Can you take a picture of back label of the device, painting over barcodes and other device unique things in white rectangle?
There is a option like "update check" in asus web menu - does it work and show latest fw as on the web.
Ideally youd be able to find provider's firmware to compare to asus firmware and figure out which "magic bit" needs to be altered in openwrt factory file to get accepted. That is one time venture.
I don't have access to web UI unfortunately - default admin:admin doesn't work.
FW is 3.0.0.4.380_10809
HW is B1
according to the label.
Now idea how to dump the firmware from the device though.
DISCONNECT WAN PORT
First do asus factory reset - let it start and hold down a button that is not reset - like WPS
It should reboot , the AP on label appears and it starts with setup wizard. set any password and go to fw menu (left side last option if my memory serves) and install the fw version from the lable
That model got only single button WPS\Reset.
Anyway, the install guide is exactly what I'd followed already to no avail.
I'd tried ASUS' FW Rescue utility - it says that no wireless device in restoration mode found.
Which is odd - the power led is blinking as it should and under Linux I can upload firmware file via tftp in this mode. Although it's not flashed for some reason since after reboot I'm back to old password-protected ASUS web UI. Also, no web UI is available while the device is in this undetectable restoration mode.
Tried both 192.168.1.10 and .75 for laptop ethernet, both LAN1 and LAN4 on the device.
Is there a way to disassemble it and get via UART?