Hi

I'm trying to work out whether my Vigor 2710n is bricked or not.

Today I power cycled the router and it's now just flashing the ACT, WLAN, USB, VPN, QoS, DoS and WPS LEDs. Brief flash, all in unison. When an ethernet cable's attached, the (remote) switch shows that the ethernet port isn't powered up.

The router hasn't been touched since a firmware upgrade on 20th June.

The power cycle was performed as occasionally we see a sudden loss of packets on the WAN. Don't know what condition initiates this loss of packets but a power cycle tends to fix it - until today.

Hmm. Just noticed that the router is ticking in time to the LEDs flashing. Sounds like a small relay in the router is changing state.

Ho hum. Any advice appreciated.

Thanks

Fat Freddie's Cat

I had a similar thing with a 2800 and that needed a new power supply. In that case I measured the voltage coming out of the supply and it was unstable, going up and down like a yo-yo.

I think the relay is on the adsl line socket, the router is resetting and the relay clicks each time.

The other possibility is that the firmware is corrupted. Now you can fix that, there are instructions somewhere, the general gist of it is plug a lan cable directly into a PC. Config the PC with a static address (192.168.1.2 or something) run up the tftp fw update util they supply on the CD and resend the firmware. I have done this (with a 2800 or 2600) but it was a long time ago and the detail are fuzzy.

I still reckon it's the PSU though, they don't make 'em like they used to!

Hmm. Thank you for that. I'll check the PSU. Actually, it may be quicker for me to find another 12V PSU and test the unit with that.

WRT the factory reset option: I've tried that. No good. All <however many> lights flash while the factory reset button is pushed in and the unit is powered up. It changes nothing. Even the ethernet port remains unpowered.

Bummer eh?

Bummer eh?

Exactly my thoughts at the time.

So your comments piqued my interest. Armed with a cup of tea and a lump of Red Leicester (eh up Grommet), I went rummaging in the "wall warts" box to see if I had a suitable PSU. Somewhat ironically I found a Netgear unit which was close enough (slightly under rated power wise at 1.2A as opposed to the OEM unit's 1.5A but as I wasn't going to be using any of the ethernet ports, close enough).

Guess what?

All is fine with the unit. It powers up fine and appropriate lights are showing. I'll try swapping it back in tonight - if for no other reason than it allows me to take a note of the existing NAT settings.

So duff PSU it is.

As a side note, I received an RMA from Draytek for this unit - but they only want the main unit sending back. No PSU is to be included. If I took them up on this offer, the unit would test fine: Customer assumed to be idiot.

Anyway, thanks for the pointer. Have a virtual beer on me.

ATB

Fat Freddie's Cat

Hey Fat Freddies that's very useful to know.
My 2710 self bricks pretty regularly. To fix it, you need to blow the firmware back into the router, there are a couple of tricks you need to remember....
You need to get hold of the latest firmware upgrade utility and the firmware release release file that you are using and install these on your 'rescue PC'.
Connect the rescue PC to the router using the ethernet cable to the first port on the router
If the two leds are blinking furiously at the top, no need to power the router off or do anything to it, it will be ready to receive the firmware
Turn windows firewall off on your rescue PC - if you don't do this it likely won't work
Set a static IP on your rescue PC, say 168.192.1.2 and then load up the firmware to the router which will be at 168.192.1.1.
If you use the *.rst firmware file this will lose all your settings . The *.all file should retain them
Wait a bit, router should restart and operate as normal.

For some reason those wall warts are always blowing up. I had the same problem with a Deltenna WiBE (3G modem) and I'm now running that on a high power Maplin jobby. The problem with Maplin is that they change the sourcing frequently so you can no longer get the same high power reliable chinese power adapter - even if it has the same order code. Maplin PSUs also fail with monotonous regularity as well .