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RT-N18U constantly dying

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Mr Dini

New Around Here
Hi,

I bought an Asus RT-N18U around two years ago and it's been doing great on my small home network with FreshTomato as my primary router for a while until it started having some issues. Namely when the router was running for more than 3 days, mobile clients (Android, iOS) couldn't connect anymore, their authentication request was dropped by the router. Laptops could connect well, which I don't understand.

Then I flashed the stock firmware back and the issue was gone. So I decided to stick with an unofficial asuswrt-merlin build which did well for about a year.

Now it started to act strange again. Now all wifi clients are getting rejected seemingly randomly if the router is running for a while already (1-2 days). I was forced to completely replace it, but wanted to keep it as an AP. I set it up and the issue is the same. Everything works perfectly for a day, then it drops wifi. You can see the SSID the whole time, my phone even says "obtaining an ip address" (that would make me think the authentication was successful, but who knows), but I dont see any dhcp request on my primary router so it never goes there anymore. However via cable I still get internet thru this AP.

What is strange that if the router is in this state, it doesnt respond to pings anymore either and I cant reach it thru ssh or http. The status leds on top are not blinking, but they are all alive. However if I disconnect a PC from LAN, it still says that the PC is connected, so the whole router looks really frozen. I checked the syslog, there is nothing in there as errors. I thought that maybe its a kernel panic, but then why would I be able to see the SSID it broadcasts still...

I checked dmesg for NAND bad blocks, the chip seems to be alright.

And I was thinking about the power supply's fault too, but its so strange that it does well under heavy load too for days and then it partially dies, but on reboot it immediately comes back to life...

What do you think, should I try another power supply or rather see if I can disassemble it and hook up an UART console or something for interesting messages? Or any other ideas?

Thanks
 
Try the 'nuclear' reset suggestions below, or, at least point out where your process differed.

This will be for the stock Asus firmware, but it may be useful as a general guide too.

First, flash the firmware you want to use/test on the router.

Fully Reset Router and Network

If you still continue to have issues, a new router is indicated.

You don't mention your new router, but it may need this type of reset too. Particularly if you're jumping back and forth between firmware forks.
 
I mean I didnt touch the device itself and it was working fine for long until it broke down. But I tried to give it a reset, this time with the latest freshtomato. We will see how well it will perform. :)
 
Now it started to act strange again. Now all wifi clients are getting rejected seemingly randomly if the router is running for a while already (1-2 days).

Typical behavior when a power supply is going soft...

replace the ac adapter, and likely the problem may be resolved
 
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