RT-AC86u 384.7b2 firmware web interface malfunction after long session 2.4G streatming

[mink]

Hi there.

In the last 24 hours, my ~3 week old Asus RT-AC86u has progressively failed since it was streaming music over 2.4G to a distant target for most of a day. That is the only thing that seems to correlate with the change. First symptom was some webs sites threw TLS handshake errors. My Synology DS918+ reported dns error. The 2.4G light is now OFF on the router. The temperature screen showed a large number for 2.4G (8 or 9 digits!) which I'm sure wasn't the case before. After rebooting the router several times, the router Web GUI client list briefly populates, then becomes empty! I manually assign about a dozen IPs in the router outside DHCP and normally all of that shows in the client list. Also, the Wireless tab of the GUI only shows a screen for settings for 2.4GHz, not the normal multiple selections. Then this morning when trying to look at logs (I had to leave to do an amatuer Astronomy outreach event at Stanford SLAC yesterday), I lost complete access to the web interface. Oddly, as you can see, I've internet access. One of the Xubuntu ZFS servers is finishing an autoscrub for the next 4 hours so I'm letting that finish. I did not find anything in searching similar to this in web searching.

So I've got firmwares 384.6, 384.5 to try but I wonder with all this seeming to point to infant mortality hardware failure, is it worthwhile to chase it or just return to Amazon since I'm in the 30 day window. I can't see this being really a firmware issue, since everything was fine since I completed basic setup. The router GUI was not open to the internet, security checks on my system did not show any probes succeeding in finding access points in, and it's on a goood UPS. I keep an RT-AC3100 as a spare setup to go for such an event as this.

Up to this point, really liked this unit's performance and bought based on recommendations on this forum and appreciate the wonderful information here. Let me know how to assist in tracking down in case this could be a firmware bug and I will do it. Thank you for any help!

 

[ColinTaylor]

It does sound very much like a hardware fault. If I were you I'd install the current stock Asus firmware followed by a factory reset and just a basic configuration. If you still get the same problems the unit is definitely faulty.

 

[mink]

It does sound very much like a hardware fault. If I were you I'd install the current stock Asus firmware followed by a factory reset and just a basic configuration. If you still get the same problems the unit is definitely faulty.

Thank you kindly for your quick reply and time reading my post! Yes, my thoughts.

Time to online the spare and work the 86u on its own subnet to try and get the GUI back so I can reflash it. I put this together that the 2.4G radio overheated and damaged nearby components? The unit sits on a shelf, at head height in our hall closet with plenty of air around it and the temps were looking fine before this; on the cool side if anything. Very odd. The radio was at "performance", which was default. I'm wondering about shutting it off if I replace this unit since the two end units in the net should cover the house pretty well anyway. Further investigation shows, several SqueezeBox/Logitec Media devices were also getting streams, but still, the radio should not have failed streaming digital audio to even several clients. I had the two end points on different SSIDS. Perhaps better to put everything on the same SSID and let smart connect auto switch by signal strength, that would have select the AP 15 feet from the Squeezebox radio in the workshop, which is what I thought I'd picked<G>. I had set thresholds but that likely wouldn't work for devices that were only 2.4Ghz vs dual band. My bad. I don't think the radio should be so fragile! I steamed for days with the RT-AC3100 and only one other access point for the last year or so. I added the 86u to free up the 68R get an additional access point at the other end. The only only other variable was upgrading to FW 384.7b1 the b2 in the last week.

Thanks again, cheers
amg

 

[mink]

Well, factory reset RT-86u and was able to flash back to current Asus firmware (3004.384.32799). Tried Merlin 384.6 first and still had missing Wireless pages in GUI and squirrely. With basic config in the Assus FW, 2.4Ghz radio status light not lit despite being turned on in FW so likely that radio is dead now - so looks like HW failure. I'm debating if it's wise to go to the 384.7 or was it just a defective unit that had a weak radio chip? The Merlin FW uses more memory than the stock ASUS. Perhaps the unit has a bad region of memory that the Merlin FW used that the stock left vacant?

Of note it may have been beta 3 rather than beta 2.

Would it be valuable to reflash to the Merlin to see or is there no point since the current HW issue might not be what originally triggered the problem? In any case, this unit is going back and I really doubt the FW was at fault. To be safe however, henceforth, I think best run the radio's Wireless | Professional | Tx power adjustment at "Good" rather than "Performance" to keep temps a bit lower. With the three points now, that should be sufficient.

Getting a pain to keep my profile up to date<G> will leave it as ordering another 86u. Now to decide if to update the RT-AC3100 to 384.7 final as I'm a bit gun shy now. May wait to see if any 2.4GHz radio issues, but I bet not. cheers

 

[ColinTaylor]

Thanks for the update. There's no way changing any of the settings in the firmware (stock or Merlin) should damage the hardware. From what you've described, your environment is better than most people's in terms of temperature and ventilation. These devices are designed to run at maximum performance in other states/countries with a much higher ambient temperature.

You just seem to have been unlucky. I can't remember seeing anyone else on these forums reporting a similar failure with their RT-AC86U.

 

[mink]

Thank you again for the feedback.

Thanks for the update. There's no way changing any of the settings in the firmware (stock or Merlin) should damage the hardware. From what you've described, your environment is better than most people's in terms of temperature and ventilation. These devices are designed to run at maximum performance in other states/countries with a much higher ambient temperature.

My thoughts too. Heat and power instability are the big killers. The UPS isn't a pure sine wave, but I assume that should be OK for these units, and has been for years in the data closet. No recent lightning storms and two whole house surge suppressors on mains.

You just seem to have been unlucky. I can't remember seeing anyone else on these forums reporting a similar failure with their RT-AC86U.

That is comforting. This is my forth (or 5th?) Asus router so Murphy's law finally caught up I guess.
Amazon exchange unit arrives Wed. Guess will give 384.7 a try since otherwise was fine unit crashed. Don't look forward to putting back all my manual DNS entries, port forwarding etc. May try the saved config from when things were working well. Will still pop down the trasmit power<G>.
cheers

 

[ColinTaylor]

May try the saved config from when things were working well.

If you're referring to the "Save settings" file created from the router's web interface, don't! The save file is not transferable between different routers, not even if they're the same model. The save file contains low level hardware settings that are unique to each router, like MAC addresses. While some people have loaded an old save file with "apparent" success the last thing you need at this point is to introduce another layer of uncertainty.

 

[mink]

Thanks for the heads up about the saved config! Replacement 86u is configured, and being burned in outside the network with 384.7 on it. 2.4G lit is nicely lit so clearly a HW issue. Seems like less memory being used, which is odd.

Yesterday, realized the AC86u doesn't have Tx Power tuning in my region, pity! I may keep the AC3100 as primary for this reason, and the AC86u as the spare since. cheers