ZyXEL NWA50AX installation failure

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
1

I installed the openwrt-ramips-mt7621-zyxel_nwa50ax-squashfs-factory.bin firmware which appears to have bricked the device. On boot there's a solid green light, no access to the ethernet port, and no default wifi to connect to.

The installation guide says "If OpenWrt is installed to slot B, it will fail installation, and reboot to the stock ZyXEL firmware, in this case, simply install a stock firmware from ZyXEL's site, and then attempt to reinstall OpenWrt." which might be what's happened, but there appears to be no rebooting to the stock ZyXEL firmware.

I have tried holding the reset switch down, but didn't expect that to work as that only factory resets configuration changes. I would be happy with either stock firmware or openwrt at this point. Any suggestions with what I can try next. There is a console port on the back of the device, but I've not done serial connectivity on a device like this before.

2

was this a WebUI install?

If so you need a serial cable to understand what is going on.

3

It was. Thought that would be the case, I've just connected up the serial cable. Will keep the thread posted.

4

Not getting anything out of the serial port. I connected up the serial cable as per the instructions:

< 12v > < LAN > GND, RX, TX, VCC (do not connect VCC!). There will also be an arrow pointing at the VCC pin.

Then connected the USB PL2303HX converter.

pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0

Attempted to connect with screen:

screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200

Powered on the device, but it just hangs on a blank screen.

5

I don't suppose you can post the steps taken from when you started up until the current state ?

6

Sure.

  1. Powered on the device with stock firmware.
  2. Selected to update firmware
  3. Uploaded openwrt-ramips-mt7621-zyxel_nwa50ax-squashfs-factory.bin which I found from this thread Porting to ZyXEL NWA50AX
  4. Left the device in an 'Uploading firmware' state until light turned solid green

At that point there was no more AP, ethernet connection, and seemingly serial console.

7

Okay. It's working! PEBCAC! Note to self, TX goes to RX, not TX to TX, and vice-versa!

[EDIT] In conclusion, the device was not bricked, it was merely given a static IP address of 192.168.1.1 and radios had been disabled.

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8

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