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

[Antiloop]

ok this is not a question, but something that may occur to someone as it has occured to me this time

the next thing I was upgrading a WL500g of a friend from firmware 1.6.5.3 (official) to 1.7.5.6CR2 all going fine.
Device upgrade went allright, booted up again and worked 'perfectly' after fucking with his ADSL SpeedTouch modem to set it in bridge, and applying like 20-30 times PPTP passwords etc in the WL500g the device HUNG

after poweroff, the device booted up correctly Wireless was working, IP was assigned also. pinging 192.168.1.1 did work BUT
telnet was not responding, also websetup was not responding
nothing strange i thought, just tried the restore button (when powered on) no action followed, i tried the button when powering on and it went into RECOVERY mode
i uploaded CR2 again: restoration completed succesfully
after it was booted up again, Wireless etc was assigned but still telnet+websetup was dead. i've repeated this like 10 times but it had no harm.

very strange, after restoring 1.6.5.3 into his device
the wl500g booted up again correctly and came normally online

after restoring default configuration i've entered the needed things (his adsl device was in router mode again) and upgraded to CR2, it seems to work correctly now

so it looked like some nvram settings had been corrupted which prevented the device to bootup properly.

so for the rest i still don't have an explanation for this. maybe it's an idea to create a firmware resque sometime, which does not make use of nvram and restores it or something like that..

[Royan]

This has happened to me with 1.7.5.6-2 as well.
Only with me the router stopped responding during a portscan from grc.com.

I could still access the internet, but the router itself didn't respond to either telnet or web-interface.

I had to restore to 1.6.5.3 before I got it to respond again. After that I upgraded to 1.7.5.6-2, restored settings, and all was back to the way it should be.

Royan

[Oleg]

What I've observed once - the router have detected what it has 7MB of RAM instead of 16MB (this is due to wrong expectations made by broadcom in the firmware). The solution is simple - power off router for several minutes.
As for GRC - probably your log was to big after scanning.

[Antiloop]

This has happened to me with 1.7.5.6-2 as well.
Only with me the router stopped responding during a portscan from grc.com.

I could still access the internet, but the router itself didn't respond to either telnet or web-interface.

I had to restore to 1.6.5.3 before I got it to respond again. After that I upgraded to 1.7.5.6-2, restored settings, and all was back to the way it should be.

Royan

note the internet connection was dead as well..

[Royan]

What I've observed once - the router have detected what it has 7MB of RAM instead of 16MB (this is due to wrong expectations made by broadcom in the firmware). The solution is simple - power off router for several minutes.
As for GRC - probably your log was to big after scanning.

Yeah, I've later figured that that probably was the problem...
Is there any way for a linux newbie (namely me ) to control what is logged and what is not in order to keep the log from getting too big (without having to reboot)?

note the internet connection was dead as well...

Yeah, I noticed. My point was merely to say that although in different circumstances, the situation where I had to revert to earlier firmware version, and then "re-upgrade" happened to me as well.

It was more of a "public-service announcement" to say that occasionally, for different reasons and different symptoms, the router locks-up. In those cases it has been shown that you need to revert to earlier firmware and then re-upgrade to make the router function as it should.

Royan

[Oleg]

No, there is no way to control this now. In the future versions of mine firmware log size will be limited by using circular buffer.

[Royan]

Ok.
Thanks

Royan

[goudkamp74]

Hi!

My router is giving problems. I upgraded to the latest 1.7.5.6 firmware and after the usual reboot, I tried to set the router into 'router' mode, without NAT and such because my ISDN router is doing that.

And now the Asus won't startup anymore, the WLAN led stays off for ever and the normal single blink of the power led doesn't occur also anymore.

I CAN get the router in restore mode, ping it to 192.168.1.1, upgrade or downgrade the firmware ( I tried them all, also the original Asus ones) but after a short and even long (5 minutes) powerdown, the router doesn't boot.

Normally, if I take out all cables, I'm able to reset the router's config using the restore button. This time: nothing...

Help! What can I do??

Thanx, Martijn

[Antiloop]

maybe you can try a very early firmware
version 1.1.3.3 or something

can be found in the Firmware Releases

[goudkamp74]

Hi, thanx. I tried that too but to no prevail. Still doesn't work. What else can I check ? The WLAN led doesn't come on after many boots and no web or ping.

[goudkamp74]

If I try to boot from an external USB disk / key, maybe the router could work again? How can I see a boot log ?

[Oleg]

Please clarify the following: you're able to use router after the firmware restoration, but one you switch it off you're no longer able to access it?

[goudkamp74]

No, I cannot use the router at all. The only thing that works is the switch :-). It boots, power led blinks once, the WAN led comes up (when I attach my ISDN router) but the AIR led never turns on, the router remains unpingable, WEB config doesn't respond and the LAN clients don't get an IP.

In restore mode, I can ping the router at 192.168.1.1 and put inside a new firmware but after de compulsary reset, the router behaves as above.

[Antiloop]

about the pinging, the fact i have noticed is that EVERY ip is pingable. (also outside the subnet)

[MrBean]

My WL-500g suddenly won't give any access and every 10 seconds all lights go off and back on (restarting). At that time network traffic is broken (for lets say 2 seconds), and then i am talking about ethernet traffic and not wireless because wireless does not work at all. It is since new firmware is installed or it has a hardware problem. Actually it is exactly like the problem of a previous post.
The AIR light also doesn't come on and the router is not seen by the discover utility. Web access or pinging to 192.168.1.1 also doesn't work so i can't see what is going on. I have the option to bring it back but i can't stand not knowing whats going on. Does anyone have a clue ?