest Merlin releases there is reboot scheduler in Administration menu.

So, I am considering to flash the latest FW (380.70) and see if something changed and also gain the reboot option.
I was reading somewhere that before moving to the 380 branch I need to flash 378.55 first to get support for a 64 MB rootfs partition.
Is it still true ?

Here is df -h of my partitions right now:
ASUSWRT-Merlin RT-AC66U_3.0.0.4 Sun Aug 3 23:36:23 UTC 2014 admin@RT-AC66R-9B48:/tmp/home/root# df -h Filesystem Size Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/root 24.6M 24.6M 0 100% / tmpfs 117.0M 2.5M 114.5M 2% /tmp devfs 117.0M 0 117.0M 0% /dev /dev/mtdblock5 32.0M 1.1M 30.9M 3% /jffs

What's the straight forward way to update to 380.70 ?

 

[RMerlin]

Since you are using an RT-AC66U, I recommend taking a look at John`s fork instead, since it`s still actively maintained.

[Fork] Asuswrt-Merlin 374 LTS Overview

ASUSWRT-MERLIN 374 LTS This is an LTS (Long Term Service) fork of Asuswrt-Merlin based on 374.43_2. This older code base has a history of being very stable, and some of the older code components may perform better in some environments. It may be a good choice for those who desire a 'set it and...

www.snbforums.com

 

[ArMouReR]

Thanks a lot for a prompt reply !
Just to clarify, going to John`s fork means that I do not need to repartition anything and it can be flashed from GUI over 376.44 ?
Another question is there is some way to monitor 5G connection and reboot router when it drops ?

 

[john9527]

You should be able to go from 376 to my fork via the gui (the extra check was added in 380).
But you'll still need to reset to factory defaults after the change and reconfigure manually.

 

[L&LD]

And if you have a screenshot of that 6-year uptime, go post it in the Uptime thread (ding, ding, ding! We have a winner).

 

[RMerlin]

The partition resize only affected the RT-AC68U. The RT-AC66U partition remains stuck at 32 MB.

 

[ArMouReR]

And if you have a screenshot of that 6-year uptime, go post it in the Uptime thread (ding, ding, ding! We have a winner).

I wish I could , of cause I had various power downs during this time, but the fact that this router worked for 6 years in any case is amazing...

Unfortunately it looks like the problem now in HW, I am spotting random restarts now... Trying to understand why, but don't see any particular reason.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Unfortunately it looks like the problem now in HW, I am spotting random restarts now... Trying to understand why, but don't see any particular reason.

A relatively common problem with the N66U that manifests itself in that way is the power adapter becoming "weak" due to age. Quite a few people have reported that replacing the adapter solved their problems.

 

[ArMouReR]

Just for the record: I was able to update to 380.70 without any issues. The state is kind of better, I don't see random reboots (~40 hours) but 5G still disappear without a notice.
Unfortunately I can't easy replace power supply and will replace the whole system.
Meanwhile can I add some custom script to cron to power on/off 5G radio every hour ?