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Bricked R8500 unable to get to CFE
Hi, I've been trying to resurrect my bricked R8500. I've read most of the forum material on bricked R8500 and followed peter11742's journey. https://community.netgear.com/t5/Nighthawk-WiFi-Route...
Yes you need to have the USB cable plugged in and terminal active when you start the router up as the CFE comes right after the power up. If you are plugging in after you start the router then you will miss the CFE unless very lucky. I suspect, as I said earlier, you have a defective USB serial cable. Have had similar issues with bad ones. They are CHEAP and do not hold up well and had one that was defective out of the box.
Best I can do for you at this point is to wish you good luck.
Thanks. Yup, that's exactly the steps I've implemented/attempted.
One issue that troubles me... I am not able to keep the USB cable plugged in at initial power on of the router. I have to start the router first and the. Plug in the USB cable to my laptop. Could this be an issue resulting in my failed CFE attempt? I would imagine the router should behave the same regardless of USB cable plugged into Laptop or not. However, the router behaves differently when the USB cable is plugged in and then router started. I get absolutely nothing on Putty if I have the USB plugged prior to starting the router.
It seems like most people have the USB cable plugged in and putty running BEFORE powering the router.
Any thoughts on that?
One issue that troubles me... I am not able to keep the USB cable plugged in at initial power on of the router. I have to start the router first and the. Plug in the USB cable to my laptop. Could this be an issue resulting in my failed CFE attempt? I would imagine the router should behave the same regardless of USB cable plugged into Laptop or not. However, the router behaves differently when the USB cable is plugged in and then router started. I get absolutely nothing on Putty if I have the USB plugged prior to starting the router.
It seems like most people have the USB cable plugged in and putty running BEFORE powering the router.
Any thoughts on that?
Yes you need to have the USB cable plugged in and terminal active when you start the router up as the CFE comes right after the power up. If you are plugging in after you start the router then you will miss the CFE unless very lucky. I suspect, as I said earlier, you have a defective USB serial cable. Have had similar issues with bad ones. They are CHEAP and do not hold up well and had one that was defective out of the box.
Best I can do for you at this point is to wish you good luck.
Thanks! Just closing the loop on the topic. I took your advice and purchased a new cable from Amazon. Viola! CFE up immediately. Definitely a cable issue. I opened up the original cable and found a solder bridge across 2 pins on the IC. Ughhh... What a waste of time trying with that other cable. Didn't think to open up the cable to check!
> [...] Definitely a cable issue. [...]
"cable" is a rather imprecise description of any gizmo with an IC
hidden inside.> [...] Didn't think to open up the cable to check!
In general, you should be able to do a simple loopback test with any
serial interface: Tie RxD to TxD, and see if you can talk to yourself.
(Hardware flow control can complicate such a test, but this stuff is too
simple for that.)Wrong speed (or bits, or parity, ...) is the other common problem
(which a loopback test typically won't reveal).I am most keen to know which cable you purchased off Amazon as I will need a replacement serial to USB cable to attempt to unbrick my R8000 routers as well.
Please drop the Amazon URL in your reply... Thanks!
If your present cable worked then no need for another as should work on any router serial connection.
As you asked this is the cable I have. Little more expensive then some, but works.