My old router finally gave up after 8 years

Last Thursday my home router just stopped broadcasting the Wi-Fi signal, dead as a doornail. I had to dig out my 2016 backup model from a closet and run with that until a new one arrived. Has anyone else hit a wall with aging gear that seemed fine until one random afternoon?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_lucas21d ago

My buddy Mike had almost the same thing happen last year with a router he'd owned since 2016. It worked fine for streaming and gaming one night, then the next morning the lights blinked twice and that was it. He spent a full weekend trying to reset it, update firmware, even blew dust out of the vents with canned air. Eventually he found out the power adapter was the real problem, not the router itself. A $15 replacement part gave him another year of use before he finally gave up and bought new gear.

the_dylan20d ago

That dust blowing thing is always the first move, but it never actually fixes anything. Did Mike ever check if the power adapter was overheating before it finally gave out? I had a similar thing with an old modem where the brick got so hot you could fry an egg on it, and it slowly killed the unit over a few weeks.