hg658c

eamon121 · 13-03-2014 6:24pm #1

Hi does anyone know where I might get firmware for the Huawei HG658C modem. Firmware that does not have any features blocked like on the firmware that vodafone has. Have called vodafone, no luck and Huawei themselves can not give out firmware without concent of vodafone

any help much appreciated

regards

Dermot McDonnell · 01-09-2014 12:49pm

eamon121 wrote: »

Hi does anyone know where I might get firmware for the Huawei HG658C modem. Firmware that does not have any features blocked like on the firmware that vodafone has. Have called vodafone, no luck and Huawei themselves can not give out firmware without concent of vodafone

any help much appreciated

regards

You can download an unlocked firmware for the HG658c from the O2 website. I cannot post a link here, search on "How do I update my Fibre Broadband firmware". Flash that and login using your existing username n password then reset the modem to the default settings from the maintenance menu. That will get rid of the Vodafone settings. The HG658c will reboot. Your username and password will both then be "admin" and all settings will be unlocked.

Regards,

Dermot.

eamon121 · 01-09-2014 1:38pm

Hi Dermott

Thanks for your reply. I have found and downloaded the firmware from the O2 website. However hopefully you can answer me this. One the upgrade has been complete i assume that the details and settings to re-connect to the vodafone fibre will need to be entered.

Is the username and password to connect to the fibre brodband specific to the customer or is there a generic user and password that I can use. Its not the login details for the modem I am thinking of.

Thanks again

Eamon

Dermot McDonnell · 01-09-2014 2:10pm

Apologies, I should have been clearer. It's a pain I cannot simply post the link.

The firmware is on o2online [dot] ie

Google "Fibre Broadband Firmware Upgrade"

I posted the link on the Kitz [dot] co [dot] uk Broadband Hardware forum under the thread "Boot log - HG658c with BCM63168 SoC"

You can revert to the old firmware by flashing the one on the vodafone [dot] ie website.

NB: Take carefull note of the working WAN settings. You will need these to configure your unlocked HG658c to connect to Vodafone. You can, of course, use any ISP.

nilhg · 01-09-2014 3:09pm

Link to the firmware is below,

http://www.o2online.ie/o2/uploads/HG658cV100R001C59B012_upgrade_main.bin

What hidden gems does this unlock for me? Any downsides?

Dermot McDonnell · 01-09-2014 4:02pm

Thank you for posting the link.

The risk is you will do something silly like power off the router during flash and damage the NAND storage. Unlikely though.

Unlocked it reverts to the generic Huawei firmware with all that it provides. I will prepare some screen shots when I get home, perhaps you might post them here as I cannot.

To be honest, I dont know why anyone would want to use the HG658c for broadband. For ADSL, the HG556a is just fine and has an excellent wifi radio, an Atheros AR9223 as opposed to a Broadcom BCM435f. Lots more through put in real life whatever the link status might say.

For VDSL, the unbranded Eircom F1000 gets excellent broadband sync rates, has a later, superior, version of the BCM435f wifi radio and 5x1Gig ethernet ports (the HG658c has 1x1G and 4x100M).

Just my 2c.

Dermot McDonnell · 01-09-2014 5:06pm

I posted the pics of the Basic and Advanced Menu Screens from the unbranded HG658c on the Kitz forum mentioned above. A kind soul might post the links, please?

Its Only Ray Parlour · 01-09-2014 5:45pm

nilhg wrote: »

Link to the firmware is below,

What hidden gems does this unlock for me? Any downsides?

Does anyone have the login details after you do this?

Vico1612 · 01-09-2014 6:08pm

OP, which features are you looking for ?
VF might deny you support is you modify their box ...

Its Only Ray Parlour · 01-09-2014 6:14pm

Its Only Ray Parlour wrote: »

Does anyone have the login details after you do this?

Nevermind.

admin and admin1234 worked.

Dermot McDonnell · 01-09-2014 6:26pm

Its Only Ray Parlour wrote: »

Nevermind.

admin and admin1234 worked.

As my first post above made clear:

"Flash that and login using your existing username n password then reset the modem to the default settings from the maintenance menu. That will get rid of the Vodafone settings. The HG658c will reboot. Your username and password will both then be "admin" and all settings will be unlocked."

Its Only Ray Parlour · 01-09-2014 6:29pm

Dermot McDonnell wrote: »

As my first post above made clear:

"Flash that and login using your existing username n password then reset the modem to the default settings from the maintenance menu. That will get rid of the Vodafone settings. The HG658c will reboot. Your username and password will both then be "admin" and all settings will be unlocked."

I had to type in "admin1234" for my password. You said they'll both just be "admin".

Dermot McDonnell · 01-09-2014 7:08pm

Its Only Ray Parlour wrote: »

I had to type in "admin1234" for my password. You said they'll both just be "admin".

Anyone else have this happen? I suspect Its Only Ray Parlour. Luckily you managed to guess the right password, well done

The password admin is built into the O2 firmware, once you reset the defaults the username and password will be admin and not anything else. I've only done it a dozen or so times.

Paul Thomas Rowland · 01-09-2014 7:58pm

Nice one Dermott. First you unbrand the Eircom F1000 and now this. What are you going to do for an encore? I thought you might have managed to unlock the Huawei bootloader but I see on Kitz that its still work in progress.

I have thanked you for your post.

Paul Thomas Rowland · 01-09-2014 8:20pm

The Vodafone default username is vodafone, password admin1234. If you have not changed it, or if you reset the router while running the Vodafone firmware, these settings apply.

When you flash the O2 firmware, the username and passowrd will not change. The router will simply reboot after the flash, the old setting are still in place.

When you reset the router to default settings, after flashing the O2 firmware, the username and password change to admin.

AlanS181824 · 01-09-2014 11:28pm

I had no idea this was even possible.

I recently finished flashing a SamKnows WhiteBox my friend gave me so I'm feeling confident I can handle a firmware upgrade :pac:

Does it add any new features?

I might do it tomorrow when I've time.

Kind Regards

AlanS181824 · 02-09-2014 7:17pm

AlanS181824 wrote: »

I had no idea this was even possible.

I recently finished flashing a SamKnows WhiteBox my friend gave me so I'm feeling confident I can handle a firmware upgrade :pac:

Does it add any new features?

I might do it tomorrow when I've time.

Kind Regards

Alright so I upgraded it and thankfully it went well.

I understand why they don't show all this stuff, very indepth and probably confusing to the average consumer.

Some interesting things I noticed:

It's still Vodafone branded, look almost the exact same bar the login which looks a bit different.

Huawei have their software copyrighted for 2014-2015.... :rolleyes:

At Advanced > CWMP > TR069 there is an intreresting link (here) which brings you to a page asking for a login which I don't have.

I believe this is a forum of sorts.

Really wish Huawei showed what device was on the WiFi!

Fed up of everything being listed as a Computer! :pac:

ED E · 02-09-2014 8:09pm

The router doesn't know what devices are, it could only wver guess based on manufacturer of the MAC (using OUI), not very useful.

TR069 is the remote management system, its how vodafone push firmware updates and run diagnostics.

AlanS181824 · 02-09-2014 8:16pm

ED E wrote: »

The router doesn't know what devices are, it could only wver guess based on manufacturer of the MAC (using OUI), not very useful.

TR069 is the remote management system, its how vodafone push firmware updates and run diagnostics.

When I had Sky it would say Android_xxxxx, xxxPC, Sky HD etc.

Huawei/Vodafone think everything is a computer! :pac:

Ah I see, that's interesting.

ED E · 02-09-2014 8:22pm

AlanS181824 wrote: »

When I had Sky it would say Android_xxxxx, xxxPC, Sky HD etc.

Huawei/Vodafone think everything is a computer! :pac:

Ah I see, that's interesting.

Oh, its not reporting their Netbios/SMB names? Thats a bit silly. Even eircoms offering does that.

AlanS181824 · 02-09-2014 8:34pm

ED E wrote: »

Oh, its not reporting their Netbios/SMB names? Thats a bit silly. Even eircoms offering does that.

Nope! Weird right?

There's about 30 computers on my WiFi according to it. :pac:

Dermot McDonnell · 03-09-2014 12:13pm

AlanS181824 wrote: »

I had no idea this was even possible.

I recently finished flashing a SamKnows WhiteBox my friend gave me so I'm feeling confident I can handle a firmware upgrade :pac:

Does it add any new features?

I might do it tomorrow when I've time.

Kind Regards

Alan,

The process is straightforward. I have posted screen shots of the unlocked menu options on Kitz as I cannot do so here. The unlocked features are listed. Simply compare the screen shots to your existing options.

Regards,

Dermot

AlanS181824 · 03-09-2014 1:14pm

Dermot McDonnell wrote: »

Alan,

The process is straightforward. I have posted screen shots of the unlocked menu options on Kitz as I cannot do so here. The unlocked features are listed. Simply compare the screen shots to your existing options.

Regards,

Dermot

Read up a few posts.

I already flashed it, didn't like it as it's a bit overcomplicated so I just went back to stock Vodafone.

Dermot McDonnell · 03-09-2014 2:08pm

AlanS181824 wrote: »

...It's still Vodafone branded...

Did you Reset to Default Settings after flashing the O2 firmware? No trace of Vodafone in the pics I posted on Kitz.

ED E wrote: »

...TR069 is the remote management system, its how vodafone push firmware updates and run diagnostics....

Correct. Anyone, hacker or state security apparatus, whos "owns" Vodafones servers can push a firmware upgrade remotely that utterly compromises your router and data security. You would not even be aware that it happened. Switch off TR069.

AlanS181824 wrote: »

...I already flashed it, didn't like it as it's a bit overcomplicated so I just went back to stock Vodafone.

Unlocked is not for everyone. Nice that you can try it and revert painlessly to your original ISP.

dazdrog · 03-09-2014 3:29pm

right question here for you, ive two of these routers, one that i use located in the hall and one spare thats collecting dust. from the router in the hall to a bedroom and the sitting room ive cat6a cable ran.

in the sitting room ive ran into a problem and i need more wired connections then one cable can provide, so i was thinking of using the second router in the sitting room with wireless disabled with the cat6a cable from the hall connected to the wan interface of the router, that would give me 4 more ports

ive flashed the spare to the o2 firmware and then wiped to default settings (vodafone branding vanishes after a cache wipe) now can anyone point me in the right direction of how i would achieve this?

Dermot McDonnell · 03-09-2014 4:15pm

dazdrog wrote: »

right question here for you, ive two of these routers...

You can certainly do this. I have done it myself. My problem is I no longer have an HG658c - it's not my idea of a decent router - so you will forgive me if I cannot give you step by step instructions.

One the second HG658c, you need to set it up to get WAN over Ethernet (the Red WAN port), get an IP address from the primary router (DHCP client). You can enable a wifi access point too on the second router if you want. If I recall correctly, you must setup DHCP on the secondary with a different sub-net, e.g. 192.168.12.1, to the primary. The secondary cares not whence the Internet comes.

Ideally, you would configure the RED WAN port on the Primary as an extra ethernet port because the RED port is 1Gig, the others are 100M. Cable RED to RED for a 1Gig link. I believe you can configure the 5th port as Ethernet on the unlocked HG658c.

Regards,

Dermot.

dazdrog · 03-09-2014 4:24pm

Dermot McDonnell wrote: »

You can certainly do this. I have done it myself. My problem is I no longer have an HG658c - it's not my idea of a decent router - so you will forgive me if I cannot give you step by step instructions.

One the second HG658c, you need to set it up to get WAN over Ethernet (the Red WAN port), get an IP address from the primary router (DHCP client). You can enable a wifi access point too on the second router if you want. If I recall correctly, you must setup DHCP on the secondary with a different sub-net, e.g. 192.168.12.1, to the primary. The secondary cares not whence the Internet comes.

Ideally, you would configure the RED WAN port on the Primary as an extra ethernet port because the RED port is 1Gig, the others are 100M. Cable RED to RED for a 1Gig link. I believe you can configure the 5th port as Ethernet on the unlocked HG658c.

Regards,

Dermot.

Cheers ill get a look at the set up tonite and see what i can come up with

AlanS181824 · 03-09-2014 9:07pm

Dermot McDonnell wrote: »

Did you Reset to Default Settings after flashing the O2 firmware? No trace of Vodafone in the pics I posted on Kitz.

No I did not, this is probably the reason then.

Everything looked the same bar a Huawei login.

Dermot McDonnell wrote: »

Unlocked is not for everyone. Nice that you can try it and revert painlessly to your original ISP.

Yeah, it's good to know that there are people like yourself actively tinkering with it!:pac:

Dermot McDonnell · 03-09-2014 10:09pm

AlanS181824 wrote: »

No I did not, this is probably the reason then.

Everything looked the same bar a Huawei login.

You get no benefit unless you do Reset to Defaults. The Vodafone config survives the firmware flash so the device remains locked.

Dermot McDonnell · 04-09-2014 2:50pm

dazdrog wrote: »

Cheers ill get a look at the set up tonite and see what i can come up with

How did you get on I wonder? I seem to have taken a copy of the relevant config for this if you'd like to try it. How do I get my HG658c_Config_EtherWan.conf to you?

jt72 · 29-09-2014 9:13pm

Preparing to do this myself. When you export the config with stock, it's encrypted. Is that still the case with the Huawei/O2 firmware?

hg658c

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