RT-AC86U going flaky with constant crashes

[JoeBee]

Hi I have an RT-AC86U with latest merlin firmware, its been acting odd last few months. I may check my wireless one morning and see its down so attempt to log into my web ui and its dead with no web ui access at all. I did think this might be that web ui crash often mentioned around here so have scmerlin addon and tried putty but again no access at all.

Nothing fancy my end, AiProtection and all junk off so memory usage is always 53%, Triple flashed clean firmware upgrade and fresh settings, Wireless off (use Unifi wireless hub) no addons apart from scmerlin and AirVPN openvpn running with 2 clients. RT-AC86 is 5 years old.

Checking on my Ethernet adaptor reports Unidentified network so its not detecting the Asus router properly there. Unplugging the router and on/off for 5 minutes did not help with accessing web ui (tried it several times) I did however discover if I disconnect the my WAN cable which runs from my ISP Modem hub, the Unidentified network then vanishes and it reports its fine again with Ethernet connected status and I can easily log back into the Asus with web ui.

So I did try to diagnose it further, changed WAN settings with quad and google dns, reset my openvpn connection (Airvpn) connection even but it fails despite putting in the same details and set up I have done for 5 years. Even resetting it and using a good known working back up of settings fails with same openvpn error, I have to do factory reset under Admin within router and manually re-enter all settings to get openvpn and router back up and running properly. After this I can leave WAN cable in, unplug and re-plug and everything works stable and good till the whole cycle repeats and I get the crash error again.

Its occurred 4 times in the last 3 months.

Does anyone think my Router is going bad? Anything I can check to diagnose it further or is this a known issue?

thanks

 

[jsbeddow]

Does anyone think my Router is going bad? Anything I can check to diagnose it further or is this a known issue?

Sadly, this is a known issue in the sense that the RT-AC86U is well known to have a history of premature hardware failures, mostly stemming from a small surface mount voltage regulator chip that burns out, but also some (possibly related) wireless radio failures. There are many threads on SNBForums on this subject, a search should turn them up fairly easily.

Those of us still running that model (myself included), should know that if their unit is still working that they should be planning for replacement sooner rather than later.

 

[Dimmie]

Don't use 386.7 or 386.7_2 because they give all kind of problems. Try 386.5_2.

 

[JoeBee]

thanks, it does feel like its on its last legs so have been looking at the GT-AX6000 and RT-AX86U models.

I also need to still give openwrt on an x86 pc a go but sure how easy that is to set up and use, there appears little guides via vpn providers on that one.

I was unaware 3.86.7 or 386.7_2 merlin firmware giving problems is there any information on the issues?

I will go back to the earlier firmware and try again I am currently on 386.7_2.

 

[Tech9]

I was unaware 3.86.7 or 386.7_2 merlin firmware giving problems is there any information on the issues?

In firmware release threads. Firmware change is unlikely to fix your issues though. Seems like your AC86U hardware is failing. This router also has unresolved software bug present in all firmware releases. More about it here:

Stuck commands

Has anyone else observed any "stuck" commands on their router since upgrading to 386.x? Below is a frequent occurrence of the wl command getting stuck being spawned by conn_diag (this process was created at 4:10 AM). But I've also seen it happen with some nvram get commands (I once had Skynet...

www.snbforums.com

 

[JoeBee]

In firmware release threads. Firmware change is unlikely to fix your issues though. Seems like your AC86U hardware is failing. This router also has unresolved software bug present in all firmware releases. More about it here:

Stuck commands

Has anyone else observed any "stuck" commands on their router since upgrading to 386.x? Below is a frequent occurrence of the wl command getting stuck being spawned by conn_diag (this process was created at 4:10 AM). But I've also seen it happen with some nvram get commands (I once had Skynet...

www.snbforums.com

thanks much appreciated, saves time I will check RT-AX86U/Pro and other replacement options.