RT-AC68U clone $59 - use code WIFI40 - T-Mobile.com

Almost had a little buyer's remorse looking at the instructions to get these things flashed, but upon closer inspection, there are a lot of alternate directions and stuff like that in the slickdeals portion. That hexeditting looked like a monster, but I think I can handle it after all (with the automatic method etc)! Thanks!
 
texuspete00 said:
Almost had a little buyer's remorse looking at the instructions to get these things flashed, but upon closer inspection, there are a lot of alternate directions and stuff like that in the slickdeals portion. That hexeditting looked like a monster, but I think I can handle it after all (with the automatic method etc)! Thanks!
Click to expand...

In the various instructions you'll find a cfe.exe that you can put in the same folder as the original_cfe.bin (what is backed up from the usb port on the router) and the new cfe of your choice (i used the asus 1.0.2.1 cfe). You can then hold shift and right click the folder to open a command window at that directory and then type cfe.exe and press enter.

It should automatically slipstream the new macs/secret code for you into the new_cfe.bin (and it backs up the original new_cfe.bin) with a successful verbose output. I have checked to make sure it works and it did for me.
 
boushidosan said:
In the various instructions you'll find a cfe.exe that you can put in the same folder as the original_cfe.bin (what is backed up from the usb port on the router) and the new cfe of your choice (i used the asus 1.0.2.1 cfe). You can then hold shift and right click the folder to open a command window at that directory and then type cfe.exe and press enter.

It should automatically slipstream the new macs/secret code for you into the new_cfe.bin (and it backs up the original new_cfe.bin) with a successful verbose output. I have checked to make sure it works and it did for me.
Click to expand...

I tried to download that cfe.exe from the SlickDeals thread but the Mega link said the file was removed. Do you have an alternate download?
 
I definitely recommend this router as I have been using this for a few months now. For $50 you get tons feature and speed for the buck. Plus this router does not get hot like the other cheap routers so it should last longer.
 
crispyb said:
I definitely recommend this router as I have been using this for a few months now. For $50 you get tons feature and speed for the buck. Plus this router does not get hot like the other cheap routers so it should last longer.
Click to expand...

Although it doesnt get abnormally hot, if you flash the cfe to unlock it to 800mhz, i did notice it gets hotter (physics sux, amirite?)
 
MavericK said:
Thanks! I think I may have downloaded this already, but down near the bottom of the page there was a link for a "CFE Editor" that had a bad link. Maybe that's not needed?
Click to expand...

The CFE Editor is just a front end to let you manually copy and paste the mac/code over to the new_cfe
 
boushidosan said:
Although it doesnt get abnormally hot, if you flash the cfe to unlock it to 800mhz, i did notice it gets hotter (physics sux, amirite?)
Click to expand...

Wut?
Factory is 800mhz
They newest rev is clocked at 1000mhz if you are buying real RT-68ac, or if you are buying the "P" version its guaranteed to be clocked at 1000mhz.

Still not sure why you would need to, with QOS on and 50mbs, its running at 5% cpu usage. So at worst you might no be able to use this on google fiber with QOS enabled. On the other hand if you have gbs and need QOS, you have problems :)
 
nightanole said:
Wut?
Factory is 800mhz
They newest rev is clocked at 1000mhz if you are buying real RT-68ac, or if you are buying the "P" version its guaranteed to be clocked at 1000mhz.
Click to expand...

There might be die/process shrinkage or something going on there too though allowing them to clock newer revisions higher. Still, I'd be interested to see what clocks the ones we're getting could safely handle and if it's the exact same hardware. :D

nightanole said:
Still not sure why you would need to, with QOS on and 50mbs, its running at 5% cpu usage. So at worst you might no be able to use this on google fiber with QOS enabled. On the other hand if you have gbs and need QOS, you have problems :)
Click to expand...

With the third party firmware allowing you to run all kinds of packages on the router, I could see how being able to clock the SoC higher would be a definite benefit. I've got some fiendish experiments in mind... :D

A dual core 800mhz CPU and 256MB RAM? That's not too different than the specs of my very first Half-Life 2 Deathmatch server....
 
can someone PLEASE explain to me how the hell you update merlin from 376.47 to the newest? i tried just uploading it into the gui's firmware update page and that didn't work and i tried doing it through the CFE webserver after putting it into recovery mode and that didn't work either. and yes i cleared the nvram both times to make sure it wasn't just a visual bug in the gui.

edit: this guy says to flash to 378.55 and then to the latest. i'll see if this works sometime late tonight probably. god this is such an annoyance i wish i didn't delete 380.63 after i had gotten everything ready what a waste of time.
 
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How long did it take you guys to reflash it? I wouldn't mind buying one, but that guide looks...involved. I think I read in there it could take 2-3 hours? Sheesh.
 
boushidosan said:
If that doesn't work, try flashing to tomato and then flash from there
Click to expand...
quick question since you seem to know what you're talking about; is the codel in merlin the same as what is in openwrt? i was using openwrt before on an N56U but it was simply not powerful enough to handle sqm at line speed (~165 Mbps sqm off, sqm on hard limited to ~100 Mbps) so i bought this because it should be powerful enough. i'm just scared that it's not going to work. i already tried "smart qos" and it did absolutely nothing for me.
ravx25 said:
How long did it take you guys to reflash it? I wouldn't mind buying one, but that guide looks...involved. I think I read in there it could take 2-3 hours? Sheesh.
Click to expand...
i followed this video:

if you go through at his pace and skip the parts where he fumbles you can have it working in less than an hour.
 
Odellus said:
can someone PLEASE explain to me how the hell you update merlin from 376.47 to the newest? i tried just uploading it into the gui's firmware update page and that didn't work and i tried doing it through the CFE webserver after putting it into recovery mode and that didn't work either. and yes i cleared the nvram both times to make sure it wasn't just a visual bug in the gui.

edit: this guy says to flash to 378.55 and then to the latest. i'll see if this works sometime late tonight probably. god this is such an annoyance i wish i didn't delete 380.63 after i had gotten everything ready what a waste of time.
Click to expand...

**NOTE: ASUS 376.3626 will expand your rootfs partition from 32M to 64M. This is needed for newer 376.xxxx, all 378 and all 380 versions of Asus / Merlin firmware to load**


I assume you already noodled your CFE and are running 376.47. You need to flash 3626 once once to expand the file system (or any other firmware that expands) to 64 megs, then you can do whatever you want. I will point out that if you want to OS shuffle, you cant go from tomato to ddwrt, etc, it needs to be flashed to merlin first before the change. Figured that one out the hard way.
 
i got it. flashing to 378.55 and then to 380.63 worked and was easy.

i'm not super impressed with the qos options, the only one that works is bandwidth limiter and the performance isn't great but it's about where i hoped. ~150 Mbps down and ~15 Mbps up with an "A" on bufferbloat from dslreports' test. this goes from C to A from one test to another. the download test is around +20-40 ms with some 200+ ms spikes, upload is around the same with more frequent spikes. oh well. i got an extra 50 Mbps and better wifi for $60, not the worst investment.
 
Odellus said:
i got it. flashing to 378.55 and then to 380.63 worked and was easy.

i'm not super impressed with the qos options, the only one that works is bandwidth limiter and the performance isn't great but it's about where i hoped. ~150 Mbps down and ~15 Mbps up with an "A" on bufferbloat from dslreports' test. this goes from C to A from one test to another. the download test is around +20-40 ms with some 200+ ms spikes, upload is around the same with more frequent spikes. oh well. i got an extra 50 Mbps and better wifi for $60, not the worst investment.
Click to expand...
You need to flash to Merlin or Tomato and then use fq_codel QoS.
 
45454asasa said:
You need to flash to Merlin or Tomato and then use fq_codel QoS.
Click to expand...
BarXnmh.png
 
Got mine yesterday, went through the motions today to get it working. Instructions on Slickdeals worked perfectly, although when they tell you to reset the NVRAM, every time you do that it resets the Telnet setting...just something to keep in mind that they don't mention. They will have you reset NVRAM and then immediately Telnet in, but you have to go back into the router and enable Telnet every time.

Otherwise, went smoothly, took probably 45 min or so. Got the latest Merlin FW on there.

This may be obvious, but keep in mind that you have to use recovery mode to flash different firmware after you do the CFE flashing. You can't just go into the router with the T-Mo firmware and flash Asus or Merlin, doesn't work.
 
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Mine is acting weird. I did everything and I was able flash Merlin included in that linkinyoutube video. I tried flashing latest it tells me firmware recovery failed. But it flashed advanced tomato just fine. Fails to flash latest Merlin or latest asus.

Kinda annoyed at this point why I can flash one Merlin and not the other
 
nightanole said:
**NOTE: ASUS 376.3626 will expand your rootfs partition from 32M to 64M. This is needed for newer 376.xxxx, all 378 and all 380 versions of Asus / Merlin firmware to load**


I assume you already noodled your CFE and are running 376.47. You need to flash 3626 once once to expand the file system (or any other firmware that expands) to 64 megs, then you can do whatever you want. I will point out that if you want to OS shuffle, you cant go from tomato to ddwrt, etc, it needs to be flashed to merlin first before the change. Figured that one out the hard way.
Click to expand...

great piece of info. Flashed it to 376.3626 and that seemed to have done the trick! Thanks for the tip! Now on latest asus firmware. Glad I stuck through and spent some time on this. Now I have a decent router for 60 bucks lol. I plan on using it as bridge!
 
Yeah, in a nutshell you basically have to:

1) Downgrade FW to T-Mobile 1703 to enable Telnet functionality (using recovery mode / ASUS Firmware utility)
2) Download original CFE to USB drive using Telnet commands
3) Hex edit OR use CFE auto-utility to carry over MAC and WPS values from original CFE to new CFE (I used 1.0.2.1 for the new CFE)
4) Install the new CFE from the USB drive using Telnet commands
5) Flash Asus 3626 FW to expand file system to 64MB (using recovery mode / ASUS Firmware utility)
6) Flash FW of your choice (stock ASUS, Merlin, Tomato, etc.)
 
MavericK said:
Yeah, in a nutshell you basically have to:

1) Downgrade FW to T-Mobile 1703 to enable Telnet functionality (using recovery mode / ASUS Firmware utility)
2) Download original CFE to USB drive using Telnet commands
3) Hex edit OR use CFE auto-utility to carry over MAC and WPS values from original CFE to new CFE (I used 1.0.2.1 for the new CFE)
4) Install the new CFE from the USB drive using Telnet commands
5) Flash Asus 3626 FW to expand file system to 64MB (using recovery mode / ASUS Firmware utility)
6) Flash FW of your choice (stock ASUS, Merlin, Tomato, etc.)
Click to expand...
I was able to flash the latest asus but Merlin failed. I might have to reset settings first. Funny thing is so far this router even with latest asus firmware has failed me in bridge mode. It randomly disconnects and requires a reboot.
 
NKD said:
I was able to flash the latest asus but Merlin failed. I might have to reset settings first. Funny thing is so far this router even with latest asus firmware has failed me in bridge mode. It randomly disconnects and requires a reboot.
Click to expand...

Strange. I am pretty sure I went straight to Merlin after the Asus 3626 one, but I might have updated to the latest Asus first (sounds like you did that already). You might try flashing in recovery mode if nothing else.

If you keep having problems, maybe it's a defective unit. Random disconnects shouldn't be happening regardless of firmware.
 
MavericK said:
Strange. I am pretty sure I went straight to Merlin after the Asus 3626 one, but I might have updated to the latest Asus first (sounds like you did that already). You might try flashing in recovery mode if nothing else.

If you keep having problems, maybe it's a defective unit. Random disconnects shouldn't be happening regardless of firmware.
Click to expand...

He flashed the latest asus, that means he might have to flash merlin from the CFE gui.
 
so glad I saw this, Tmobile just sent me a router for free and free shipping. yeah yeah... not even going to flash it because I actually need th Tmob QOS for wifi calling... I actually never probably will need it for wifi calling QOS because I have 200MB connection, going to use it as an access point to extend my wifi ;)
 
MavericK said:
Yeah, in a nutshell you basically have to:

1) Downgrade FW to T-Mobile 1703 to enable Telnet functionality (using recovery mode / ASUS Firmware utility)
2) Download original CFE to USB drive using Telnet commands
3) Hex edit OR use CFE auto-utility to carry over MAC and WPS values from original CFE to new CFE (I used 1.0.2.1 for the new CFE)
4) Install the new CFE from the USB drive using Telnet commands
5) Flash Asus 3626 FW to expand file system to 64MB (using recovery mode / ASUS Firmware utility)
6) Flash FW of your choice (stock ASUS, Merlin, Tomato, etc.)
Click to expand...

Yep, did this last night. Followed along with the youtube video that was posted (That things needs a good edit... :) ), grabbed the cfe.exe from the link posted above (thanks!). Grabbed a newer ASUS firmware (from the slickdeals post) than the youtube guy includes in his package (to do step 5), and then did step 6 right from the router's UI. (Merlin)
 
Few things I want to add, and will likely send it over to "Engineer" in the SD thread to upgrade his guide.

1. At least on the Downgraded T-Mobile firmware, on the admin tab you can enable ssh directly in the webgui. With ssh enabled, you can use putty and winscp to login and upload/download files directly. So this eliminates the need to enable telnet in windows, as well it eliminates the need to have a USB drive present.
2. The recommended CFE (1020) does NOT come with the RAM unlocked to 800. It still has the default baked in values of clk_freq=800,666 (which is 800 core, 666 mem). Either he/we need to update his template 1020 CFE that he is linking, or, make sure to update the CFE values to 800,800 before flashing.

There were a few other things I noticed, but am on my phone so will save my fingers........
 
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I bought two of these routers and flashed both of them, both with very different experiences. On the first one, for whatever reason, the mini-CFE server just didn't work, although tftp did. Also, I could not go directly from Asus 376.26 to Merlin 380.xx, I had to do several intermediate firmware updates. However, on the 2nd one, the mini-CFE worked, and I was able to go straight from the Asus FW to the latest Merlin in one hop. All in all, very happy with these. One is going to my in-law's place to replace their anemic 802.11n nameless router, and I used the other one as a wireless bridge for my living room components (not feasible to run ethernet).
 
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