I joined Three 5G at the weekend and received my MC801A Tuesday 17th, plugged it in all went or seemed to go well. I changed SSID and both admin and wifi passwords etc etc then within 5 min it updated itself rebooted and never came back on (bar the power light). I wasn't very happy and was even more annoyed once i found this site and saw that a good few others have had the exact same issues, not only that this info was a week+ old.
Just the fact Three sent me a router and still pushed a firmware update knowing it was bricking them is shocking.
Needless to say i got in touch with Three who knew straight away what the problem was but still we went through the whole BS script of turn it off, reset it, leave it on for 40 min to see if it connects etc....In the end they accepted it was Bricked and sent a new one out which arrived today.
After reading other messages where a few people had been sent replacement routers only for them to be bricked within a few min of booting them up i changed tactic and with my replacement router removed the sim while i booted up first time, logged in to panel and disabled auto updates......Put sim in rebooted it and happy days since.
That's weird, as a completely bricked mc801a has no lights on.
There's a full unbricking method detailed on 4pda, but it requires disassembly and testpoint booting, I'd only recommend it as a last result as there's the potential to lose your IMEI, and have to rewrite it.
A bricked device IMHO is one that can't be fixed without the need to wipe and restore firmware etc, and even then it is certainly not a job for an average joe. I went the whole flash route but there is no guarantee you could even recover or correctly flash the firmware with the correct Three UK profile....i could indeed find firmware for most countries and providers but couldn't find one for Three UK. Flashing would also requires the USB-c port be active and working, in my case that wasn't possible, it did nothing via the USB..... i tried lots of things before eventually i thought "WTF am i doing?", "i can get another one sent out as i'm only day 1 of my contract".
Luckily i had no issue getting a replacement which arrived today and it does work a treat, so i think if anyone does have a Three 5G MC801A that is stuck on a power light only....well might as well stop wasting your time and demand a replacement as its highly doubtful it will magically fix itself.
This cannot be cheap for Three, i'm on the £10 for 6 months then £20 for remaining 18 months deal which works out to £420 for the entire 2 year contract. Given they sent me new router, bricked it, had to send me another and pay for the postage and return postage, plus the paying the staff i had to ring etc etc.......someone needs sacking.