Is my router dead?!?

[JackOfHearts]

I have been using this router happily for around a month and tonight I was going to play a game with a friend... I have played this game several times though the router and had no problems but tonight when I tried it ping times were very high...
So I thought I should try upgrading the firmware(probably not really the problem but I figured why not). Well when I started to upgrade the firmware the upgrade program worked until got to the half way point then is said server not repsonding and then the red WAN light on the router started to flash and wouldn't stop and I was unable to login to my router. I have tried the reset button and unpluging the router for 10 minutes then pluging it back in but I think it is truly dead

 

[Lord Evermore]

What kind of router is it? That'd help a little to know.

However it sounds like you killed the firmware, but I'm not sure how. If you were losing your connection to the router itself, which would cause the firmware upload to fail, then it was already having problems. Your internet connection shouldn't have affected the uploading of firmware though, so the failure was either due to your computer or the router failing already (or somebody kicking the power out of it). You're probably going to have to call the manufacturer and tell them what symptoms you're seeing, might have to send it back for repair (at your cost).

You did try power cycling it BEFORE the upgrade to see if it resolved the high ping times, right? And you DID do a traceroute to the destination to see if the high latency was due to your router or somewhere between the two of you, before you tried modifying your equipment, RIGHT?

 

[JackOfHearts]

I know firmware wouldn't help but hey why not.... Also it is a linksys router....

I didn't try tracert.... But I have played the same game many of times with this person and had no problem....

I have tried power cycles and using the "reset" button on the router....

none of that helped....

 

[Lord Evermore]

Just because there haven't been problems with the connection to him before doesn't mean there won't ever be.

Example: from you to your provider's router A to router B to C to D to his provider's router E to him. Router C goes down for some reason. Now from B it goes to Z to Y to X to W to V to U to T to S then to D. One hop became 8 hops, significantly increasing latency. If that path was faster, then you would probably be taking that path already, because most providers use dynamic routing to choose the best path. An alternative to this scenario is that the link between routers goes down, there are still only a few hops, there's an alternate path within that network that avoids adding hops, but this time it's going over a significantly slower link, like before it was an OC3, now it's on a DS3 which isn't normally used because the OC3 is so much faster. Now you have an OC3's worth of traffic going over a DS3 (T3; 1/3rd the bandwidth). That can cause several seconds delay for EVERY packet because they get queued up and have to wait to be pushed through that pipe. (I've encountered this personally in my job.)

Example: same path above, but router C's network suddenly gets hit by a denial of service attack, they can't shut it down quickly, so all their routers are getting hammered. Now packets are taking full seconds or even 2 or 3 seconds to route through there. Again, all you see is latency between the two of you unless you do a traceroute.

At a minimum, you should always ping your own router's gateway to see if the latency is starting at that first hop. If not, then it's not a problem with your equipment or your connection to your provider.

 

[ravedave]

Hold down the reset buton for 10 seconds with the power turned on. If that doesnt work Go somewhere else, download the firmware upgrade exe from linksys to a floppy, then take it back and install it from home. It might work. I am assuming you tried to do the firmware upgrade from within the linksys menu, cause thats a POS.

 

[JackOfHearts]

Ok I have tried firmware that is what broke it.... When I tried to upgrade the firmware like bam... router no work at all....

 

[JackOfHearts]

also it was the fireware I d/l'ed from linksys site... not the gay menus

 

[Lord Evermore]

This is why I like my Netgear with a serial port for console connections. It's at least one more way to see if it's dead.

 

[pm]

<< also it was the fireware I d/l'ed from linksys site... >>

There's your problem right there, if you use fireware you'll burn the router right up. What you really want to download is the firmware.

Sorry, couldn't resist. Did you try to reset it by holding down the button? Have you tried flashing with a different/older firmware version? After that, I guess I'd call up Linksys.

 

[dytron]

are u sure that the something physical didnt happen to the router. i.e. 'someone' dropped a hammer on it, or your cat (or dog, doesnt matter) 'messed' on it? i looked throught the posts above and didnt see anything like that so i thought i should mention it

 

[Lord Evermore]

pm, with the LinkSys, if it's not responding to IP, you can't do anything with it. You have to be able to pass traffic to it over your network, because configuration is web-based, and the firmware upgrade utility uses IP to upload the new firmware. No way to just force the firmware to it.

 

[pm]

That's true, Lord EM, I didn't read JofH's posts thoroughly enough. Ok, plan B. for me would be to call Linksys.

 

[ravedave]

If holding in the reset button for 10+ seconds doesnt clear it back to its then your fubar... contact linksys....

 

[pm]

Coincidently, I stumbled across this this afternoon when a friend mentioned he was having problems with his router:
Linksys's instructions on reviving dead routers

 

[Lord Evermore]

That description of how to force the firmware update still requires that the router be responding to IP traffic. Normally the computer won't lose its IP address until you reboot it (at least not Win9X), so manually setting the IP isn't likely to make a difference, but at least that way you know you have a valid IP (and it should be pointed out that you should use an IP that you know is not in use elsewhere on your network).

Frankly, corrupted firmware means the router isn't functioning anymore, and is therefore not responding properly to traffic, so that description is going to fail 99% of the time. The only time it might work is if your computer has lost its IP address and ONLY the DHCP server on the router has failed. Otherwise, the router still isn't passing IP traffic.