wl500g dead, dead, dead... Or not ?

[joossie]

I had that problem too.
Try to change your WAN and/or LAN cables (get some new cables), that was my problem (I had a wrong WAN-cable, everything worked, but with that cable wireless didn't work).

[WVR]

Messing about with erase nvram; now it won't come up at all.
At power on all leds come on, then the power led goes out. All the lan and wan ports appear to be bridged so it acts as a wired hub.
Easily connected up a serial port using old Nokia serial data cable. Settings that work are 9600 8N1, but it just echos back what I type to it.
So the bootloader seems to have been erased.

As this model does not seem to have Jtag connector, has anybody any idea how to recover? I wonder how they get the bootloader onto them at the factory?

[Oleg]

Messing about with erase nvram; now it won't come up at all.
At power on all leds come on, then the power led goes out. All the lan and wan ports appear to be bridged so it acts as a wired hub.
Easily connected up a serial port using old Nokia serial data cable. Settings that work are 9600 8N1, but it just echos back what I type to it.

It should not echo back and should be 115200 8N1.

So the bootloader seems to have been erased.

Unlikely.

Anyway, there is GPIO7 connector on the board - try attaching it to the ground and turn device on. If this does not help - use this method for recovering:
http://wl500g.info/showthread.php?t=859

[WVR]

It should not echo back and should be 115200 8N1.

Unlikely.

Anyway, there is GPIO7 connector on the board - try attaching it to the ground and turn device on. If this does not help - use this method for recovering:
http://wl500g.info/showthread.php?t=859

Thanks for your response Oleg but I already tried most of the methods in that thread. Tried shorting various pins etc based on chip data sheet info. Nothing seems to change the way it powers up, never get recover blinking.
Before it went wrong I was messing around with some mtd erase nvram commands.
The pmon that was on there was the WL500gd-01-04-01-50 that you posted about previously.

[WVR]

After scratching my head over the thread http://wl500g.info/showthread.php?t=859 for some time, I managed to debrick my Asus WL 500G deluxe.
It was well bricked, the pwr led would not come on and serial port didn't help.
The same pin 10 grounded on the MX29LV320 chip works on this model too.
(Note chip is other way round from wtzm's pic of the wl500g.)
I must have grounded the pin 12 times before I held it on long enough at power on.
After that Asus normal f/w restore tool worked to get back on latest Oleg f/w.
It seems grounding pin 10 for short time does not do any permanent harm.
I didn't solder but used sharp grounded probe placed with aid of strong magnifying glass.

Thanks guys.
Where do I send my donation?
Bill (in the UK)

[Oleg]

Congrats to you. How you've bricked it? nvram stuff?

[wtzm]

Nice to hear that it worked for you! By the way: The two wires are still connected (isolated at the far end and duct-taped to the case; so the next earthquake shouldn't accidentally bring them together) to the flash chip inside my wl500g - just in case I manage to "brick" it again .

[WVR]

Congrats to you. How you've bricked it? nvram stuff?

Yes, I detailed how in http://wl500g.info/showthread.php?t=3137
You gave me pointer there to fix thread but I didn't understand wtzm's reference to pin 10 until yesterday when I looked at data sheet for nvram chip and saw that it is address line A20. Its the same chip in the wl500g-deluxe, but mounted on pcb at 180 rotation to wl500g pic.

[WVR]

Nice to hear that it worked for you! By the way: The two wires are still connected (isolated at the far end and duct-taped to the case; so the next earthquake shouldn't accidentally bring them together) to the flash chip inside my wl500g - just in case I manage to "brick" it again .

Your eyesight must be very keen to solder a wire to that pin. They are so small and tightly packed.
Its good that I fixed it as I no longer have to hide it from the wife :-)

[wtzm]

Actually it took some patience and a really fine-tipped soldering iron to complete the task. Eyesight was a minor issue, although a big laboratory magnifying glass (with its own included light source), would have been nice.

[putin]

So how long did you have to hold the ground on for?
I'm in the same position, dead deluxe with the MX29LV320 chip. Pwr led doesn't come on at all, the lan and wan lights flash on at power up then the active port led flashes when I ping the box but I can get no response.
I've tried grounding pin 10 several times but with no luck. How can I tell it has worked? Does the power led start flashing like recovery mode or should I just wait for ping to work?

[Oleg]

You've to ground it, then turn on power.

[putin]

Hmm.. Yeah, that's what I've been doing. I was hoping there was something I'd missed to be honest.
I'll tell you the history. I stuffed up the nvram and reset to recovery stopped working, the power led was staying on though and the router still worked as a 'transparent' bridge. So I tried shorting pins 9 and 10, as that was the first suggested fix I found. I must have shorted something else too though because then the power led stopped coming on and it stopped responding to pings. I then tried grounding GPIO7 and spent the best part of a day trying to ground pin 10, connecting it to earth points on the board in various different ways, with no luck.
I've read you guys talking about corrupting pmon. Is that what I've done? I take it it's a bad thing. As you might of guessed this is getting a bit beyond me now.

[superyam]

Hello,

My router suddenly off the "AIR LED" after power off then power on, no more wireless function. I can connect to internet but like direct connect to the modem. When I check my IP using IPCONFIG, now display my real IP. I can't login to 192.168.1.1 to do anything.

Can anyone help me to solve the problem or need to repair? Thanks.

Superyam

[WVR]

I had to hold pin 10 to ground for some time whilst powering on the Asus.
When it worked (around the 6th attempt) the Asus power led stayed on, before it was off after poweron. As soon as possible remove the pin10 grounding connection.
When I got it to keep the power led on, then the normal reset-to-defaults procedure worked i.e. hold the reset button on the back in whilst poweron.
Then I could use Asus firmware restore utility to put back on whatever firmware I wished.