Nighthawk R7000 is bricked and keeps restarting every few mins

[mntolia]

Hi,

I bought a nighthawk R7000 router. It was running smoothly for a few months. I downloaded and tried to update the firmware but then it doesn't turn ON and keeps showing that Amber Light. It also restarts every few minutes. I tried hitting the factory reset but nothing happens.

So I looked in the help and saw the TFTP method. I got the firmware file and I connected the router to my laptop via tha lan port. I then set a IP of 192.168.1.2 and a gateway of 192.168.1.1 in my Network settings in my laptop for LAN. Then I selected the firmware file in TFTP and put the password and IP but it keeps retrying. It keeps saying "Erasing" but then it retries and fails.

When I used ping on CMD I got a response.


What should I do now?

[TheEther · Accepted solution]

You can try the official instructions from Netgear (link).

If that doesn't work, then you may need to use a serial cable to recover.  This requires you to open the router to access the serial port with a special cable that you can purchase.  The cable is reasonably inexpensive (around $10).  There are lots of instructions for recovering routers on the Internet.  Here's one for the R7000 (link).

[aalexandrebeta]

Hi @mntolia  @StephenB or @TheEther  will help you!!

Be patient.

Regards.

[mntolia]

Thanks.

Edit: It restarts every 30 seconds precisely.

[aalexandrebeta]

Handy for cooking sessions!!

Just kidding!

[TheEther]

The window for installing firmware via TFTP is very short, just a few seconds.  The follow technique may help.

1. Open two Command Prompts.
2. In one window, start a ping -n 1000 192.168.1.1.
3. In the second window, prepare but do not execute the tftp command (e.g. tftp -i 192.168.1.1 firmware.bin).
4. Unplug the R7000, wait a few seconds, then plug it back in.
5. The pings in the other window will fail and then start to work.
6. As soon as the pings start working, start the tftp command.

[mntolia]

@TheEther

Thank you for your reply.

I tried what you told me.
 In the second window my command was "tftp -i 192.168.1.1 put r7.chk".

(r7.chk is the file i got from the Netgear site) I don't have a bin file.

It does nothing for a few seconds and then as soon as the ping says destination unreachable to says "Timed Out"

Then I also tried "tftp 192.168.1.1 put r7.chk"
(Don't know the difference but tried nevertheless) 

[VE6CGX]

First do this to reset the router.

Power off router, disconnect all cables, Push and holding  down the reset button, power up the router.

When LED indicators start blinking let go of the reset button.

What is state of router now?

Plug one LAN cable from your PC.

When you ping the router, what is the value of TTL?

If you see TTL=100, this good. You have  chance for TFTP.

TTL=100 means it is the time window you can load firmware.

So already mentioned, you start pinging with N-1000(repeat pinging 1000 times)

You can only execute tftp command at the precise moment when you see TTL=100.

If you miss, keep trying until you succeed. Good luck.

If you never see TTL=100, tftp won't work.

[mntolia]

@VE6CGX @TheEther

When I click the reset button and power it ON. Nothing new happens. The LED blinks as usual and it goes back to the amber light state.

When I click the reset button during the amber light state, it restarts and after a few seconds, again amber light state.
 
When I ping my router the value of TTL is 100. But the response continuously lasts only for 12 seconds.

During that time frame I execute the tftp command "tftp 192.168.1.1 put r7.chk"
Nothing happens initially.

Once the ping responses times out the tftp window says "Timed Out General Request Failed"

And note my router restarts every 20 seconds.

[TheEther · Accepted solution]

You can try the official instructions from Netgear (link).

If that doesn't work, then you may need to use a serial cable to recover.  This requires you to open the router to access the serial port with a special cable that you can purchase.  The cable is reasonably inexpensive (around $10).  There are lots of instructions for recovering routers on the Internet.  Here's one for the R7000 (link).

[mntolia]

I fixed it by opening it up and hooking a USB TTL cable to it. I used a Serial monitor to activate TFTP and flashed the firmware.
Thank you @TheEther for the tutorial.

[sktn77a]

I think the firmware update process should be a lot simpler and secure than this!  Shame on hardware manufacturers for putting out defective products and requiring monthly firmware updates to fix them!