What’s inside? Keenetic Titan (KN-1811) Teardown//Disassembly

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I always wonder about what’s inside every electronics. What runs that thing?!! I had a Keenetic Titan router that I used for a long time. Of course I had wondered about and I looked for teardowns but I couldn’t find anything. There were teardowns of other models like Keenetic Ultra etc. Ultra (KN-1810) is basically the previous version of Titan KN-1811, so they have similarities but of course a lot of differences, too. So after some of my testing I decided to give it a look.

Keenetic Titan is a WiFi 6 AX3200 supported router. It has 5 gigabit Ethernet ports and a single 2.5Gbit Ethernet port, all in the backside. It has 4 external antennas and two on the motherboard inside. It is a MediaTek processor based device like the previous Kenetic Ultra. Main CPU is MediaTek MT7622B dual core CPU running at 1350 MHz. Both 2.4GHz and 5 GHz radios are managed by different MediaTek CPU’s and usually they are different to be able to use a cheaper one where it’s possible. It has 512 MB of DDR3 RAM. Actually internals are similar to some other Xiaomi series cheaper routers. However, the important part of Keenetic routers is the software. The software is derived from OpenWRT and has a lot of functionalities built in. Also supports adding packages etc.

Previously, during some file transfer between my storage and phone I had checked the temps ( show interface WifiMaster1 command). The chip managing the 5 GHz frequency was reaching to temperatures around 115 degrees during prolonged transfers! Yeah, quite hot, right! During daily usage it was not an issue. But during file transfers from my computer to phone via WiFi 70 MB/s speeds were causing it to get hot and after some long transfers they really get hot. I have never had an issue with the temperature. Maybe it is normal for a device with no fans to get some hot and these were acceptable during long file transfers. So I really wanted to see how was the cooling system inside. So I started the disassembly process. Main rule was the device has to be completely functional with no physical defect after the operation. So these were my limits.

Disassembling external cases of Keenetics is fairly easy, they are not destroy or don’t attempt like Ubiquiti products. 🙂 There are two screws below the case, you simply unscrew them and good to go. Motherboard sits inside a case with a lid on top. Screws hold the upper lid. After unscrewing by putting and moving some credit card between the white case and gray lid we start to release the lid from its attachment points.

Back of the lid has a few screw holders, light diffucers for function lights etc. It even has a kind of sign in the lower corner. 🙂

Inside the case the motherboard is sitting freely. The upper lid pushes it down so that it stays put. It has a few heatsinks above chips, antenna connectors, cables, Ethernet transformers and a few LEDs on it. To remove it we need to release antenna connectors and cables. After that kindly move the motherboard and you can remove it. However, antenna cables were all kinda fixed, so I didn’t want to remove everything completely. I needed to just see what stays in the other side of the motherboard so that I can release the heatsinks.

In the backside there were no important chips etc. Just small electronics and. But there I understood why there is no teardowns of Keenetic Ultra on the Internet! Heatsinks are hold by metal terminals soldered to the motherboard. So removing it was possible but removing and putting it back was an ugly job. So I stopped the operation there. Just look around the mobo and assembly everything back.

All processors and memory etc. were under three heatsinks. So kinda everything was protected. Just they sometimes may sweat a bit during long file transfers or high WiFi 5/6 traffic. 😀

There were to Realtek ICs. One was RTL8211F and the other was RTL8221B. Basically they are Ethernet transceivers connecting the CPU to Ethernet transformers. The first one is gigabit capable and runs the main WAN port. The other is 2.5 Gbit capable and can be adjusted as the WAN port too. These two ICs run two port of Titan. The other 4 ports have transceivers inside the processor under the heatsinks. So I won’t be able to reach them.

Macronix International CO MX35LF2GE4AD was another IC I could see. It is a 2 Gbit – 256 MB serial flash chip for Keenetic Titan, the storage chip.

There were two cables going from motherboard to motherboard. They seemed interesting. These were connections for antennas on the motherboard. And the antenna parts were kinda circuitry art.

Except three heatsinks and a lot of tiny holes around, there were nothing to cool it. Unifi even puts fans to their wifi access points(Thus making them clogged with dust after some time needing maintenance. Instead you’ll probably prefer to upgrade the device instead of the hastle of disassembling them.) So this is why it can reach to 115 degrees during heavy transfers. Yeah, Keenetic didn’t put any fans there and it’s probably good to go this way. However, if you think you’re a real GEEK, I’d advise to put some holes on the top lid and put some fans on it. Yeah, a Titan with fans is much cooler than a Titan without a fan. 😀