Weird ASUS router issue.

[Sawa Takahashi]

Sometimes I need help too

I got a wireless router (ASUS rt-AC68U) for a few years and it performed flawlessly. strong signal, whole house coverage, everything was going fine until yesterday evening.

The wireless signal just disappeared. No 2.4GHz, no 5Ghz. I rebooted the rooter but nothing changed. Especially, the only led on the front was power. Even if there were devices plugged into ethernet ports and the WAN port was also connected (I made sure the  leds were set to active via the switch on the back).

Things I tried so far :

• Soft reset (this has no effect).
• Hard reset (seems to work but does not solve the issue).
• Tested the power adapter. The voltage is 19.25VDC (expected 19V) so it should be good.
• Plugged into my computer via Ethernet cable = no detection, no connection.
• Tried to make a voodoo doll of my router but my artistic talent is really lacking...

This morning, I was trying to set up the rescue mode and before I could do anything, the 5GHz led lit up. I checked and there was a wifi signal on the 5GHz band. Connected to it and it looked like a freshly resetted router. When I checked the parameters, the 5GHz band was not active but the  2.4GHz band was using the chennel 40.

Things I did since then :

• flashing new firmware from Merlin = no effect
• flashing new official ASUS firmware = no effect
• Hard reset the router = reset the parameters (like a soft reset)
• Soft reset = no effect.

I really like this router but I can't use it without both bands.

Anyone has an idea of what happened ? And how to fix it ?

Thanks

P.S., in case you missed it, the router is an ASUS rt-AC68U gigabit router. Supports AC1900 speeds on 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. Was running AsusWRT-Merlin firmware 386_14.

Edit: See update in following posts.

[OddOod]

Potentially it's dying. I'd just replace it and move on

[Sawa Takahashi]

46 minutes ago, OddOod said:

Potentially it's dying. I'd just replace it and move on

That is what I'm afraid of. Unfortunately, I don't have spare money for another decent router at the moment. I'm running on a spare 2.4GHz 802.11N router and the difference is night and day.

[Sawa Takahashi]

Update.

After doing something else for an hour or so, I came back and the router seems to be able to use both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. now. Configuration is gone but that's easy to set up again.

 

Success is fleeting and ephemeral. About 15 minutes into configuration, the 2.4GHz is gone and the 5GHz band won't accept connections...

 

Reboot yields some results but not always. 2 or 3 reboots are needed.

 

Anyone has a better fix than crossing fingers ? Like, is there a way to fix the internals ? (since problem seems hardware-based).

[Mark Kaine]

Is it weird I knew what router it is before clicking???

 

It's toast (I actually got a full refund from Amazon after the same issue,years out of warranty,btw )

 

 

[Sawa Takahashi]

18 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

Is it weird I knew what router it is before clicking???

Weird indded. But in fact, this is still the Asuswrt-merlin top downloaded firmware, even as of this week. This was a really popular router.

18 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

It's toast (I actually got a full refund from Amazon after the same issue,years out of warranty,btw )

What's your trick ? I'm really interested in knowing if I can get a refund too.

 

Thanks for your answer btw.

[Mark Kaine]

7 minutes ago, Sawa Takahashi said:

What's your trick ? I'm really interested in knowing if I can get a refund too.

 

Thanks for your answer btw.

I think the trick is to "ask nicely" and also explain the issue in a short and understandable way.

 

Basically it was funny - called Asus, asked about the ram (which was the issue imo) then I asked if this router has v-lan... They didn't know! They called an "expert"... He didn't know...!

 

So I called Amazon,said the router doesn't have enough ram and Asus support doesn't know what a v-lan is...

 

Then they said "do you want a full refund?" 

 

I said "yes"

 

(I think I actually had to send it back to Amazon too, but full refund received lol)

[Sawa Takahashi]

On 2/25/2025 at 9:57 AM, Mark Kaine said:

I think the trick is to "ask nicely" and also explain the issue in a short and understandable way.

Well, I'm out of luck. After checking my receipt, I bought it on eBay. It has been a good router for 5 years still.

Thanks again.