Is my router going bad?

bagho · August 18, 2019

I have a TP Link Archer C50 router (11 month old) connecting through a fibre modem to the internet. Recently, the router has started acting up. It loses internet connection all of a sudden. When it loses connection, I try to open up router page at 192.168.1.1. It's painstakingly slow to open the page. Takes about 5 minutes to go to the reboot page. After rebooting, the router stays non functional. But if I yank out the power supply, and replug it in, then only the router returns to normal functions with internet connection and snappy router page loads. After a day or two the problem repeats. The router can't be overheating or damaged by heat because it has ample ventilation and also I had glued a PC cabinet fan under it and it's running from the first day.

Is the router going bad? It has all the latest firmware. Now I can't even claim warranty because I can't prove the dysfunction to the service center of course.

Please shed some light onto this. Thank you!

Alex Atkin UK · August 18, 2019

1 hour ago, bagho said:

I have a TP Link Archer C50 router (11 month old) connecting through a fibre modem to the internet. Recently, the router has started acting up. It loses internet connection all of a sudden. When it loses connection, I try to open up router page at 192.168.1.1. It's painstakingly slow to open the page. Takes about 5 minutes to go to the reboot page. After rebooting, the router stays non functional. But if I yank out the power supply, and replug it in, then only the router returns to normal functions with internet connection and snappy router page loads. After a day or two the problem repeats. The router can't be overheating or damaged by heat because it has ample ventilation and also I had glued a PC cabinet fan under it and it's running from the first day.

Is the router going bad? It has all the latest firmware. Now I can't even claim warranty because I can't prove the dysfunction to the service center of course.

Please shed some light onto this. Thank you!

Have you done any firmware updates? Could be a new one messed something up? Or if not, do so and see if it helps.

Its also possible the PSU is going bad, rather than the router itself, although I wouldn't expect power cycling to fix that.

Honestly if it slows to crawl after a couple of days or so, I'd call that defective and continue to demand them replace it. Now if it turns out to be a software issue that would impact the replacement too, is another thing entirely. But either way, I don't see how they can argue its not faulty if it can't remain stable, especially if it was fine for 11 months prior. No ISP problem should cause the router UI to slow down, especially with a reboot not fixing it.

bagho · August 22, 2019

Thank you for your answer! PSU was a good starting point! I checked the PSU and it is outputting 9V (rated). Also I attached a 16 ohm resistor and the voltage didn't drop. So I guess the PSU was all right for now. Now I opened up the router and found that the wireless chip was heating up to 83C and the CPU to 65C under idle. So this is what I did. I heatsinked the wireless chip and the CPU with raspberry Pi heat sinks. And voila! 3 days, running strong. Also I never realized the latency had increased. Now page loads are snappy, as it should be in a fibre connection. Also the router handled all sorts of load I threw at it. I hope the solution is permanent. I have void the warranty now. Photos below:

Alex Atkin UK · August 22, 2019

I'd still be concerned at it only starting to happen now. I wonder if that PSU is actually stable (impossible to be sure without a scope) or those capacitors are failing in the router? I believe that can potentially cause the chips to run hotter as the voltage regulation will not necessarily be in spec any more.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no expert on this stuff, but I have repaired routers before simply by replacing the capacitors.