ASUS RT-AC66U


 * • (RT-AC66W)  •  (RT-AC66R)
 * Specifications

"RT-AC66U" and "REV 1.30" is silkscreened on the ( blue ) board in the FCC photos.

This router is sold in various brick & mortar stores as the RT-AC66R and RT-AC66W..

The FCC label states the default SSID is ASUS.

FCC ID: MSQ-RTACHC00 (08/02/2016) (FCC Doc)

News

 * ASUS Reveals the Next Generation 802.11ac RT-AC66U Router on ASUS
 * NETGEAR Suing ASUS For Wireless Hanky Panky on SmallNetBuilder

Reviews

 * Tim Higgins review on SmallNetBuilder
 * 10:BF:48 OUI on the label in the internal photos


 * Maylyns review on the hardwarezone.com.sg' forums
 * UPC: 886227214341, EAN: 4716<?>4342,
 * OUI: 10:BF:48, rev. A1, mfg. year 2012


 * Review on tweakers.net
 * CPU: Broadcom BCM4706KPBG MIPS74K, @600MHz
 * Flash: Samsung K9F1G08U0D-SCB0 128MB, SLC
 * RAM: 2x Samsung K4T1G164QF-BCF7 256MB, DDR2 @800MHz
 * 2.4GHz: Broadcom BCM4331KMLG + 3x PA (E0GB 2AKC 216A)
 * 5GHz: Broadcom BCM4360KMLG + 3x PA (5003L1 210ED 1210)
 * SiGe SE5003L, 23dBm (200mW) Datasheet
 * Switch: Broadcom BCM53125SKMML 1GbE

Forum threads

 * New ASUS RT-AC66U router (5G 802.11ac) on wl500g.info
 * On the DD-WRT forums (w/ DD-WRT test build and internal images
 * posted by Magnetron1.1 [hosted on Mediafire], official support added
 * in build 20873 - 20130308 per the DD-WRT wiki)
 * 50:46:5D OUI on a label shot in the thread
 * 08:60:6E OUI on a DD-WRT build shot in the thread
 * A later revision A2 model in the thread has "RT-AC66U" and "REV 1.60"
 * silkscreened on the board.


 * Small info dump in the RT-N66U thread on the DD-WRT forums
 * Serial log indicates the device has an additional 2MB Serial Flash chip

Flashing DD-WRT

 * 1) Download firmware image here
 * 2) Set static ip of 192.168.1.7
 * 3) reset to defaults in Asus GUI or in recovery mode
 * 4) In recovery mode, upload BrainSlayer's file
 * 5) Give the router plenty of time to flash and reboot.
 * 6) Once able browse to 192.168.1.1, if you see the change password screen of dd-wrt then
 * do a hard reset which puts the router in recovery mode, select erase nvram and reboot.
 * If you donot see the change password screen start over from step 1.

Pictures
Asus' Images

jffs Issue in DD-WRT
This problem is caused by the firmware encountering an unmarked bad block during an erase operation while attempting to setup a JFFS2 filesystem on device /dev/mtd/4.

Most people will probably never experience this problem. The AC66U, the D1800H, and the Buffalo WLI-H4-D1300 Media Bridge use the same Samsung flash memory chip. In my case, 4 of my 5 D1800H's had the problem but my D1300 didn't. Neither of my AC66U's had the problem. One person on one of the AC66U threads reported having the problem; here's a link to his post.

If you have the problem, you will not be able to create or copy directories and files to /jffs. Here are some example error messages:(this list was shortened to save space - it can go on for several pages)

Also the Status -> Router webpage will show that JFFS2 has no free space.

To fix this problem try the following at a command line prompt:

This command erases and marks bad any bad blocks encountered so that they can be "skipped"
 * and formats the partition to JFFS2 specifications.
 * I believe the firmware uses the mtd erase command which seems to fail at handling bad blocks.
 * The flash_erase command needs to be run only once.

- Magnetron1.1

Trouble with recovery mode
mhchm

I just want to give a tip for anybody who has trouble getting into recovery mode. I didn't find this simple information on the internet yet. First, some context:

I flashed a Brainslayer build from a Fractal build, and then my router stopped responding to ping. When booting normally, the power and ethernet LEDs would light up. The same thing happened when booting up with the reset button pressed, which should have put into recovery mode, but didn't. When booting up with the WPS button pressed, the power LED would flash and clear the NVRAM. The router then started up and enabled the two radios, broadcasting a "dd-wrt" SSID, but still no ping.

To force it into recovery mode:

Set a static IP of 192.168.1.2 Press the WPS button and start up   Let the power LED flash rapidly for 5 seconds, then release WPS Immediately press the reset button, keeping it pressed until the power LED flashes slowly Release the reset button Point your browser to 192.168.1.1

Voilà.

revinfo
per comments on a commit on Olegs wl500g' Google Code repo

wl -i eth1 revinfo (BCM4331)
admin@RT-AC66U:/tmp/home/root# wl -i eth1 revinfo vendorid 0x14e4 deviceid 0x4332 radiorev 0x2059000 chipnum 0x4331 chiprev 0x2 chippackage 0x8 corerev 0x1d boardid 0xf5b2 boardvendor 0x14e4 boardrev P100 driverrev 0x61e271f ucoderev 0x2f10071 bus 0x1 phytype 0x7 phyrev 0x1 anarev 0x0

wl -i eth2 revinfo (BCM4360)
admin@RT-AC66U:/tmp/home/root# wl -i eth2 revinfo vendorid 0x14e4 deviceid 0x43a2 radiorev 0x32069000 chipnum 0x4360 chiprev 0x2 chippackage 0x1 corerev 0x28 boardid 0x621 boardvendor 0x14e4 boardrev P305 driverrev 0x61e271f ucoderev 0x2f10071 bus 0x1 phytype 0xb phyrev 0x0 anarev 0x0