My friend gave me his ASUS AC3200 router to configure it for him because he recently moved to another area. He has some version of tomato firmware loaded into it. I took it home to play with it but I couldn't get it to connect to the internet. I asked him if anything changed or if he dropped it or anything. To my surprise, he told me that he gave me the router with a different power adapter!!! This is because he lost the original while moving his stuff. I told him this is it then and it is bad, you can't just change the adapter because you need to have the same voltage. I checked the input power for the router and it was 19 volts and 2.3 Amps. This means the voltage needs to be at least 19 volts and the current 2.3 Amps or more I guess. However, the output power of the adapter was 12 volts and 1.5 Amps. I'm surprised it even switched on ! It actually switched on and its web interface was accessible and its LAN ports behaved normally. I was able to navigate the web interface, change the settings and save it, but like I said it didn't connect to the internet.
I just wanted to share this story. Bad power can cause all sorts of funny problems, and higher voltage can fry your equipment and turns it into a brick. But, could it be that --for this case--it just didn't connect as the only symptom to bad power?
Also, can less power cause the device to malfunction?
I'm wandering if I should let him buy another power adapter from ebay but I'm afraid the router will still not work. What do you think?
I just wanted to share this story. Bad power can cause all sorts of funny problems, and higher voltage can fry your equipment and turns it into a brick. But, could it be that --for this case--it just didn't connect as the only symptom to bad power?
Also, can less power cause the device to malfunction?
I'm wandering if I should let him buy another power adapter from ebay but I'm afraid the router will still not work. What do you think?