Asus Zenfi AX & VPN issues

[greywizard]

So about a year ago, I setup an Asus Zenfi AX router with Proton VPN installed on it

Everything worked fine for almost a year, and then about a month ago I started running into connection issues

So I looked at everything and it seemed the VPN certificate was going to expire in a month, which doesn't explain the connection issues I was experieincing. But I decided to grab a new VPN certificate for another year.

I installed everything as before under Wireguard, but I'm still running into connection issues.

Sometimes my phone & computer will connect to the VPN wifi, but still having issues

I am ready to do a factory reset and just start over - but I really don't want to have to redo all of my settings, and I feel I shouldn't have to. But I've been without my VPN wifi for over a month now and I don't like it.

For my VPN settings I have:

VPN Server> Wireguard VPN turned on

VPN Fusion> Wireguard VPN enabled & connected

My Proton Certificate was properly added to the VPN settings

Any idea what could be causing me issues?

What should I do, just factory reset and redo everything? (Very frustrating to have to do this - technology is so cumbersome and complicated and should just work in 2025)

 

[Nobu]

Time for a repaste?

 

[greywizard]

Time for a repaste?

What do you mean?

 

[Nobu]

What do you mean?

I mean maybe the thermal interface material isn't performing as well as when it was new, might need to change it.

Probably thick pads rather than paste, though. That just doesn't roll off the tongue as well.

Anyway, try blowing some fresh air on it, if it performs better, the pads probably are either not making good contact anymore or they deteriorated with age.

 

[greywizard]

Are you talking about repasting my Asus wifi router?

It's a year old and I've never heard of having to do that

It's got to be something in the software I would think?

 

[Nobu]

It's got to be something in the software I would think?

It could be, but if it was fine and you haven't changed/updated anything, I would doubt it. Unless it got botnetted or something. Then maybe a reset would help?

I'm not suggesting you repaste it, I'm suggesting that it may be worth looking to see if that is the cause. Cool the router externally -- if it starts working, then whatever cooling solution it has is no longer sufficient, for whatever reason.