Fixing a RT31P2 - blinking lights - Help needed

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 28, 2005 Posts: 3

I had been using the Linksys RT31P2 router with Vonage since the last few months successfully. I am currently on a business trip to India and brought it along with me here. The device worked fine with our ISP here for a few weeks and the voice quality and everything was fine. Then one day, I picked up the phone to make a call and I got a dial-tone, I hung up to locate the number to call and when I tried calling again, I never got a dial-tone again. The power and internet lights on my RT31P2 keep blinking rapidly. The line1 and line 2 lights blink simultaneously once every 5-10 seconds. After reading several posts here, I thought it was a firmware issue. I checked that my ISP was blocking tftp. After a few calls to them and a couple of days later, tftp is working fine. I tried resetting the router (by keeping the reset button pressed when powering on, or when its already on etc etc) several times, but to no avail. I tried connecting my PC to an ethernet port in the RT31P2 (PC2) and http://192.168.15.1 says page not found. Also, the router itself is not giving my computer an IP address. It is working like a switch. I have a setup as
Internet line -> Netgear router -> RT31P2 -> PC2
|
PC1

PC1 and PC2 both get an IP address from the netgear router !

Has anyone ever had this problem before? I know the setup above is fine, coz I used Vonage several times with the exact same equipment and setup and no settings were changed.
Please gurus, help me as I need to access my Vonage number urgently. Thanks !

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Sep 21, 2005 Posts: 1

I have the same problem. I had my rt31p2 working fine for 3 months. Then one day I came home and it wouldn't work. Same problem, tried resetting, the powerlight just blinks over and over again.

Vonage is completely unhelpful - have been on hold for 20 minutes - no sign of an end - repeated recorded statements of "we appreciate your loyalty as a customer". I really regret getting Vonage.

Posts: 229 · Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2005 10:59 pm Post subject:

This is the same problem I had about two weeks ago:
http://www.vonage-forum.com/ftopic8368.html

It's dead ... Vonage will replace it for free if you ordered it from them.

Posts: 605 · Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2005 8:58 am Post subject:

I figured you could just place some duct tape over the lights so they do not bother you as much Smile

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 28, 2005 Posts: 3

I guess one of two things happened:
1. A sudden power surge, probably while plugging in the router, which flashed the memory of the router
2. The router tried a firmware upgrade, and since tftp was blocked then, the firmware update could not be downloaded, which corrupted the existing firmware.

I wish there was a way to just flash the router memory (pressing the reset button doesn't help). I went ahead and bought an adapter coz I'm travelling and can't get the replacement from Vonage.
Does anyone have any way to flash the memory? I'm curious to see if I can fix the router Smile

Posts: 177 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Jul 22, 2005 Posts: 177

If you can ping 192.168.15.1, then you can try manually reflashing the firmware with tftp. I believe that there are links to the RT31P2 firmware files in some of the discussions here, so you need to track that down too.

First, try setting your PC's ip address to static address 192.168.15.2, connect it to one of the RT31P2's LAN ports, and see if you can ping 192.168.15.1.

If that doesn't work, try running a continuous ping (ping -t 192.168.15.1 on Windows), and try unplugging the RT31P2 for about 10 seconds, and then plugging it back in. If you see a couple of successful pings at boot time, you should be able to restart the RT31P2 again and execute tftp -i 192.168.15.1 put firmware_file_name before the successful pings occur.

Failing that, as a last resort you may be able to short some pins on the RT31P2's flash chip to get things going as outlined here: Bricked WRT54GS - and a beginner's guide to fix it. Personally, I would only do that if it was your last option.