Firstly, the hw that i got is ch341 from the linux dmesg logs, even though, the listing on the part site mentions its ch340!
[ 86.991514] usb 3-1: new full-speed USB device number 4 using xhci_hcd
[ 87.140410] usb 3-1: New USB device found, idVendor=1a86, idProduct=7523, bcdDevice= 2.64
[ 87.140415] usb 3-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[ 87.140417] usb 3-1: Product: USB Serial
[ 87.223972] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic
[ 87.224099] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for generic
[ 87.228493] usbcore: registered new interface driver ch341
[ 87.228536] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for ch341-uart
[ 87.229141] usb 3-1: ch341-uart converter now attached to ttyUSB0
You are right for '0' and '1' are the timeout counts. If i dont press any key, they still appear.
But definitely, i keep pressing '1' well before the menu appears in the video which i linked.
The usb dongle seems to sending the tx and receiving on rx properly, as when i short the rx and tx pins on the usb dongle, i get echoed what i type.
Q1- Can a rx-rx and tx-tx connection which i mistakenly did on first attempt might have caused the rx on the router to malfunction??
Q2- Is there any way i can check if the rx is functioning on the board properly? i have a multimeter.. if it can help.
Q3- Even if the shorting test passes for the USB dongle, do you think ordering a different usb dongle might help i.e an actual ch340? if so, can you suggest one from robu.in (this marketplace is what i have access to from my location)
Secondly, let me summarize you how i ended up in falling on the serial flashing way...
To begin with, i was following the Detailed guide link under easy installation method from the wiki:
1 used stock asus fw upgrade page to upload the stock2lede.trx.
2 connected LAN, and login to 192.168.1 root/root/r
3 tried to flash latest sysupgrade.bin file from the openwrt device page using the lede flash fw ui, but
got error: The uploaded image file does not contain a supported format error message.
4 so instead of sysupgrade.bin, used openwrt-r1834-0f04829-ipq806x-asus_rt-ac58u-squashfs-sysupgrade.tar.
5 now on reentrring the lede ui, now flash the latest sysupgrade.bin file from openwrt device page.
6 BOOM... i could not get to the router's 192.168.1.1 since..
So essentially, as per my bootlog i pasted in one of my previous post, i am actually on openwrt fw:
Description: ARM OpenWrt Linux-4.14.221
but somehow since i didnt do this step: Delete volume jffs2 with ubirmvol /dev/ubi0 -N jffs2
i might have ended in this state, where the router isint assigning ip address to LAN clients
Q4- BTW, i saw few routers supporting the asus recovery fw installation method where the router is put in some recovery mode and then using the asus fw restoration tool to get back to stock. Though, i couldnt find any one using this process on ac58u, just wanted to know if its possible or not for this device?
Thanks for the response!