The IT Nerd

I’ve only done this once before with Linksys routers, but I am being forced to do this again as ASUS has put out a firmware version for their ZenWiFi XT8 router that will cause you problems. Specifically the firmware version is 3.0.0.4.388.21099 which was released on October 3rd. This firmware appears to have some sort memory leak issue. Meaning that it consumes all available RAM memory on the router until it runs out and crashes. When this happens, you will see the following:

• The router will work fine for four or five days.
• The child node will suddenly disconnect and you will see a blue flashing light.
• The primary node will look fine with a white light, but there is no WiFi available.

A reboot will bring everything back online. But only for four or five days where the above will repeat. This has been reported in a couple of places like Reddit and SNBForums. What’s interesting is that UKTechHub has posted that ASUS has released a new firmware to a user on that forum that seems to address this issue. That implies that ASUS knows that this issue exists. Why ASUS hasn’t widely released a newer firmware that addresses this problem that they seem to know about remains a bit of an open question.

Until ASUS formally addresses this, your best bet is to stay on firmware 3.0.0.4.386.49873. If you have already upgraded to 3.0.0.4.388.21099, then your best bet is to do the following:

• Backup the configuration using these instructions.
• Download and install firmware 3.0.0.4.388.21099 using method 2 from these instructions.
• After updating do a factory reset of the router using these instructions.
• Using a computer and a web browser, connect to the router and using the advanced options, upload the backup of the configuration that you saved in the first step.

The reason why I recommend going this route is that for whatever reason, ASUS routers do not cleanly update the firmware. And that leads to all sorts of weird issues that are hard to track down. In my case, it breaks HomeKit unless I go through the steps above.

Now you could just stay on 3.0.0.4.388.21099 until ASUS decides to fix this. But you’ll have to reboot your router every four or five days which is a pain. Thus I would hope that ASUS decides to step up to the plate and addresses this with a firmware fix. But I am not holding my breath as based on my recent experience with them and how they support their customers, ASUS doesn’t seem to be that sort of company. Though they are free to prove me wrong.

UPDATE: ASUS has released a newer firmware to address these issues. More info here.

This entry was posted on October 24, 2022 at 9:43 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Asus. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.