Does your wifi button (on/off) work on your GT-ac5300?

[budwich]

Probably somewhat silly question, but I picked up a unit which seems to have a few problems (mostly 5g-1) doesn't broadcast (like some others on the forum have found in some combination... either one or both bands). I haven't found any solution for the "lack of broadcast"... and even when it does, no device can connect to the "troubled band". I noticed that the ON/OFF wifi button on the side of the unit, does not impact the wifi at all. I can always see what ever wifi is broadcast (ie. 2.4, 5g-2).... verified with any device and with wifi scanner app along with the led lights on the asus (they are always lit after the thing boots up). The led lights ON/OFF works but I haven't verified the WPS button ( I have never tried that method of connection). Anyway, sorry for the question if it seems out of place for this forum. I wish the unit was working properly.

I guess I have one other question. Somewhere along the "read travels", I have seen reference to "antenna chains" with repect to this unit and how they are band assigned (i.e. the front antennas are "chained" for 2.4g and 5g-1, while the back aree for 5g-2). I was wonder about the "chain"... does that mean if an antenna / port is broken in some electrical form (ie. missing / poor connection...etc) that "chain" may be broken at that point and hence potentially no signal is sent or received? I haven't actually seen how the antennas are wired, henced the question.

Thanks for any comments / guidance.

[budwich]

I guess everyone's works. I took the ac5300 apart and tested the buttons. They all function. I notice significant "oils" leaking from the thermal pads. Maybe indicating that the pad's function is marginal at this point. No obvious component failures visually.

[jzchen]

ASUS support is excellent. If you purchased from a vendor that provides a receipt with model and/or serial number on it I suggest you contact them with your concern. You may need to ship it in out of pocket but my experience with missing radio they basically refunded me...

EDIT- I did not open the unit but the SN sticker was detached from the router. I wasn't expecting anything but a repair bill....

[budwich]

thanks for the info. It was purchased "2nd hand" and refunded for not working. I am trying to see if I can get it functional again. So far no luck. The amount of "juice" from the pads is disheartening. Likely mean something is "baked" and probably not recoverable. It looks like it will turn into a "science experiment". 🙂

Might see how to get done into some of the lower levels via the "SSH" to see what's up. Any suggestions on what / where to look?

[budwich]

went back in time... way back..... to 2018/09/19 firmware. The results are somewhat interesting in that only the 5g_gaming band is alive and working. Both the 2.4 and 5g_1 are both not broadcasting for what ever reason BUT both have mac addresses associated with them. So at least, some sort of internal hardware communications to the 5g_1 controller is working in some form ... very little. 😞 The web interface seems like it has problems as the status for the bands indicates "open" but I have tried changing them to pwd'ed operation...it says it was successful but in the end nothing appears to have changed. Perhaps the early version of the firmware does not function with what ever version this particular gt ac5300 is. Anyway, I will slowly move forward with firmwares to see if anything improves.

[budwich]

did some testing around various parts (ie. regulators) to see if anything jumps out. There are quite a few 3.4v regulators around along with a 1v one... based on a quick look around both sides. Their outputs seem correct. Strange thing happened after doing those checks (with a hand scope and DMM) under multiple power up and down to re-position card / probe access... a final check of the wifi broadcasting bands showed all three bands. Interesting. Could log in on either the 2.4g or 5g-2 band but not the 5g-1 band. Further once logged in, quickly looked at wifi logs which showed all bands completely as opposed to just the 2 (2.4 / 5g-2). In addition, the 5g-1 band had a channel assigned (46 control 44). Further, the S/N levels on the 5g-1 were actually better than the other bands. So it appears that the radio is somewhat working. That is, UNTIL I tried to log in thru the band.... the connection was attempted but the tablet then dropped it and switched to the previously used band (ie. 5g-2). At this point, the wireless logs no longer show the 5g-1 band and looking the the wifi status, the 5g-1 control channel was back to 0. 😞

No sure what changed to get this far but perhaps an "opportune touch" at one of the points caused some electrically change temporarily. Of course, I am only measuring voltage and can't "see" any current being sent.... perhaps a bad joint is hiding somewhere in the areas that were "disturbed".

[budwich]

not much luck retouching some of the same areas with a soldering iron. The 5g-1 band no longer broadcasts again.... so what ever mode it was in, is now not getting there any more. Another thing that I find interesting in the wireless log is that it indicts that the wifi is in apmode only.... not sure if that is a status or a label point in the output.

😞 anyway, I think my time has been spent enough on this broken asus.

[jzchen]

Bummer you weren't able to sort it out. I've seen thermal paste sloppily applied before. Upon removing the heat sink you could see it overflowing the edge/side of the chip, and part of the top was not covered with paste. I forget if we were having performance trouble with that computer at the time, why we were opening it up and pulling off the fan/heat sink. Maybe the fan failed. It might be nice if ASUS implements some sort of CPU temp monitoring....

Definitely sounds like time to move on...