Internal Components

Of course, I had to take apart the router for a good look at its internal components.


To remove the top cover, you have to deal with two screws underneath the router. Two of them are hidden by the small rubber feet.


After removing the top cover, you will have to detach all antenna connectors. Do so very carefully because these connectors can be damaged easily.


A massive heatsink covers the top of the PCB. Removing it was easy enough after heating it up a bit.


All the parts are right beneath the heatsink, with most of them covered by metallic shields to restrict EMI.


The Wireless System-on-a-Chip (WiSOC) is a Qualcomm Atheros IPQ6018 featuring a quad-core ARM 64-bit A53 1.8 GHz processor. It supports 2x2 MU-MIMO with four streams; two in the 2.4 GHz band and two in the 5 GHz band. Since the specifications of the RT6600ax mention 4x4 MU-MIMO, there should be an additional WLAN chip.


Besides the WiSOC, a second WLAN chipset is also installed on the PCB, a Qualcomm QCN9024 which also supports WiFi 6 along with 4x4 MU-MIMO.


This is a single port Qualcomm QCA8081 Ethernet PHY transceiver supporting up to 2.5 Gbit speeds. It is responsible for the router's WAN/LAN 2.5 Gbit port.


The other Gigabit Ethernet ports of the router are handled by a Qualcomm QCA8075 transceiver. This IC can handle up to five Ethernet ports.


An asynchronous step-down converter provides the necessary voltages to various components.


There should be a protective layer between the RJ-45 connectors and physical layer (PHY) chipset, which is handled by special transformers (ICs), single UDE L26H001-0, and three U-Tron GSC-2401-R.


A Kingston EMMC04G-M627-M06U flash NAND (MLC) memory chip of 4 GB capacity is installed on the PCB. It stores the SRM OS.


The power button is not properly aligned.