Here's an off the wall question for our hardware hackers:  I found a Netgear AC1700 combo wifi modem cable adapter at a yard sale for $1.  Seller told me it was "bricked".  I got it back to my Ham Shack and did a complete power cycle including factory reset.  I used WireShark (Linux) to look for anything coming out of it after I repowered it.  As they say "the lights are on but nobody's home".  SDR and Wifi Sniffer shows good signals on both 2 & 5 gHz bands.  Attempts to access internal firmware via the LAN ports were without results.  I used variety of http and terminal communications attempts to access firmware "web page".  The device has no external access ports other that ones I tried.

Before I open the box, do you have any ideas?  I'm thinking opening it up and doing a remove/replace on internal battery or converting it to a flower planter.  Maybe separating the WiFi board out for Yet Another Project (YAP).

Advice please,

73

Dave

N4CVX