Suspect Damaged Router

[GregH991]

Hi All,

Also posted a related but different question on the Gaming forum. I suspect that my Asus AC52U ADSL Modem Router took a lighting surge a few days back. It seemed to knock out two of the four LAN ports at the back as nothing connected to these two ports can connect to the web. The other two LAN ports and WIFI appear to work fine.

Are these things worth repairing? I can buy an exact replacement at Makro for R1699 and Takealot sell it for R1099 - vast difference in price but that's besides the point. If they can be repaired, where does one go? Being off-line is a bit of an issue so turn-around time on the repair would be a big factor in deciding whether to repair/replace, especially if we are looking at a few hundred bucks difference.

I can make do for now with the two working LAN ports and WIFI but prefer to have my Smart TV, PS4 and PC on LAN. For now the PS4 has to move to WIFI.

Any thoughts and opinions welcome. Thanks in advance!

 

[My_King]

There is always going to be that one idiot that thinks they know better.

My opinion, cheaper to just replace.

 

[stricken]

There is always going to be that one idiot that thinks they know better.

My opinion, cheaper to just replace.

Unless you're an idiot with a soldering iron and knowledge of popped capacitors, then it's not.

 

[D4N_CPT]

There is always going to be that one idiot that thinks they know better.

My opinion, cheaper to just replace.

I will be the idiot....

REPAIR! REPAIR! REPAIR!


Seriously though for a R1100 bucks, just replace the damn thing. Get a quote on repair if you want and keep it as a backup, or simply keep the half working one as backup as is. If you can't afford to be offline a onsite, drop-in spare is always a good idea...

 

[GregH991]

Unless you're an idiot with a soldering iron and knowledge of popped capacitors, then it's not.

Haha, I am definitely an idiot with a soldering iron (although I actually own one, I really don't know why), and don't know the first thing about how to identify a popped capacitor.

Out of curiosity then, If I buy another one of these routers, could I used this 'damaged' one as a WIFI range extender to reach the far end of the house? In other words run a LAN cable from the replacement router to a working LAN port on the damaged router? Or is that not possible?

 

[D4N_CPT]

Haha, I am definitely an idiot with a soldering iron (although I actually own one, I really don't know why), and don't know the first thing about how to identify a popped capacitor.

Out of curiosity then, If I buy another one of these routers, could I used this 'damaged' one as a WIFI range extender to reach the far end of the house? In other words run a LAN cable from the replacement router to a working LAN port on the damaged router? Or is that not possible?

Sure, why not? That option should be available. If not available, you will simply have to run two SSIDs...

 

[GregH991]

Sure, why not? That option should be available. If not available, you will simply have to run two SSIDs...

Cool, thanks D4N_CPT, that could make this a lesser blow as I was angling to somehow get WIFI to the bedroom area at the opposite end of the house where it is currently very weak. I'm not too clued up on setting that up or if it would just be plug and play? Accessing the Router Control Panel on the PC it is connected to via LAN would give me access to the primary Router's setting, I guess I would not need any access to the 'secondary" one for setting it up?

 

[D4N_CPT]

Cool, thanks D4N_CPT, that could make this a lesser blow as I was angling to somehow get WIFI to the bedroom area at the opposite end of the house where it is currently very weak. I'm not too clued up on setting that up or if it would just be plug and play? Accessing the Router Control Panel on the PC it is connected to via LAN would give me access to the primary Router's setting, I guess I would not need any access to the 'secondary" one for setting it up?

It all depends on router make, model and firmware.

Typical Setup would be:
IP:192.168.x.1 | SSID:XxXx | Ch:1 - Primary Router/Modem
IP:192.168.x.2 | SSID:XxXx | Ch:6 - Secondary Router as AP in Repeater Mode, all other features disabled

Channels will be open ones, usually "Auto" is good enough, but if the units start interfering with each other, set it manually to any non-overlapping open Channels (try WiFi Analyser on Playstore to see how congested the airspace is).

These "dumb" units do not normally have Master and Slave communication channels, like you would get with UniFi, CapsMan, AirTies, Aruba, etc. So the setup is pretty much manual on each device.

If the router cannot be set to Repeater AP Mode (this is super unlikely, so consider dumping the whole setup), config would look something like this:

IP:192.168.x.1 | SSID:XxXx | Ch:1 - Primary Router/Modem
IP:192.168.x.2 | SSID:not_the_same_as_XxXx | Ch:6 - Secondary Router as AP only, all other features disabled

And with both setups you might need to adjust power to force the wireless clients to handover to the stronger AP, as end points will hold on to their currently associated AP for dear life.

 

[GregH991]

Thanks a mil D4N_CPT!!!

 

[D4N_CPT]

Thanks a mil D4N_CPT!!!

Anytime, I will be watching this thread. So come back and post updates and/or questions.

As a side note, I believe most of Asus's Routers ship with rebranded DD-WRT Firmware, so you should be good on the features side of things.