RT-AC68U no lan or wan connection, will not boot pass CFE

[DANIEL LOWE]

so i brought a second hand RT-AC68 router that was stated to have problems with the lan ports.
After getting the router, i reset to defaults the router on the DD-wrt page. After which it stopped booting correctly.
so i writed up the router to Serial and was able to see that is
"Null Rescue Flag.
boot the image...
Invalid boot block on disk"

show devices gives me this.
Device Name Description
------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------
uart0 NS16550 UART at 0x18000300
uart1 NS16550 UART at 0x18000400
nflash0 AMD NAND flash size 131072KB
nflash0.boot AMD NAND flash offset 0 size 512KB
nflash0.nvram AMD NAND flash offset 80000 size 1536KB
nflash0.trx AMD NAND flash offset 200000 size 1KB
nflash0.os AMD NAND flash offset 20001C size 31744KB
nflash0.trx2 AMD NAND flash offset 2100000 size 1KB
nflash0.os2 AMD NAND flash offset 210001C size 31744KB
nflash1.boot AMD NAND flash offset 0 size 512KB
nflash1.nvram AMD NAND flash offset 80000 size 1536KB
nflash1.trx AMD NAND flash offset 200000 size 31744KB
nflash1.trx2 AMD NAND flash offset 2100000 size 31744KB
nflash1.brcmnand AMD NAND flash offset 4000000 size 65536KB
eth0 Broadcom BCM47XX 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet Controller

no matter what i try i can`t get the lan or wan ports to work. i have tried with both a TFTP server and the asus recovery tool, but it never connects.

so is the unit permated bricked? i have tried many different things listed on the forums, but nothing seems to work.
i even tried "flash nflash1.boot nflash0.boot" but it just stated reading nflash1.boot, left it for 2 days and it never moved pass that.

Help please.

 

[RMerlin]

Does the CFE Show you an IP address? If yes, then make sure you use that address when using either tftp or the Firmware Recovery tool (after setting your client IP within the same subnet).

Also, make sure that the power light is flashing when you try to use either recovery method. Just entering the CFE will not be enough to launch the tftp server.

Also if you haven't done so yet, do an nvram erase.

 

[DANIEL LOWE]

yes it shows an ip address of 192.168.1.1 mask 255.255.255.0. Set the workstations to 192.168.1.2 no luck.
have tried nvram erase, many times. No luck.

also have verified that the power light is blinking and the serial ports shows force recovery and the TFTP message:
Reading ::
TFTP Server.
..tftp retry wait 0

as stated it appears that the LAN ports are defective, no lights no connections. have tried more than 1 workstation and multiple network cables.

can`t ping from either the workstation of the cfe prompt.

unless there is a way of flashing thought the serial port to cfe?

 

[RMerlin]

If no light shows up when connecting LAN devices, then it sounds like a hardware failure to me. The fact it shows an IP confirms that the router did configure the switch.

 

[DANIEL LOWE]

ya, that was what i was afraid of.

so i`m guessing there is no way to get a firmware loaded from the serial port?

 

[DANIEL LOWE]

our does someone have the schematic for RT-AC68 router? i could at least trace the voltage to the chips and see if one of the regulators is dead.

 

[RMerlin]

ya, that was what i was afraid of.

so i`m guessing there is no way to get a firmware loaded from the serial port?

I don't know, I never looked. But even if you did, a router with no working Ethernet ports isn't very useful...

 

[DANIEL LOWE]

if i could get the firmware update, than i could use it as an extender with asus mesh. but with out knowing that voltages are needed where, its hard to find the defective regulator.