Netgear NightHawk X8 Ac5300 / R8500

[birdboy385]

Hello everyone, I have the forementioned router that I happened to stumble across at my local goodwill. It seems to at least partially turn on but I can't seem to connect to it to do any kind of resetting. I looked in the back and found the actual reset button but it's been broken out. I could probably rip the router apart to jump the joints where the button would be but I'm not sure if the router is even working properly to begin with.
You can see below the power and internet lights are a amberish color. The internet will blink occasionally and will fully go out if i unplug the cable. The usb and 2.4 and 5ghz lights are a dim white. If i plug anything into the rear ethernet ports the light will glow brightly. I also am not able to see any broadcasted wifi network. I'm not sure if there's something wrong with the router or if it could be set to a different mode like a bridge mode or if the DHCP server is completely disabled. Either way I'm unable to get a gateway hooking up a computer to it.

[CapLeaker]

Re: Netgear NightHawk X8 Ac5300 / R8500

I'd replace that reset button first with something simple like 2 wires or solder in some switch from the junk bin. Then try to reset the router and see what happens next.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Netgear NightHawk X8 Ac5300 / R8500

Dim lights sounds to me like low power, which could very well be caused by bad capacitors. Pull it apart and show us some guts.

[wcalifas831]

Re: Netgear NightHawk X8 Ac5300 / R8500

Definitely try to add a reset button. It could have been set as an access point and you want it to reset back to defaults to mess with it. Also like previously mentioned open it up let's see the inside. Change the caps to see if that is causing the low power. Also make sure you're using the right power adapter that gives it the right voltage.

[birdboy385]

Re: Netgear NightHawk X8 Ac5300 / R8500

I don't see any obvious burn marks on the board. I got the best pic i could with the cruddy phoen i have. It looks like there are 3 points for the button. I'm not sure what points i would need to gorund. I can probably take a paper clip to at least attempt a factory reset.

[stj]

Re: Netgear NightHawk X8 Ac5300 / R8500

those buttons are east to get, used in loads of junk and probably on ebay at 5 or 10 for a $

[birdboy385]

Re: Netgear NightHawk X8 Ac5300 / R8500

I'm sure they are, but for the moment I do not believe i have any available...other than ripping one of the other buttons off the same board. That's why for the moment I just want to try shorting out the proper contacts to attempt resetting it.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Netgear NightHawk X8 Ac5300 / R8500

Dim lights sounds to me like low power, which could very well be caused by bad capacitors. Pull it apart and show us some guts.

Yes! We had a similar problem with a router that was given to us. No wifi. Tore it apart, swollen cap. Replaced that, works fine!

Also, to the OP, I might be mistaken, but I think that particular router is in the list of Netgear routers affected by the Krack exploit / hack / whatever you want to call it, and you should definitely check to see if it is. Then update the firmware to protect yourself. Once you get it working, of course.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Netgear NightHawk X8 Ac5300 / R8500

I'm sure they are, but for the moment I do not believe i have any available...other than ripping one of the other buttons off the same board. That's why for the moment I just want to try shorting out the proper contacts to attempt resetting it.

Do you have a multimeter? If so, set it to continuity mode and test the other working buttons to figure out what pins are what.

The other two look identical, if they are, they should have the same setup. That way, you can see what pins are connected when you push the button, with one of the working ones. I'd do this with the router off, not on.

[stj]

Re: Netgear NightHawk X8 Ac5300 / R8500

dont remove the bad one, it has 4 pins and may be in series with other parts.

[tibimakai]

Re: Netgear NightHawk X8 Ac5300 / R8500

It may also be bricked. You will need that button fixed first, for sure.
Found this on another forum:
This is my final procedure after I fixed the second router r8500.

1) J4 connector pins : 1 2 3 4 pins are visable by looking the motherboard and they are located in the front view.

and j4 mark is located next to #1 pin. 1 gets green color, 2 gets white color, 3 gets green color, 4 is not connected.

2) open the bottom cover by removing the 6 tork screws.

Take the cover half way out so you can see the j4 plug and plug the serial cable.Turn on the router.

3) Start Putty let it run for a minite or so and start sending control c commands until you will see CFE.

4) on CFE type nvram erase you will see a 0 as an answer.

5) On CFE type tftpd you will get tftpd server ready ::

6) go on comand mode dos cmd>tfttp -i 192.168.1.1 put C:\r85.chk

r85.chk will be your old firmware located on the c:\ main directory

7) Now you will see a blue led on the #1 port flickering comminicating.

8) if what you did is correct then you will get from dos and putty file tranfered successful.

9) Now hold the reset button with a pin and turn the power off.

10) with the pin on reset turn power on and waight for 3 reboots let the pin go.

11) waight for 2 minutes you will see many led's comunicating and final the main led will be normal.

12) The router is now ready to be configuerd.

13) The network name and password is located on the white paper top right or at the bottom of the router.

I did 2 units the first one it took 1 week the second one it .5 hour.

Good luck.

peter11742

A small correction.

Pin #1 green Pin #2 white pin #3 blk which is the gound Pin #4 is not connected red.

peter11742

[birdboy385]

Re: Netgear NightHawk X8 Ac5300 / R8500

Hey everyone, sorry I've been majorly AFK for the past few weeks. I am reading all of these responses and will be reviewing all of it to proceed further. I will update once i have more information.

[DJ_MIX]

Re: Netgear NightHawk X8 Ac5300 / R8500

have you tried setting you network adapter to static ip and then open web browser and type in the default ip and see if you get to main menu?

[birdboy385]

Re: Netgear NightHawk X8 Ac5300 / R8500

Hello everyone. Sorry I did play a bit more with the router. I found the aforementioned buttons have 4 legs. The 2 outer legs are the legs for the button jack and the inner 2 appear to be for the button itself. I was able to get about 2.7 volts measuring the inner legs. I tried shorting those 2 inner legs but didn't seem to make a difference. I even tried making a solder bridge but no apparent effect. I did notice that if I disconnect the router from my adjacent router I do get the Internet light to illuminate. If i hook up a device to one of the output ports from the router to say a laptop. that lights up as well and I seem to get an infinite connecting loop from the device I'm using. Not sure what that leaves me with at this point. For the moment, I am unable to try the suggestion to use a serial connection using the jumpers and a terminal as i do not have the proper cable. I'm not sure how i'd wire something like that anyway unless there's a special cable built for that.

[birdboy385]

Re: Netgear NightHawk X8 Ac5300 / R8500

anyone have any thoughts? given these symptoms.

[CapLeaker]

Re: Netgear NightHawk X8 Ac5300 / R8500

maybe MAC or IP filtering is on, or the router doesn't give you any IP. Maybe hook up a TTL to it and see what the terminal spits out? Maybe clear the NVRAM while your in it, then reboot it and see what that gives.

[birdboy385]

Re: Netgear NightHawk X8 Ac5300 / R8500

I'm not sure how to access functions to do that. I know above there was mention of hooking up a serial connection to the board on the j4 connector but I have no idea how i'd do that

[birdboy385]

Re: Netgear NightHawk X8 Ac5300 / R8500

So at this point based on what I know. I ended up just completely removing the reset button and did various combinations of soldering the various 4 legs of the button to force a connection. Nothing seemed to have any effect there. I can get an Ip4 address but that could be my computer caching a previous IP address from a different connection. I did try resetting my ethernet adapter as well as clearing my DNS cache. No effect. I also do not get a default gateway. The only thing I can think of to try would be to get that serial connection working but i'm still not sure how to go about doing that.