Normally the "weird characters" on the console port while starting up are a console port/terminal emulator speed or parity mismatch. Does the "junk display" appear to come in blocks like a normal startup with console attached?
Default would have been 9600-no parity-1 stop bit (verify your emulator); but this can have been changed on the router if somebody had tried to XMODEM an image to it at higher speeds.