Howto unlock your Eircom F1000

Dermot McDonnell · 05-10-2014 3:11pm #1

Eircom are currently several firmware versions behind ZyXel for the F1000. The current beta release from ZyXel UK includes a fix for port forwarding bugs, in particular where a resync takes out the applied rules.

For those who are interested, and understand the risk that you may kill your F1000, I attach a full log of an F1000 unlock followed by flashing both the ZyXel bootloader and the latest firmware. Commands are in blue, comments in red in the PDF.

You will need a phillips screwdriver, a USB-TTL serial cable, communications software that supports serial and xModem protocols, but no soldering skills as the board comes with a serial header.

I do not encourage anyone to do this, I simply pass on the know how to those who wish to do it. You know who you are

NB: Do NOT use the Vcc connector on the header. Serial is 115200baud, 8bits, no parity.

jca · 06-10-2014 2:07am

Dermot McDonnell wrote: »

Eircom are currently several firmware versions behind ZyXel for the F1000. The current beta release from ZyXel UK includes a fix for port forwarding bugs, in particular where a resync takes out the applied rules.

For those who are interested, and understand the risk that you may kill your F1000, I attach a full log of an F1000 unlock followed by flashing both the ZyXel bootloader and the latest firmware. Commands are in blue, comments in red in the PDF.

You will need a phillips screwdriver, a USB-TTL serial cable, communications software that supports serial and xModem protocols, but no soldering skills as the board comes with a serial header.

I do not encourage anyone to do this, I simply pass on the know how to those who wish to do it. You know who you are

NB: Do NOT use the Vcc connector on the header. Serial is 115200baud, 8bits, no parity.

Waàaay out of my league. Is there any way of getting my printer on one of the usb ports? (Easily)

Xennon · 06-10-2014 1:05pm

Lovely Work Dermot!

jhconnolly · 20-10-2014 5:58pm

Dermot,

I cannot port forward with my Eircom F1000 with firmware 1.00(AAHA.4)DO_20140623, is the reason a software bug ? if so then this could fix it, correct ?

Thanks
James

Dermot McDonnell · 26-10-2014 1:19pm

James,

Apologies for the delay in replying to you. I caught a bad cold. The later firmwares from ZyXel certainly address a number of issues with port forwarding, see http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php?topic=13930.0 for details and user comments on port forwarding issues.

Regards,

Dermot

_Whimsical_ · 26-10-2014 1:31pm

Any chance it might improve the awful Wi-Fi range or speeds?

Dermot McDonnell · 26-10-2014 4:50pm

_Whimsical_ wrote: »

Any chance it might improve the awful Wi-Fi range or speeds?

A firmware update will give only a very slight wifi improvement, due to bug fixes. However, I strongly suggest the following:

Got to Network -> Wireless -> Other
Set 802.11 mode to 802.11n only

Your wifi devices need to support 802.11n, most do.

Secondly, the wifi signal is at a maximim along a line perpindicular to the face of the F1000, as the antennae array is on the circuit board. Point the front, or back, face of the modem at the area you want best coverage.

_Whimsical_ · 27-10-2014 12:43am

Dermot McDonnell wrote: »

A firmware update will give only a very slight wifi improvement, due to bug fixes. However, I strongly suggest the following:

Got to Network -> Wireless -> Other
Set 802.11 mode to 802.11n only

Your wifi devices need to support 802.11n, most do.

Secondly, the wifi signal is at a maximim along a line perpindicular to the face of the F1000, as the antennae array is on the circuit board. Point the front, or back, face of the modem at the area you want best coverage.

Thank you!
That was helpful, I think my wifi might be a bit better as n and it's good to know the best way to point the modem too.

jca · 27-10-2014 6:39pm

Is it possible to use one of the USB ports as a print server?

doctorg · 28-10-2014 1:31am

jca wrote: »

Is it possible to use one of the USB ports as a print server?

Yes, But you have to enable it first inside the router.

192.168.1.254 > Network Settings > Print Server > Enable

jca · 28-10-2014 3:17pm

doctorg wrote: »

Yes, But you have to enable it first inside the router.

192.168.1.254 > Network Settings > Print Server > Enable

Thanks for replying doctorg. It won't work unfortunately. I enabled print server in the router, connected up my printer (Brother DCP-350C). The USB light illuminates on the router, the printer rebooted a few times followed by the router rebooting but the USB light stayed off after the router reboot. No sign of the printer on network searches... Very frustrating, I thought I had it working when the USB lit up.. Maybe my printer isn't supported.

jca · 28-10-2014 6:18pm

More problems now. If I try to access the print server tab on the router interface the page greys out and the router reboots eventually. The reboot takes forever to complete, a real pain in the butt. Still no sign of the printer on the network. Very frustrating.

Dermot McDonnell · 20-11-2014 5:02pm

I have updated my guide to unlocking and unbranding the Eircom F1000. It includes the settings for use with Eircom and Vodafone VDSL (fibre).

Eircom are now a dozen firmware releases behind ZyXel, the manufacturer of the F1000. You may wish to check the latest changelog to see if any of the issues you are experiencing has been fixed.

ZyXel's user guide may be of use too.

Some users get a huge benefit with one man reporting "for anyone thinking about buying one - my speeds went from 18 to 86Mb/s with Vodafone fibre."

Other user experience has been positive too.

Paul Thomas Rowland · 22-11-2014 1:20pm

Dermot McDonnell wrote: »

Eircom are now a dozen firmware releases behind ZyXel, the manufacturer of the F1000.

Eircom are 17 firmware releases behind zyxel as of this morning. Most of the issues I see mentioned on these forums have been fixed by zyxel but eircom have done nothing to update their firmware. These bugs are driving people daft but obviously eircom do not give a sh!t about their customers.

Unlock your F1000 people, upgrade your firmware as you are entitled to do by law.

rogercross · 22-11-2014 5:21pm

Hi Guys,

I'd be very interested in unlocking the f1000.

Don't suppose you could post a slightly more user friendly guide to unlocking the it and flashing the factory firmware?

Ill need to acquire the TTL cable, I have everything else I think.

Dermot McDonnell · 23-11-2014 1:30pm

rogercross wrote: »

..
Don't suppose you could post a slightly more user friendly guide to unlocking the it and flashing the factory firmware?

Ill need to acquire the TTL cable, I have everything else I think.

Roger,

I am happy to assist. However, I don't have windoze in any of its many flavours which prevents a step by step guide that will be useful to the vast majority of boards users.

You will need a USB-TTL cable. You can get them on ebay for little money, but a long wait, from China. Closer to home they are more expensive but arrive sooner. Make sure you get all the necessary wires and cables to connect your computer via the USB-TTL device to the F1000 serial header.

The USB-TTL device, when plugged into your computer will show up as a COM port, e.g. COM5. You need communications software to talk to the Com port, and in this case the software must support ZMODEM file transfer protocol. There are many freeware packages that do this, ExtraPuTTY and KiTTY for example, but I am not in a position to test these.

Your comms software needs to be configured to talk to whatever COM port is associated with your USB-TTL device. Set the BAUD rate and other parameters as per the guide.

If you connect everything up properly, and configure your comms software correctly, you will see the F1000 boot sequence, once you power it up, via the comms software on your PC screen. You will have a brief opportunity to interrupt the boot sequence, by hitting any key, and you will drop to an MS-DOS like environment called the CFE (Common Firmware Environment). Once you get the CFE prompt you can follow the commands in my guide.

This is not a risky business unless you are reckless and as has been pointed out above, you are legally entitled to change the firmware on your F1000. The F1000, and 99% of other modem/routers, are Linux systems. Their manufacturers have signed up to Linux use agreements that specifically entitle users to make any alterations they desire to the Linux software.

I hope this is of use to you. Perhaps you can take a few screen shots as you proceed and I will include them in the guide? Any issues, get back to me.

rogercross · 26-11-2014 11:24am

Thanks Dermot,

Just waiting for my cable to arrive.

Got a question for you, have you ever put an f1000 in bridge mode?

I did with mine recently to test and planned on using a tp-link router as my main device, with a cable running from the F1000 into the tp-links WAN port. This same model had been used in the past with UPC without any issue so i know it works as it should.

However when using it connected to the f1000 it worked but wasn't able to assign DHCP address's. I tried disabling the DHCP server on the F1000 and making sure it was running on the TP-Link but still nothing consistent.

Is this a bug you've seen in the F1000 before that maybe this official firmware fixes?

Dermot McDonnell · 26-11-2014 12:35pm

Roger,

I have used the F1000 as the main VDSL WAN device as it gets the best sync with my ISP. Did bridge it via CAT5 cable to an HG658c (Vodafone VDSL router). It worked fine and I got a 1Gig wired link between the devices. No longer have it bridged though.

Regards,

Dermot.

rogercross · 26-11-2014 1:09pm

I experienced a strange issue when it was in bridge mode, connecting to my tp-link wirelessly i was picking up 2 gateways (the f1000 and the tp) and 4 dns entries (2 from each router) but no dhcp from either. I was hoping it was buggy eircom software not putting it fully into bridge when it says it does.

Strange as the TP works fine on other isps, e.g upc.

Improved sync would be nice, really what i need is a stable F1000 that i can then turn over to a third party router which has better wireless signal strength, its a big enough area i need to cover.

Dermot McDonnell · 29-11-2014 1:37pm

With a VDSL (fibre - high speed) connection the DSL light on your F1000 will be ORANGE.

With an ADSL (lower speed) connection the DSL light on your F1000 will be GREEN.

It seems a lot of people believe they have a VDSL connection when, in fact, they don't.

And yes, upgrading F1000 software fixes that issue.

Dermot McDonnell · 29-11-2014 1:40pm

rogercross wrote: »

...Improved sync would be nice, really what i need is a stable F1000 that i can then turn over to a third party router which has better wireless signal strength, its a big enough area i need to cover.

I visited the home of a German friend yesterday with an unlocked F1000. The sync rate increased 20% and the throughput on wifi doubled - even though he has to use mixed b/g/n mode for wifi due to older laptops without 802.11 mode N. Let us know how you get on, please.

rogercross · 08-12-2014 1:19pm

Still waiting on my cable, but just a thought, I'll be using my spare F1000 as a guinea pig for this, do I need to know the admin password that was set on the routers management web page or will this cable and initial boot sequence bypass that entirely allowing me to do the firmware flash.

I ask as the password is unknown on the box, it was changed at some point and I suspect was mistyped at the time (also the reset button on the back is broken preventing a wipe of that password the traditional way).

So will the TTL cable allow me to bypass that do you think?

Dermot McDonnell · 08-12-2014 1:50pm

rogercross wrote: »

...
So will the TTL cable allow me to bypass that do you think?

Yes.

You will interrupt the F1000 boot sequence to do the firmware flash. Afterward these settings will apply:

user: admin
password: 1234
F1000 ip address: 192.168.1.1

rogercross · 08-12-2014 1:53pm

Dermot McDonnell wrote: »

Yes.

You will interrupt the F1000 boot sequence to do the firmware flash. Afterward these settings will apply:

user: admin
password: 1234
F1000 ip address: 192.168.1.1

Cool thanks Dermot, any month now that cable should arrive, do you happen to have the newest firmware on hand that i need to flash?

Dermot McDonnell · 08-12-2014 1:56pm

rogercross wrote: »

... do you happen to have the newest firmware on hand that i need to flash?

Firmwares are released by ZyXel regularly. These guys keep track:
http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php?topic=13930.0

captain_boycott · 08-12-2014 4:02pm

Dermot McDonnell wrote: »

With a VDSL (fibre - high speed) connection the DSL light on your F1000 will be ORANGE.

With an ADSL (lower speed) connection the DSL light on your F1000 will be GREEN.

It seems a lot of people believe they have a VDSL connection when, in fact, they don't.

And yes, upgrading F1000 software fixes that issue.

My F1000 dsl is green, even thought I am on VDSL (vdsl2 annex b according to the router )

rogercross · 10-12-2014 10:56am

Dermot McDonnell wrote: »

Firmwares are released by ZyXel regularly. These guys keep track:
http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php?topic=13930.0

So looks like my cable has arrived, I will try the de-branding tonight, quick question, in the guide it mentions "Send ZyXel Bootloader", I have the latest stable firmware file downloaded, where do I get the bootloader?

Doodah7 · 10-12-2014 2:32pm

captain_boycott wrote: »

My F1000 dsl is green, even thought I am on VDSL (vdsl2 annex b according to the router )

me too...

Dermot McDonnell · 10-12-2014 3:44pm

tallpaul wrote: »

me too...

My apologies, all the OEM firmwares give Orange for VDSL and Green for ADSL. Eircom just shows Green and you have to check xDSL Statistics to determine your connection characteristics. I should have made it clear that I was refering to Zyxel firmwares only.

Dermot McDonnell · 10-12-2014 3:55pm

rogercross wrote: »

So looks like my cable has arrived, I will try the de-branding tonight,..
....where do I get the bootloader?

Good luck!

The Zyxel bootloader can be found in Eircom's sources, oddly enough, but you can get it here. I will add it to the guide.

haggster · 29-12-2014 11:47am

I just registered due to this thread and got one question:

I received my F1000 in June this year (so I guess the firmware hasn't changed since then) and I've been operating it in bridge mode since September, with basically everything turned off: Wi-Fi, DHCP, Firewall, etc., basically everything deactivated, so that it only runs as a modem bridging the PPPoE connection to my dual band Asus router via a Gigabit Ethernet cable link connected to LAN port 1 of the F1000.

I'm on a 90mbit/s efibre profile and get a maximum real-life throughput of 84 mbit/s downstream and 19.xx mbit/s upstream. This has been tested to death repeatedly over the course of several months. Currently, I don't even touch the F1000 anymore - I just keep it switched on and my Asus router does all the work (actually the last time I tried, I couldn't even reach the F1000's GUI anymore, not even via Ethernet and not even after switching it off/on ...seems like a factory reset would be necessary for this, I don't want all the hassle again though).

Anyway, my real question is:
Since my apparent OCD is constantly pushing me to try and improve my connection, even if it's just a 1ms ping improvement or whatever, I'm wondering if unlocking and flashing the latest original ZyXel firmware would do anything to improve the connection between my modem and the cabinet? I'm not an absolute an-alphabet when it comes to networking terms, but I keep reading about differences regarding the "sync" to the provider (this is one of the few terms that I have no clue about) ... does the firmware have any effect on this? And if yes, how would this manifest... i.e. does the connection become more reliable, are there less packets getting dropped? Basically, I'm just trying to find out whether unlocking and flashing a more current firmware is really worth the risk and hassle involved with it. Sometimes I'm getting the impression that this router is like a house of cards and its better not to touch it if its working.

Thanks a lot for your help; the info provided here is amazing!

Howto unlock your Eircom F1000

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