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Crossflashing D-Link DSL-103i Router with Open Source Firnware Hi All,
I am putting forward this thread for the benefit of the readers.First of all, I would like to thank MVS Sarma aka Uncle () for providing me the spare defective Dlink DSL-103i which he bought from a sunday market for Rs 50. As per him, the Router was not working fine and had multiple issues with it.one of them was the non functioning of the PPPoE mode when you try to connect to Internet.
When we met, he explained me the problem and told that he tried contacting Dlink support team. They said they were not aware of this particular model and that they couldnt do anything to repair the same. Even a firmware wasnt available on the internet for this model.
This is when i decided to try the open source away and give a hand on open source firmware.But first, i wanted to know the hardware before attempting to do the same. Upon opening the modem, as shown below,
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/4135/01082011168.jpg
the board had these 3 main Chips
1) TNETD7300AGDW - Texas Instruments Single Chip ADSL CPE SoC
2 ISSI42S1600 - 8MB DRAM
3) AM29F160 - 2MB Flash
Out of the above, the most important one is the TI chipset TNETD7300AGDW which is the core and heart of the Router.This is a complete Single chip system on chip which integrates the ADSL Mux, Ethernet and USB Controller onto it.There is no datasheet for this but i just found this information.
http:/ /focus.ti.com/pdfs/bcg/ar7_nsp_prod_brief.pdf
The device is probably proprietary and sold only to OEM's. it was found that Majority of the D-Link ADSL products use this Chipset.
So going the old way, the examined the board and the connections. i found a debug port which you can hook up to the computer for serial connections. You can see the port below
http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/508/01082011169.jpg
This chipset has multiple ports labelled UART1 and UART2 which can be used for serial connections. The so called Debug port shown here is wired to UART2internally and the other port UART1 is wired to another chip MAX3232 which is a 3.3V TTL to RS232 level translator.
You need this chip to enable the TI chip to talk to the Hyperterminal on your PC
For the upgrade, i used open source firmware from routertech
(RouterTech • Home)
For the flashing, i used a texas instruments software called Remote application tool ver 2.2.Upon successfull flashing, i had the new Firmware . VOILA !!!
This new firmware was a big bang and completely solved all the problems. i found increased ADSL speeds with consistency and stability. And Of Course, by the way, even PPPoE fixed and working fine now !!!
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/1235/01082011166.jpg
see the below screenshots for how the firmware looks.
http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/6869/35262638.jpg
http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/7224/75387343.jpg
http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/3396/45830928.jpg
http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/4676/91532408.jpg
The purpose of this post is to just tell you that it is possible to crossflash firmwares onto different hardware as long as there is no firmware based hardware lock. This is not a complete Know how technical post to do the same.But just an info on the possibilities.
I tried flashing firmware of different makes such as stargate, aztech and found that they DIDNOT WORK !!! only the ones which worked fine are bewan, routertech and lynx.
WARNING : JUST AFTER READING THIS POST, PLEASE DONT GET TEMPTED TO FLASH YOUR MODEM. THIS IS HIGHLY RISKY SINCE A SLIGHT MISTAKE WOULD RENDER YOUR MODEM JUST AS A PAPER WEIGHT. PLEASE ATTEMPT THIS ONLY IF YOU HAVE DEAD MODEMS OR DEFECTIVE MODEMS.!!!
Thanks
Bobby
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Originally Posted by essbebe 