I was also able to unbrick my WL-500g Deluxe by shorting pin 10 then pin 12 to ground. (I was running OpenWRT and messed things up by writing unworkable networking and firewall settings to NVRAM.)
Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2010 4:54 Post subject: Unbrick Asus WL-520gU
Thanx for this topic I successfully unbrick my Asus Wl-520gU. After flashing with DD-WRT from Tomato firmware, my router was brick (WAN i LAN lights always on, power i air fast blinking). Nothing work: ping, restoring utility, 30-30-30 ...
Then I got the instructions from the beginning for MX 29LV chip, with the difference that in my case chip was 29LV320CBTC-90G. I try method 10 12 pin several times. In the end I combined both the 10 and 12 pin to the ground 4-5 times by 1-2 seconds. That was successfully.
Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 10:23 Post subject: No power led with dim Air led - wl-500g premium
I have a Asus WL-500G premium router witch is brick now.
After trying to update firmwire it turned into brick.
I tried the folowings but no succes: 30/30/30 Restore operation, Shortcuting Pin 9.
When i plug in the router it's starts by lighting the 4 Lan Leds + 1 Wan Led and the it's turn off, only the Air Led is light all the time, but dim. When i connect a Lan port is lighten up but i can't access router by ping or other Web methods.
Please help me....what else should i try?
Thanks with the hope that i will resurect my little baby.
I have a WL-500GD (that's how it's labeled, but for the purposes of this question, it's a WL-500gx). I upgraded some outlets in my house and had my router plugged in when I flipped the breaker back on. The immediate problem was that the router wasn't working although the power light, wan, and lan lights were on, but every 5 seconds or so, all LAN lights would come on and the router would reset. I've tried going through the process of using nvram clear and restore any number of times (with my ethernet IP set static 192.18.1.2), but one thing that doesn't change is that when the port connects, the name I gave my AP is still there. So, in other words, I can't really clear the router to default settings.
Based on what I've read, I thought power supply was the culprit. I scored a used, but hopefully good 5V 2A supply, and no change (in fact, my original supply didn't show symptoms of being bad, like a swollen capacitor). I've tried pin 10 / 9 and pin 12 shorting, and while those are clearly doing something, I can't figure out what, and it isn't consistent. Bottom line is, my router still isn't reset to default, with default settings, after all of that.
I can get into restore mode, ping 192.168.1.1, flash, and everything, but I'm always back to square one when I install firmware - the router keeps resetting itself and I can't get into it through a browser.
So, anyone have any ideas what trick might work to really clear all of it's memory? Also, I want to clarify whether one should or shouldn't use nvram restore with the WL-500gx, or just nvram clear. Thanks.
Posted: Sat Nov 13, 2010 9:27 Post subject: Another successful report.
Asus WL-520GU totally bricked due to wrong nvram settings.
At power on, lan and wan led are immediately stuck to solid green, power and wlan off (not even a blink).
Router not responding to ping, not able to go into recovery mode, not responding to any action on the reset button, in any condition.
The cure:
1 - router off
2 - short to ground PIN 9 (use a needle !)
3 - power on router (while PIN 9 is shorted)
4 - wait for a few seconds until power led will start blinking, showing that you are in recovery mode !
5 - remove short from pin 9
Now you know what you have to do ... (wl500g-clear-nvram.trx --> wl500g-recover.trx --> your_firmware.trx).
Note that from point 5 onwards, reset button must be used to activate recovery mode when you install the trx needed.
Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2010 23:26 Post subject: ASUS WL-500G Premium R1.14
Hello all,
Today my friend gave me his old network device ASUS WL-500G Premium R1.14. It could be useable with dd-wrt firmware due to easy OpenVPN setup. I don`t know what did he do with it, but it is not responding on 192.168.1.1 after factory default reset. I use 192.168.1.2 on my PC.
Sympthoms:
DHCP service is not available
Power LED is blinking
When I plug straight TP cable from my PC to LAN1 port on router, LAN1-LED is switched on and blinking when I try to ping this device on 192.168.1.1 but no response.
I also tried to start router in recovery mode, but it is the same situation as normal mode.
Could you help me please?
Thanks for responds. _________________ Asus WL500G Premium v2 - dd-wrt.v24_mega_generic.bin (2009-10-10)
Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 4:22 Post subject: Re: ASUS WL-500G Premium R1.14
neoncek wrote:
Hello all,
Today my friend gave me his old network device ASUS WL-500G Premium R1.14. It could be useable with dd-wrt firmware due to easy OpenVPN setup. I don`t know what did he do with it, but it is not responding on 192.168.1.1 after factory default reset. I use 192.168.1.2 on my PC.
Sympthoms:
DHCP service is not available
Power LED is blinking
When I plug straight TP cable from my PC to LAN1 port on router, LAN1-LED is switched on and blinking when I try to ping this device on 192.168.1.1 but no response.
I also tried to start router in recovery mode, but it is the same situation as normal mode.
Could you help me please?
Thanks for responds.
Can only tell you what worked for me. Although I don't know why your power light is blinking! Is it blinking when you plug in the power cable normally OR is it blinking when you plug in the power cable WHILE "restore"/Reset button is pushed in. If it's the latter, then you might already be in a restore mode and follow instructions for uploading the clear, recover and then mini.trx files using TFTP
If it's the former, then it might be messed up...and what worked for me was the PIN shorting method. You'll have to find out what pins to short for the 500G router. The circuit board looks different so it might be pins 10, 12 OR it might be PIN 9 like my WL-500W
Actually PowerLED is bliking in normal and also recovery mode. I tried PIN9 method, bu no success. Only here power led was off. Router is still not reachable on 192.168.1.1
Any other ideas please? _________________ Asus WL500G Premium v2 - dd-wrt.v24_mega_generic.bin (2009-10-10)
That's the tricky bit I think, that the power LED is blinking without pressing the restore button. BTW, I have a feeling that you didn't short pin 9 properly. Can you describe what happened when you shorted it?
I believe what you're looking for is: when you short pin 9 of the eeprom with ground and plug in the power, first all of the lights will come on, and then turn off, then after about 10-15 secs, the power light turns off. That's all I can remember from my experience...I wish I'd paid more attention. I had to actually try this twice before I got it working. The first time, the entire time I had the short in place, ALL the light were on for the entire time. When I removed the short and powered it up again, nothing had changed. I think I might have accidentally shorted the wrong pin as the pins on the eeprom are SO thin and when you're nervous it's easy to lose stability.
If I were you, I'd try the shorting again. I know everyone says it's NOT advisable but for MOST of us who don't know much about these routers and have no time to mess around with understanding a lot of what goes on inside these routers and build cables and solder stuff to the board and be all cool, at this point when our router is kinda bricked, we've already given up on it and I don't care if it dies on me during shorting as it was useless anyway...so IF I end up reviving it using the shorting method, then it's a bonus. Not to mention, I've not read a single thread that actually tell us HOW else to unbrick it without shorting...like what are the commands etc to type and what to do from the CLI IF I were to go as far as getting a cable, soldering pins and doing all that cool stuff and seeing my router boot up?? Anyone??
Actually, IF BEFORE Bricking this router had its LAN IP Subnet changed from 192.168.1.0 to something else like mine was changed to 10.1.2.0, then after de-bricking it, you will NOT have access to 192.168.1.0. You will HAVE to connect to the OLD subnet. After de-bricking, the router is NOT set to factory defaults. It keeps its old settings as it doesn't erase the nvram...it seems to just clear/reset something that was what seems like a CRC check error or something. So after de-bricking/shorting the pin, make sure your computer connected on the LAN port is set to DHCP and hope like hell that the router had DHCP server active when it was bricked...and you'll get whatever IP it gives out on whatever subnet it was on at the time of getting bricked.
After de-bricking, the router is NOT set to factory defaults. It keeps its old settings as it doesn't erase the nvram...
Just to be sure that router is reverted to factory settings, you should apply the trx I mentioned before (wl500g-clear-nvram.trx --> wl500g-recover.trx --> your_firmware.trx).
All of these trx must be upload with router in recovery mode (power led slow blinking)
Posted: Sat Nov 27, 2010 16:21 Post subject: WL-500W partially bricked
Hello everyone,
I'm new on this forum, but I was using ddwrt for last 2 years. I've successfully installed ddwrt-mega on my WL-500W. It worked fine till yesterday. The LAN LEDs were blinking together while the power LED was slowly blinking separately.
I've successfully entered recovery mode and flashed the router with the latest original asus firmware (3.x.x) in case of any warranty checks. The unit was still unable to operate with blinking LAN LEDs and it was resetting every 10 seconds.
After doing some research I've discovered that the reason of router's behaviour was faulty power supply, so I bought a new 5V 3A power adapter and the router woke up successfully. The operating system started up (ping TTL 64), AIR LED started to light. After setting IP configuration manually I was able to enter 192.168.1.1 where the HTTP login appeared (so it is asus firmware, not ddwrt - the flash on the faulty power supply went ok?).
I wasn't able to put any known password there (both default and my own passwords) - it was refusing any authentication data - after pressing cancel button I saw the standard asus pink 'authentication required' screen. Telnet and SCP connections were automatically refused - maybe the nvram was not cleared properly.
I thought that it's a good moment to install again ddwrt by turning on the recovery mode and applying proper firmware images (nvram, recovery, ddwrt).
After doing 30/30/30 the router started up without entering recovery mode. The operating system was not loaded and I was unable to ping the device. Later I discovered that I can't boot the device with a LAN cable attached on the back to any of LAN ports. It starts successfully (and I'm able to ping it with TTL 64) most of times but without a network cable. I tried to catch the moment with TTL 100 while the bootloader is ready for tftp upload but with such problem I can't do that.
Tried to do the PIN9 trick and there are no changes - the router still boots most of times but without a cable.
I'd like to enter recovery mode or just access the admin panel...
Any help?