Howto unlock your Eircom F1000

Dermot McDonnell

haggster wrote: »

I just registered due to this thread and got one question:
.... flashing the latest original ZyXel firmware would do anything to improve the connection between my modem and the cabinet? ...Thanks a lot for your help; the info provided here is amazing!

You will not flash the original Zyxel firmware, you will flash the LATEST Zyxel firmware released last month, about 12 releases later than Eircoms offering. It will most certainly improve your connection to the cabinet and your wifi and virtually everything else as well. See the comments of those that have unlocked their F1000.

I encourage people to do it yourself! The learning is valuable experience.

Dermot McDonnell

The Changelog for the latest Zyxel firmware for the VMG8324-B10a (Eircom F1000) is attached, dated Dec 12th, 2014. It details all bugs fixed from firmware release V1.00(AAKL.0)b1 through V100AAKL7C0, some two dozen releases in total.

haggster

Dermot McDonnell wrote: »

You will not flash the original Zyxel firmware, you will flash the LATEST Zyxel firmware released last month, about 12 releases later than Eircoms offering. It will most certainly improve your connection to the cabinet and your wifi and virtually everything else as well. See the comments of those that have unlocked their F1000.

I encourage people to do it yourself! The learning is valuable experience.

Thanks a lot for your reply. I think I'll order one of these cables and try it out. Will just need to find the correct time frame for this since I cannot afford being without proper internet access for too long.

captain_boycott

haggster wrote: »

Thanks a lot for your reply. I think I'll order one of these cables and try it out. Will just need to find the correct time frame for this since I cannot afford being without proper internet access for too long.

is it possible to make up the cable? anyone got a diagram or failing that, a link to where to buy one? Could not find one down in Maplin last week

ElNino

captain_boycott wrote: »

is it possible to make up the cable? anyone got a diagram or failing that, a link to where to buy one? Could not find one down in Maplin last week

Search for "USB TTL Serial Cable" on Ebay and they are very inexpensive particularly if you order one from China or Hong Kong and are prepared to wait a few weeks for it.

Paul Thomas Rowland

ElNino wrote: »

Search for "USB TTL Serial Cable" on Ebay and they are very inexpensive particularly if you order one from China or Hong Kong and are prepared to wait a few weeks for it.

I got my USB TTL serial cable on adverts. It arrived next day n cost €12 incl p&p, little more than China sellers charge.

Dermot McDonnell

My friend Dave Gaughan got Eircom eFibre and their standard F1000 router. We used a PS4 to test the internet connection speeds of his Eircom unit against my unlocked F1000 which runs the latest Operating System (firmware) released by ZyXel, manufacturer of the F1000.

No prizes for guessing which firmware resulted in ~300% increase in throughput, up and down, as reported by a PS4. The photographs, below, are taken a few minutes apart.

Above the PS4 Internet Test with the Eircom F1000 firmware

Above the PS4 Internet Test with the latest ZyXel F1000 firmware

macyard

Dermot McDonnell wrote: »

My friend Dave Gaughan got Eircom eFibre and their standard F1000 router. We used a PS4 to test the internet connection speeds of his Eircom unit against my unlocked F1000 which runs the latest Operating System (firmware) released by ZyXel, manufacturer of the F1000.

No prizes for guessing which firmware resulted in ~300% increase in throughput, up and down, as reported by a PS4. The photographs, below, are taken a few minutes apart.

Above the PS4 Internet Test with the Eircom F1000 firmware

Above the PS4 Internet Test with the latest ZyXel F1000 firmware

Does vpn functionality work on the unlocked f1000 before I go to the hassle of unlocking mine when it comes or is there a good router that supports efibre that you can install open-wrt on, not wanting to spend more the €150

As far as I am aware there is no vpn options on the locked f1000

haggster

Dermot McDonnell wrote: »

My friend Dave Gaughan got Eircom eFibre and their standard F1000 router. We used a PS4 to test the internet connection speeds of his Eircom unit against my unlocked F1000 which runs the latest Operating System (firmware) released by ZyXel, manufacturer of the F1000.

No prizes for guessing which firmware resulted in ~300% increase in throughput, up and down, as reported by a PS4. The photographs, below, are taken a few minutes apart.

Impressive. It's amazing to have some hard data on this now.

Now, as in this case it's not about features, but simply about connection quality, I'm really wondering why eircom doesn't just update their firmware based on this current Zyxel one. It cannot be that hard and it would improve things for so many people.

Paul Thomas Rowland

macyard wrote: »

Does vpn functionality work on the unlocked f1000 before I go to the hassle of unlocking mine when it comes or is there a good router that supports efibre that you can install open-wrt on, not wanting to spend more the €150

As far as I am aware there is no vpn options on the locked f1000

VPN works very well on recent Zyxel firmware. Our local did the upgrade so CCTV over VPN would work. You can buy an F1000 on adverts for €20. You can get it unlocked and updated for €25 incl p&p also on adverts. Search F1000, efibre n eircom.

Paul Thomas Rowland

Dermot McDonnell wrote: »

My friend Dave Gaughan got Eircom eFibre and their standard F1000 router. We used a PS4 to test the internet connection speeds of his Eircom unit against my unlocked F1000 which runs the latest Operating System (firmware) released by ZyXel, manufacturer of the F1000.

No prizes for guessing which firmware resulted in ~300% increase in throughput, up and down, as reported by a PS4. The photographs, below, are taken a few minutes apart.

I bet your friend was thrilled.
It is amazingng that Eircom can get away with supplying crap software. It must save them millions in back haul costs.
]

haggster

Finally ordered my TTL adapter now after seeing this... should be here next week.

Does anybody know if the F1000 is still limited to an MTU of 1484 when using the unbranded ZyXel firmware?

If you use an MTU higher than 1484 with the current eircom firmware (e.g. an MTU of 1492, which is the usual maximum MTU for PPPoE connections) the connection will drop and the F1000 will crash. There's been some other threads about this here in the past. Mine wouldn't stop bootlooping either until I finally lowered the MTU to 1484 ...there's some guys who wrote that their MTU is 1492 or even 1500 (which doesn't make sense as the packets will fragment) and they didn't have any issues, which I found quite strange.

Dermot McDonnell

haggster wrote: »

Impressive. It's amazing to have some hard data on this now.

Now, as in this case it's not about features, but simply about connection quality, I'm really wondering why eircom doesn't just update their firmware based on this current Zyxel one. It cannot be that hard and it would improve things for so many people.

It makes perfect business sense for Eircom to limit their subscribers bandwidth by supplying a router that will act as a choke point. They get more clients per fibre and more revenue per € invested. Not that Vodafone et al are not doing precisely the same thing.

The 300% increase in throughput for the PS4 is very real. I called to Dave again this afternoon and we retested to make sure it was not a glitch. I will unlock n flash his F1000 shortly.

Bug fixes applied by Zyxel since the Eircom firmware was made are across the board - ADSL/VDSL PHY, wifi, vpn, port forwarding, security, usb, etc, etc.

Dermot McDonnell

haggster wrote: »

Does anybody know if the F1000 is still limited to an MTU of 1484 when using the unbranded ZyXel firmware?

For ADSL, the Zyxel firmware setting is:

MTU Size : 1492 MTU [68-1500]

I just added the Eircom ADSL settings to the latest unlocking guide. Thanks to Declan Holden for confirming these on his ADSL line.

For VDSL, a single change to the Zyxel default settings is required, VLAN 802.1q must be 10.

runswithascript

Dermot, firstly great thread, thanks for it and the guide.

So following your updated guide I am connect in PuTTY as far as:

CFE> atse DSL-2492GNU-B1B

0002784025F9
OK
*** command status = 0
CFE> aten 1, 10F0A7BD

ERROR
*** command status = -1

I used the code in your example as the link http://www.tonycool.es/zyxel/zynpass_en.htm is asking for a seed.

Please advise where I find this seed to generate the code?

Great, great thread! I am hoping these updates will fix 802.11 n for me and I have read it will fix the USB Service feature so the router will act as a NAS!

runswithascript

Ah, it was generated just above it.

Onwards!

runswithascript

The Dropbox link for the bootloader is giving a 404. Can you please link to and/or upload

Dermot McDonnell

dusf wrote: »

The Dropbox link for the bootloader is giving a 404. Can you please link to and/or upload

I shall put it on google drive tonight when I get home. I have it on my PC. Well done, BTW. If you have connection stats or speed test numbers, take note of them for comparison later.

runswithascript

Dermot McDonnell wrote: »

I shall put it on google drive tonight when I get home. I have it on my PC. Well done, BTW. If you have connection stats or speed test numbers, take note of them for comparison later.

Great thanks, I'll look out for it!

You mean from speedtest.net and the page that loads when we login to the WebUI?

I have two f1000 modems, just hacking the first for now so I should be able to provide this easy.

Regarding the guide, as far as I have come so far I generated my own code from the seed and used that and I entered that, but I can see later more is done with the MAC. From here on can I copy all of the text you entered verbatim or do I have to look up my own MAC or anything else to be input?

Am I safe to power the modem down, and if so when I resume do I start again at the beginning?

Dermot McDonnell

dusf wrote: »

Great thanks, I'll look out for it!

You mean from speedtest.net and the page that loads when we login to the WebUI?

I have two f1000 modems, just hacking the first for now so I should be able to provide this easy.

Regarding the guide, as far as I have come so far I generated my own code from the seed and used that and I entered that, but I can see later more is done with the MAC. From here on can I copy all of the text you entered verbatim or do I have to look up my own MAC or anything else to be input?

Am I safe to power the modem down, and if so when I resume do I start again at the beginning?

The flash will bring with it a default MAC address, which is why it is changed later to the MAC address on the F1000 case.

Power down is safe. I will post the boootloader link in a couple of hours. When you power up and Putty in, try

ATBT 1

if that works, you have write access, otherwise start at the begining.

Dermot McDonnell

@Dust,

The ZyXel boot loader for the F1000 is not attached to this post as .bin files are not allowed.

Google are not so fussy so it is here.

I would like to thank Eircom for including it in their sources

and you for your input, I shall try to make my admittedly nerdish unlock guide more accessible.

Cheers n good luck!

runswithascript

Thanks, I will complete later today.

I get that MAC further down I get b from the sticker on the back of the router but how about the first MAC entered closer to the beginning of the guide. Do we all enter the same as you for some reason or do we get from somewhere else? I ask as I know MAC addresses are supposed to be unique identifiers...

Dermot McDonnell

dusf wrote: »

Thanks, I will complete later today.

I get that MAC further down I get b from the sticker on the back of the router but how about the first MAC entered closer to the beginning of the guide. Do we all enter the same as you for some reason or do we get from somewhere else? I ask as I know MAC addresses are supposed to be unique identifiers...

Let's clear up the appearance of various MAC addresses in the unlock/upgrade process.

First MAC is encountered with this command:

ATWZ EC43F6470F58, 01, 01, 00, 0C

The principal purpose of this command is to set the Engineering Debug Bit. Once set it stays set and allows you to enable write access to flash at will (via ATBT 1). You can use any MAC address here as it will be overwritten during flashing.

Once you complete the flash, the MAC address is again reset to a generic value built into the firmware. Use the ATBP command to enter actual F1000 MAC address from the label on the back of the F1000. Of course, you can put any mac address you wish.

Keep us posted on your efforts, please.

Good luck, Dermot.

runswithascript

Great support, and for free, thanks again.

PauloMN

Apologies if this has been asked already, but does unlocking the modem have any impact on eVision boxes connected to that modem?

My speeds with the Eircom firmware are ok, but I'm having problems with the modem dropping LAN and Wifi connections, and having to reboot the modem, even though all looks to be ok on the main page (connected ok etc.). Only Skype traffic works at that point, everything else gone. Very strange, maybe the newer firmware would fix this?

Dermot McDonnell

PauloMN wrote: »

Apologies if this has been asked already, but does unlocking the modem have any impact on eVision boxes connected to that modem?

My speeds with the Eircom firmware are ok, but I'm having problems with the modem dropping LAN and Wifi connections, and having to reboot the modem, even though all looks to be ok on the main page (connected ok etc.). Only Skype traffic works at that point, everything else gone. Very strange, maybe the newer firmware would fix this?

@PauloMN, I have eVision also. The firmware upgrade will fix those problems you describe These are precisely the issues most other people experience. I restart my VDSL connection regularly as I need to test updated F1000s but one friend has >100 days uptime - no disconnects, reboots, or dropped wifi/lan connections. He also has eVision.

runswithascript

Okay done! :cool:

Well bootloader installed and I flashed the 12th image from the link. I am just about to update the settings for Eircom and set 802.11 n.

So can I take it you would like me to run and post results from a stock f1000 and my modified one of speedtest.net over LAN, ping results over 100 pings on wireless n and wireless g, and maybe a screenshot of the connection information when we log into the WebUI?

Let me know.

Dermot McDonnell

dusf wrote: »

Okay done! :cool:

Well bootloader installed and I flashed the 12th image from the link. I am just about to update the settings for Eircom and set 802.11 n.

So can I take it you would like me to run and post results from a stock f1000 and my modified one of speedtest.net over LAN, ping results over 100 pings on wireless n and wireless g, and maybe a screenshot of the connection information when we log into the WebUI?

Let me know.

Well done! How was the experience?

You can get the latest firmware directly here. It is a released firmware, not a beta. It does have the slight drawback that it supports only a single telnet session into the router at any given time. Network gurus like multiple telnet sessions so that they can extract very detailed xDSL data to analyse their ISP performance. If you want to do that, you need a slightly earlier firmware. There is excellent information, and software, on how to do serious xDSL network analysis in various threads here. Look for the VMG8324-B10a threads as that is what ZyXel call the F1000.

Carry out whatever tests you feel appropriate. The System Monitor - xDSL Statistics report would be good for connection information.

If you are a gamer, it would be nice to know if it makes much difference. In particular, where you have multiple human players over WAN and/or Wifi.

Increased F1000 reliability and performance is the goal. It would be nice if an individual with chronic F1000 problems were to do the upgrade and report here.

runswithascript

Dermot McDonnell wrote: »

Well done! How was the experience?

Good, yeah. It was not too bad at all although I am employed in and study networking, and in my personal spare time I work on technical things, like hacking my Samsung TV last week so it will let us switch between RTE Player and iPlayer, 4OD, and ITV, without having to reset and change the region setting back and forth between Ireland and the UK.

That is not to say anyone with less technical experience cannot do this! On that note, there are a few things minor things not in the guide I had to think about, some silly mistakes I made, and documenting them should help others. I will draft that for you over the next few days and you can add to yours if you like.

So, on performance, I am connected now with the hacked router. When trying to sync the DSL light went from flashing green, then to amber, and then Internet red while it was setting up authentication. I never noticed the F1000 with an amber light before but it may well be normal, especially with the new firmware.

After that the Internet went green indication authentication was achieved although strangely the DSL light has stayed amber. The Eircom F1000 manual only mentions the normal DSL off, flashing, or on, nothing about amber. Although it appears to be working fine, any idea what this is offhand? I am on call at the moment so I have not yet looked for an official Zyxel manual.

My devices are all now connected on 802.11n - without 60/70% packet loss, there is now 0% packet loss thus far, which was my main motivation for doing this. I had to run on 802.11g prior to this. I was getting about 95mbps down over LAN to speedtest.net which is now 96mbps, same latency of 15ms. LAN upload speed to speedtest.net has increased by ~ 5mbps which is great. Before hacking I also had to frequently reboot the Zyxel so time will tell if that is now resolved.

Over Wi-Fi, in the same room although not directly in front of the router, I was getting around 26mbps down, this is now between 35mbps and 48mbps which is a great increase of up to 100% although should I not be getting speeds closer to what I get over LAN, even in the same room as the hacked router, considering 802.11n has an absolute maximum limit of 300mbps?

Dermot McDonnell wrote: »

You can get the latest firmware directly from Zyxel Italia. It is a released firmware, not a beta. It does have the slight drawback that it supports only a single telnet session into the router at any given time. Network gurus like multiple telnet sessions so that they can extract very detailed xDSL data to analyse their ISP performance. If you want to do that, you need a slightly earlier firmware. There is excellent information, and software, on how to do serious xDSL network analysis in various threads here. Look for the VMG8324-B10a threads as that is what ZyXel call the F1000.

Interesting, although right now I want to see how much better I make performance. For that, am I right I would be better with the latest from zyxel.it?

Dermot McDonnell wrote: »

Carry out whatever tests you feel appropriate. The System Monitor - xDSL Statistics report would be good for connection information.

I will upload more detailed comparisons when I have tested further and for longer.

Dermot McDonnell wrote: »

If you are a gamer, it would be nice to know if it makes much difference. In particular, where you have multiple human players over WAN and/or Wifi.

I am but I only built a decent gaming machine before Christmas and have not been playing much online since our recent fibre upgrade. I can document any latency differences to servers for Rust or CS etc no problem.

Dermot McDonnell wrote: »

Increased F1000 reliability and performance is the goal. It would be nice if an individual with chronic F1000 problems were to do the upgrade and report here.

I consider not being able to use 802.11n and the frequent reboots, maybe once every two days or so, a chronic problem, at least hopefully it was

Thanks again.

Dermot McDonnell

@dust,

Amber (yellow) DSL light indicates VDSL, Green is ADSL. Eircom do not distinguish.

Excellent news on WiFi n up sync rate. I expect most people who do the unlock will get similar benefits. It's nice when the F1000 just works quietly in the background. I recall well the months of frustration that drove me to devote the time and effort to unlock the damn thing.

I realise wifi falls short of the theoretic max, it may be worth trying 40MHz channels to see if that helps. At least now it is far better than it was yesterday. Perhaps further development by Zyxel will improve matters further.

I use the latest firmware as it is not a beta.

Keep us posted. I will pm you re updating the unlock guide.

Your input greatly appreciated. Bon chance!