Hotel Ethernet Zapped my AXT-1800 WAN Port- Repair Options?

kennethrc · 2022-12-24T01:57:18.200Z

SmurfonToast:

I’d be interested to hear about potential causes of such an occurrence

It was a hotel in a foreign country; who knows what kind of miswiring they’d done

jdub · 2022-12-24T03:23:53.245Z

SmurfonToast:

e.g. could it occur due to PoE wiring (why a hotel would have PoE I’m not sure)

Yes, though indirectly. I’ve seen things get killed via a cut cable connected to a PoE switch that was shorting wires before.

To your question about why a hotel would have PoE - I can’t imagine a major hotel that wouldn’t have PoE. APs, TV boxes and phones are all easy PoE targets.

SmurfonToast · 2022-12-24T03:44:47.506Z

Thanks that’s interesting and makes sense I guess. Wonder if something like this https://www.amazon.com/Triplett-Power-Panels/dp/B0B77QZNW4 would help check it before plugging stuff in.

I don’t know enough about PoE but I understood power is only supplied to a device if it supports it? I guess ultimately the question is how do you reasonably take steps to prevent it happening without having to bring the kitchen sink to check it. Can (any manufacturers) Routers WAN ports be so wired / configured / designed / terminated so as to not blow up as a result?

kennethrc · 2022-12-24T04:12:56.385Z

FWIW, I’ve been plugging into hotel Ethernets for over 30 years now (and it’s sadly a dying breed as more places go WiFi-only) and this is the first time something like this has happened; it’s rare enough I’m not going to worry about it.

Just wish it hadn’t happened to my most expensive and advanced GL-iNet device

alzhao · 2022-12-26T08:59:02.147Z

This is sad. Seems the port is using passive PoE. But may also not.

Does the router still work and you can use repeater?

You can use other ports as WAN but better not burn all ports.

alzhao · 2022-12-26T09:00:44.135Z

Are you good at soldering?

kennethrc · 2022-12-26T21:28:43.528Z

alzhao:

Does the router still work and you can use repeater?

That’s the worst part- apparently the hotel wasn’t even wired for Ethernet, so I had to use the repeater anyway

You can use other ports as WAN but better not burn all ports.

Do you have instructions as to how to use one of the LAN ports as a WAN port? I’ll likely never be at that hotel again, so the risk of losing another port is fairly low.

"alzhao:

Are you good at soldering?

I have people at one of my clients who are- do you think it’s just a matter of replacing the Ethernet PHY transformer?

alzhao · 2022-12-27T01:14:53.485Z

You can easily set up vlan in Luci and move one port to the WAN. I don’t have the router at hand but think it should be easy.

Every port has ethX number so easy to move to another vlan and zone.

I do think that we can just replace the transformer. I will ask guys to contact you.

kennethrc · 2023-01-01T05:01:16.462Z

alzhao:

I do think that we can just replace the transformer.

Address sent. Thank you!

BUT- can someone Explain Like I’m Five how to implement the change of one of the LAN ports to WAN in LuCi? And will it stick across reboots, or should I just ssh in and modify a config file somewhere?

alzhao · 2023-01-01T05:18:22.295Z

kennethrc:

Address sent. Thank you!

Who did you send the address to?

alzhao · 2023-01-01T05:23:38.659Z

kennethrc:

BUT- can someone Explain Like I’m Five how to implement the change of one of the LAN ports to WAN in LuCi? And will it stick across reboots, or should I just ssh in and modify a config file somewhere?

I am on travel so cannot get you the screenshot.

Maybe just do this, modfiy /etc/config/network and find wan and lan.

In wan you will see one device e.g. eth0, that is the WAN port.
In lan you will find there are several devices, e.g. eth1, eth2 which are the two LAN ports.

So in wan, change eth0 to eth1;
In lan, remove eth1 from there

Do check the vlan settings etc. The idea is just to remove eth1 from lan and replace eth0 with eth1.

kennethrc · 2023-01-01T17:10:31.963Z

alzhao:

Who did you send the address to?

@Dipin reached out to me via PM

Dipin · 2023-01-03T07:18:10.954Z

Yep,The package has been sent out by Fedex.

kennethrc · 2023-02-16T06:59:43.112Z

Wanted to follow up- first, GL-iNet CS is excellent; they sent me the SMT chips/PHYs and some ports, that I’m going to get reflowed in first chance I get. But the other happy ending is I’d just remembered that I’d used a RealTek R8152 combo GbE/USB Hub so I could switch between my Netgear Hotspot or the hotel’s Ethernet (one without mislabeled ports ) without having to physically disconnect the Ethernet and as the R8152 is detected as “Tethering” I’ve used it as the “WAN” port lately, and it works well.

kennethrc · 2024-05-12T04:20:37.975Z

kennethrc:

… can someone Explain Like I’m Five how to implement the change of one of the LAN ports to WAN in LuCi?

So @alzhao I figured it out, and all is well- my AXT-1800/Slate AX is back in my lineup again as a backup travel router (my Spitz AX has been the best GL-iNet device I’ve owned- and I’ve had a lot of them- and it’s been in near-constant use for a year).

But I get “No cable detected in WAN port. Please insert an ethernet cable” on the “INTERNET” page. I checked /etc/config/network and it’s indeed set properly.

It’s really mostly cosmetic (the “Ethernet” line is lit up, at least), but is the presence of a connection on eth0 hardwired somewhere, or can that be fixed to be eth1 (the port I’d picked for “WAN”)?

Screenshot_20240511_211336

alzhao · 2024-05-13T04:32:33.273Z

Do you have kernel log when you plug/unplug the cable?

kennethrc · 2024-05-13T08:12:10.373Z

Here ya go:

[   30.400532] br-lan: port 3(wlan1) entered forwarding state
[   35.924429] br-lan: port 2(wlan0) entered forwarding state
[   38.404412] br-lan: port 3(wlan1) entered forwarding state
[  191.994524] nss-dp 3a001200.dp2 eth1: PHY Link up speed: 1000
[  191.994669] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth1: link becomes ready
[  195.806248] [add_dev_config 288]add node success. iface:wan, dev:eth1, ifindex:3
[  333.997114] nss-dp 3a001200.dp2 eth1: PHY Link is down

alzhao · 2024-05-13T08:21:56.908Z

Did you exchange wan and lan ports?

kennethrc · 2024-05-13T08:39:39.885Z

Not sure what you mean (but this thread started over a year ago, so maybe I should recap?)

My eth0 port got burned out when I’d plugged what I thought was a working Ethernet cable into it. I’d since moved along to my SpitxAX, but I need something a little lighter (and less “antenna”-y ) for an upcoming quick trip so decided to play with LuCi to turn one of the AXT-1800 LAN ports (eth1/eth2) into a WAN port.

So I removed all traces of eth0 from the networking config, then turned eth1 into the “new” WAN port (as it was closest to the original WAN port) and now eth2 is the only (native) Ethernet port on the LAN bridge.

Everything now seems to work, except I don’t get the whole “Ethernet is up and running” dialog, just the one shown in the screenshot above, and I’d wondered if there was a way to manually have whatever’s expecting a connection on eth0 to now start watching eth1 instead?

admon · 2024-05-13T08:49:43.185Z

It’s hard-coded inside the Web GUI. No way of changing it, highly obfuscated JavaScript code mostly.

But since you are familiar with changing network config via SSH, this should not be a big deal for you, I guess.