Yesterday I found out the powerstrip the router was connected to was faulty and it kept restarting it, after I moved it the checkmark became orange, and it hasnt turned off since then. When I connect to it using the ethernet cable i cant ping to it, and the wifi doesnt seem to be working. When i plug in the cable from the modem the "i" light stays orange blinking, the ethernet light is green though. This whole time the checkmark is orange.
After much resetting and messing with unplugging and plugging it back in it finally worked, but as soon as I tried changing some settings to it (when it reboots) it stopped working again. My quesion is is it bricked, or does it simply just not work anymore?
Your power strip, power itself, or the power adapter may (still) be faulty. Are you able to check power conditions with a Volt-Ohm meter? Another possibility is overheating.
Bad power or overheating can result in random reboots and other unexpected, flaky behaviors. Attempting updates under these conditions will corrupt the flash. After fixing the environmental conditions, try factory resetting the router. Don't make changes until it's stable.
thank you for the reply
It was the fact that the computer desk moving moved the power strip's cord, I've reconnected the router else where and it still does not work. Also I cant get it to work again, no matter how hard I try.
Exactly what did you try and exactly what was the behavior of the lights in each case?
If the router powers up, and the power light is steady, and the ethernet port link lights are accurate (move the cable from port to port to check), the router boot block is probably working, and you might be able to recover the router using the tftp de-brick methods (too much to document here in my reply).
Otherwise, you may have to resort to serial console and/or jtag methods of recovery (also too much to document here).
Is your router still covered by Netgear's warranty? If you still can't recover the router and you're considering disposing it, please consider donating it or selling it as bricked instead, rather than adding it to our landfills.
I've tried holding the reset button for 30 secs, unplugging while still holding it, replugging while still holding it, then after another 30 secs letting go to button. The power light is steady, all the ethernet ports light up, but when i tried i was not able to ping 192.168.1.1. In vista there's an exclamation point on the network icon on the taskbar. Also what file would i use for the tftp? This router uses a funky .chk extension.
No it is no longer under warranty. Thank you for your reply.
That doesn't look too good, especially if the unconnected ethernet port LEDs light up on the router, and stay lit, with no cables attached.
At the vista end, you'll have to manually configure an IP address for the LAN cable that will be used to try to fix the router. Use something like 192.168.1.99 for vista. Then run a continuous "ping -t 192.168.1.1" on vista. The exclamation point in the network icon indicates that vista thinks link is dead, or no IP address set for vista. Next, reset the router, and look for any responses from the continuous ping run.
If there are no indications that the router ethernet ports are functioning (no ping response or no link), then you'll have to consider the serial console and/or jtag methods, which require opening up the router. I hope this helps.
If you can get the router's ethernet ports to respond, the file to use for tftp is the Netgear original firmware files with the *.chk extension.
Thank you for the static ip info.
I can fix the the lights staying on by plugging in the power while holding down the reset button but the checkmark stays amber and wifi doesn't work. Thanks for this I'll report back as soon as I try this, if not maybe it's time to get a new router.