Technology Kills Deconstructing technology, one piece at a time…

17Mar/1010

Asus WL-500g Premium Power Supply Issue

I got up this morning to find the and WiFi lights were off on my Asus WL-500g Premium . It had worked fine for an extended Battlefield: Bad Company 2 session before I went to bed only 5 or 6 hours prior.

I tried resetting it to no avail. When it turned back on it was switching between having all LAN and WAN lights on (no power/) and having the Power/ lights on (no LAN/), every second or so.

So I reset it again and put it into Recovery mode. I manually set the IP on my computer and used a TFTP client to re-upload my image and the device. To my happy surprise, it was working again. Problem solved.

Or not. I logged into the web interface to change my settings, which went great. I enabled , chose to Apply settings, and my router almost immediately reset and went back to the flashing lights again, just like before.

I tried this several times with the same result every time. Trying to avoid going insane, I ended up leaving for work and doing some investigation. It turns out I am experiencing the exact same symptoms as a lot of other people whose power supplies have gone bad.

The problem is that a round-topped capacitor in the power supply is prone to electrolytic leakage. It essentially "blows its top" and its contents leak out into the unit. When there is not enough left in the capacitor, the is not able to provide stable power.

The reason the problem only occurred after I enabled WiFi is that the router requires about 0.75 amps to boot up, but 1.1 amps is used when WiFi is powered on. It seems my PSU has enough juice to boot up, but as soon as it tries to enable the WiFi, there is simply not enough power and it gets stuck.

I am very hopeful (and 99% sure at this point) that it is the same issue I have as well. I'm going to stop by Radio Shack on the way home and get a replacement capacitor (hopefully 1200uF / 10v or close). I will report back my results afterward. If all goes well, I'll be making that post from my home computer through my working router!

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  • Euvgeny Cherkashin

    I've experienced the same with two such routers during 3 weeks. First one started to reboot, then in two weeks, second. Thanks for the tip. The capacitor is located in the power supply unit. Right? Not on the system board of the router.

  • http://benmcclure.com/ Ben McClure

    You are absolutely correct–the capacitor in question is located inside the power supply, and it should be pretty straight-forward once you're in. The only problem I've experienced with this is that they've made it a bit difficult to open without damaging the plastic casing around it–I eventually pried it apart, but the adapter looks a bit rugged now :)

    Good luck!

  • Evgeny Cherkashin

    I replaced with 2200uF 16v, fits ok. WIFI works now. The power supply box now brocken. But no problem, It is still totally black. ;-) At the evening I'll renew the second one.

  • Evgeny Cherkashin

    I's me again. Now during high WIFI load, the wifi card turned off for both the two routers. Wifi card on the second one it probably be broken today. The device appears in lspci, but LED flash does not lit. What could it be? The capacitor 16 v 2200uF is hot (about 60-70 Cent) but seems ok,

  • foncused

    hi all.
    i have had the same problem with 3 units all having failing psu's.
    i have found that PSP power supplies work well as replacements for the wl500g, i can confirm that my faulty units are now running with PSP power supplies.
    just my 2 cents.
    steve

  • http://www.peaktopeakled.com/ledpowersupplies.html Lighting Power Supply

    Hi, 

    Nice post guys…………………………………

  • Anonymous

    Genius! This was my exact problem for my WL-500W. I went to Radio Shack (shudder) and bought a replacement PSU – Enercell  5V 2.5A and Tip M. Works like a charm now.

    Thank you.

  • JGtex

    Thanks for the suggestion on the Enercell. I’ve had problems trying to find the right one for this router and been burned twice. For anyone who finds this post, the router uses positive polarity. Took me forever to find that answer. 

  • Aleš Balcar

    Thanks a lot!

    I was just going to throw my 6 years old Asus WL-500g out of the window, since the “Troubleshooting” section of the instruction manual does not cover this issue (steady light of all indicators EXCEPT power and air).
    Since I am no tech geek, I bought a new power supply 15 menutes ago and it works again.
    Unfortunately, these come expensive here in Czech Republic, so it cost me about 1/2 of the price of the cheapest WLAN router.
    But still – this is a much niftier machine and I do not like to litter by throwing away what is good to use for another decade.

  • http://benmcclure.com/ Ben McClure

    Great to hear! The WL-500g really is a special router. Powerful WiFi, enough internal memory for OpenWRT to run comfortably, built-in USB ports, etc. It’s still a much better router than most current offerings so many years later.

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