RV042 diag led blinking

[djwhite81]

I have tried unsuccessfully to recover my RV042 to a usable state.  The diag light blinks and Ive tried several ways to upgrade the firmware by holding the reset for 30 or more seconds.  I also cannot find anywhere this TFTP tool for the RV042 that people are talking about.  And so I'm stuck with a blinking led driving me crazy. Do I just dump this router and buy a new one or a better one?  Up to this point I was very happy with the features and capabilities.

[Eric Moyers]

If you are still under warrenty, the best advice at this point would be to call into the Cisco Small Business Support Center and let one of my fellow engineers assist you. (1-866-606-1866) If you are not sure post your serial # to the router and I would be glad to look it up for you.

Eric Moyers
Cisco SBSC Network Engineer
1-866-606-1866

[djwhite81]

It's not under warranty.  Great router

with the features I really needed.  Short answer is get another one?  Which one do you suggest that

would not run into this problem?  Thanks.

[Eric Moyers]

For wired routers, in my opinion, The RV042 and RVS4000 are the best in the Small Business realm. If you want to upgrade to wireless WRVS4400N would be my pick.

If wireless is not an issue I would do comparison between RV042 and RVS4000 to see which best fits your needs. Up front the main difference is the RVS4000 is a gigabit router where the RV042 is not.

Hope this helps and if you dont mind send me your SN# to let me check something for you.

emoyersatciscodotcom

Eric Moyers
Cisco SBSC Network Engineer
1-866-606-1866

[djwhite81]

I will get the SN# tonight when I get home.  Thanks for your help.  Ill check into the RVS4000 and your right gigabit would be even better.

[djwhite81]

The serial number is: DHY006401127

thanks.

[Eric Moyers]

Hey Dave, The SN# didn't allow me to do what I was wanting to try. However looking at the recent post from Ben I do suggest to follow what he did. He down loaded the TFTP upgrade utility.

TFTP upgrade utility

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/routers/ps9923/ps9925/RV042_Firmware.zip

Assign the PC a static IP of 192.168.1.X. You have to use 192.168.1.X, because the router will default to 192.168.1.1

Hold down the reset button with the power unplugged on the RV042.

Plug the unit in while still holding the reset button, after 4-5 seconds when the orange diag is flashing let go of the reset, it is ready.

Run the RV042_1.3.7.2_050727.exe, (TFTP upgrade utility)

Router will reboot when it is finished and access has now been restored.

Ben Thank You

Your POST will be helpful to other users who experience the same issue.

I am not sure why the software is no longer accessible by search, but the link you referenece is from cisco.com

Eric Moyers
Cisco Support Network Engineer
1-866-606-1866

[benhayes]

Here is how I fixed a bad flash, hope this helps.

Ben

https://supportforums.cisco.com/thread/2060592?tstart=0

[djwhite81]

Thanks so much for all the help on this.  This router has been a workhorse for

me and I hate letting it go without a fight.  I'll try to flash from tftp

and hopefully its as simple as that.

A few other searches brought me up the possibility that some of the capacitors need to be replaced with this article:

http://www.linksysinfo.org/forums/showthread.php?t=51384

There are others who have said that the router's CLI can be temporarily enabled with some telnet commands, which would allow you to get access and de-brick it.

Anyways, I'm going to try your option first and then Ben's suggestion.  I'll post my findings after my attempts.

Thanks again.

[djwhite81]

I changed my IP on my PC to 192.168.1.5 and held t

he reset button in and plugged in the router.  It took from between 30-40 seconds before anything changed and all the lights on the router flickered twice and then the diag light was blinking.  I then ran RV042_1.3.7.2_050727.exe and it took about 3-4 mins before it popped up a message saying Successful.

I was hoping this would solve the problem but it didn't.  The router now blinks all of the lights except for the DMZ mode light twice and then all goes blank and then the diag light comes on and the sytem light and then randomly I can ping the router.  I had ping -t 192.168.1.1 running during this.  Then it will go back to blinking all lights except for the DMZ and loop like this forever.

I will try some other options as this doesnt seem to be working.

[djwhite81]

I tried the flash 3 more times and none of them worked.  I did get to a prompt from a web page at 192.168.1.1 which asked me if I wanted to upgrade the firmware.  This was most likely the state in which no flash exists and it needs one to be installed.  This worked from the webpage but again the router flashes diag randomly and then at some point all the lights flash twice and then the diag goes solid for a while and then starts flashing and it repeats over and over with no access at 192.168.1.1 and sometimes I can ping it but most of the time it says destination unreachable or that it timed out.

[benhayes]

Sounds like the flash memory may be bad. Have you tried doing the  30/30/30 reset before flashing it just to make sure any old configs are  wiped out? When I hold the reset button and plug it in the diag starts  flashing within a second or 2 and will ping indefinately after doing  this. Sounds like you could have a hardware issue after all.

Normal operation on boot up seems to be:

Diag light comes on solid along with the lan/wan ports, then the diag flashes while booting, then it goes out and the router is ready.

Seems like yours is starting to read the flash but them crashing. The fact that you get a webpage to come up though is a good sign, I could never get that part working till the utilily flashed it, even then i had the full interface not the firmware upgrade page.

[djwhite81]

I will try the 30/30/30 reset and flash it again from the tftp utility and see if that does it.  Thanks again, I'll update this again after I make that attempt.