Dead or brick ? Lan and WAN 1-4 leds on steady

[raas]

Hi All,

I need some thoughts on the problems I'm facing the last couple of days.

I think my power supply is defect (doesn't supply enough current), or worse, my wl500g premium is bricked.

The symptoms:
All LAN leds and AIR leds are continiously on. they don't blink, even though not a single cable is connected. the power-led is off.
When I take the power off, wait 15 secs, and put the power back on, the same symptoms occur. But. sometimes it 'boots', I stick a lan-cable in it and try to ping it, sometimes this works, but most of the time it doesn't.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, my harddrive (currently a 2,5' notebook) started having issues. The drive runs of the asus without an extra power supply. But now, all of a sudden the drive doesn't run off the asus anymore, I had to stick an extra powersupply to the drive in order to run it.
Then, a week or so later, the asus didn't recognize my Velleman K8055 usb-interface board anymore, it doesn't detect it when it's plugged in.

And now, it's just sitting there, staring at me with all those orange lights, but it doesn't work.

I checked the power supply with a multimeter and it supplies 5.24v
I guess this is correct, but could it be that it is not supplying enough current anymore so that the Asus can't boot up?

Would you think it's safe to test this with the 5v supply rail from a (running) pc. As I don't have a spare power-supply which can provide 5v@2,5a

Any thoughts on this are welcome.

TIA

[wpte]

that does sound like a powersupply is broken...
I guess a input from a PC psu shouldn't give any problems... you most likely get a more stable signal anyway

just make sure you got the cables inserted the right way

[raas]

Thanks for your reply,

I will try tonight..
nevermind about the polarity, my-digital-friend, the multimeter will tell me which is what.. (in almost 100% of the cases, the center pin is +, surrounding is ground, but I will check double.)

/offtopic
(couple of years ago, I had an external drive which power supply had died. The internals of the device were still ok, so I got (made myself) a new power supply for the external drive. Boy was I happy that I double checked that cable. The existing cable from the defect power supply had 3 wires: Black, red and yellow... Now, you normally would think: black=ground, red=5v and yellow=12v.. well.. not this particular psu: black=ground, red=12v and yellow=5v... just the other way around!)

[raas]

Well,

Did some testing.
my asus device is ok! it runs
it is in fact the power supply which is giving the 'solid leds' thing.
When I run it off a pc-power supply it immediately boots and recognises all the devices (harddisk and k8055 board)

[wpte]

Well,

Did some testing.
my asus device is ok! it runs
it is in fact the power supply which is giving the 'solid leds' thing.
When I run it off a pc-power supply it immediately boots and recognises all the devices (harddisk and k8055 board)

good, now you only need a proper adaptor for your router

[tungtung]

Well I just had this exact same problem happening to me too, and I'm also wondering if this is due to bad adaptor. At first the router kept on power cycling itself, and now it's just on with solid lights on all the lan and wan ports.

By the way how do you actually try testing whether the adaptor is bad or not. Honestly I just never felt comfortable working with the electrical components, so if anyone can sort of give me some hints on how to test the adaptor it would be great.

The other thing too is where do I get a replacement for it if indeed the adaptor is dead?

Thanks

[raas]

Hi Tungtung..

First. As long as power is DC (the type of power that runs from your adapter) you should have no worries. DC in a low voltage/current will not harm you, but only your equipment if you would mak a mistake.
Second. voltage doesn't kill people, current does., but then we're talking about high currents (or you would want to wire directly into your heart, than, 0.14a is sufficient). also. DC is more lethal than AC.

This shouldn't scare you off. as long as you don't open your power supply, there's nothing to worry..

Now, the solid led thing. below a test method, without a multimeter.

I took a cable and a matching plug. Center pin is +, outer wire/metal is ground. Open up a pc. search for a molex-connector. put the + on the red wire, and the ground to the black wire next to red wire. Now you have the save voltage on the wire as would the original asus power supply putts out.
Put the plug in the asus.. see if it boots or not. (typical pc-power supply supplies more than 20a @ 5v on the red-wire. should be more than enough to boot your asus..


If you want to use the multimeter. to take a good measurement. you will have to cut something apart. First you have to measure the voltage from the adapter with no load.. should be something like 5.2v
But after that you will have to test it with load (the asus).
Also if you want to measure the amount of current that is drawn, you have to setup your multimeter a little different (read its user manual)


for a quick check, use the first method.

Good luck, and let's hope it's not your asus..

otoh... seems like there are an awfull lot of people suffering from bad power supplies/bricked systems the last couple of weeks... taking into account that it is summer, and temperatures are rising.. the design might be not that good that it lasts in a warm environment.

Edit: For a replacement: any power supply is ok, as long as it puts out 5V @ a minimum of 2,5A

[ocelivise]

I also had same problems, power and air leds are off,and rest of leds are always on. I opened power supply and found that one capacitor is "swollen".
It is 10V,1200uF. Closest that I could buy was 10V and 1500uF.
I replaced it and it is working now

[raas]

I also had same problems, power and air leds are off,and rest of leds are always on. I opened power supply and found that one capacitor is "swollen".
It is 10V,1200uF. Closest that I could buy was 10V and 1500uF.
I replaced it and it is working now

Nice find and good solution!!

(although, I won't go back anymore now that I have 5 devices running of the PC-PSU, which is more power efficient)

otoh it would be nice to have a seperate psu to drive it 'standalone'.

I'm going to open it up and see if mine suffers from the same swollen (leaky) capacitors

[ocelivise]

It's probably due to overheating(so many people with same problems during this summer), old capacitor was rated 105°C, this is only 85°C so I drilled some holes in casing.
Total repair cost: ~0.75E

[wpte]

It's probably due to overheating(so many people with same problems during this summer), old capacitor was rated 105°C, this is only 85°C so I drilled some holes in casing.
Total repair cost: ~0.75E

hmm... I thought only the router itself suffered from that, reason for me to buy a laptop cooler

my psu get's quite warm as well... kinda odd that asus didn't spend more time on testing this.

[Elect]

Having the same problem.. Couldn't see any leaky capacitators, but i'll check again this weekend.

Irritating, this is too early for hardware to die on me. Ran for about 3 years 24/7.

[QMax]

Having the same problem.. Couldn't see any leaky capacitators, but i'll check again this weekend.

Irritating, this is too early for hardware to die on me. Ran for about 3 years 24/7.

If you have 5V on the ps output, go straight and replace the 1200uF/10V capacitor with a new one. You can use a 1000uF/12V, worked fine for me.

Max

[Leon78]

The symptoms:
All LAN leds and AIR leds are continiously on. they don't blink, even though not a single cable is connected. the power-led is off.
When I take the power off, wait 15 secs, and put the power back on, the same symptoms occur. But. sometimes it 'boots', I stick a lan-cable in it and try to ping it, sometimes this works, but most of the time it doesn't.

TIA

Exactly the same problem I have.
I have also another symptom: sometime when I connect LAN cable to the NB it frozes.

Now I want to test another adapter. I have my ASUS under warranty yet. So should I upload original firmware before I sent it to the seller?

[bangwhistle]

I had the same problem, couldn't get the reset function to work, only those four lights. Could not find an OEM power supply but did find one that ended up working fine- the plug is even the right size. Sonicwall part number 01-SSC-2848 is 5V, 2.4A which is plenty of current for the WL-500G Premium. I did have to reflash and restore config (PP) but all is well.