Hello,
I am trying to unbrick my router and I ran into some hardware trouble which I guess can be solved with a little hint from wireless gurus of this forum. I have an ASUS GT32 (Ralink version, guess it's B1) and I'm trying to access it with a custom made serial cable. The cable is made using Nokia CA-42, it has 3 wires (RX,TX, GND) and I tested its work by making a loopback. I put screen on 115200 baud, no flow control on ttyUSB0. Then I connect the cable to the router, and it gives gibberish when it's off. I power on the router, it seems to load something and wait (it keeps rebooting itself without the cable inserted, I can say by the led state) for input but the output is just blank. What am I doing wrong?

Two thoughts:

1. It's still possible that you have RX and TX reversed (loopback would still work).  You can verify the router's TX pin with a speaker -- you'll hear it when it's sending characters to the UART.  Or just reverse your connections and try it ...

2. Make sure your comm program is not sending modem initialization strings etc. on startup.  You want "offline mode".

Tried to reverse 1 pin (can't make it out without splitting back the connector ) tried each but still silence. Or should it work when BOTH TX and RX are connected?
My program is screen. Guess it doesnt send anything at all

Hi again,
I resoldered the cable and verified the voltages. GND-TX is 3.3V GND-RX is 2.5V, so the cable is not to be blamed. GND on cable goes to GND slot on router, VCC slot on router is unconnected, RX-TX I have tested in both combinations.
Combination1: gibberish when powered on
Combination2: silence when powered on
Any further guidance?

Fix: Asus Rt-g32