After recently moving to Washington States’ captial, I began DSL service with Zhonka Internet Services. Setup couldn’t have been easier for a n00b, but leave it to two software engineers to complicate the installation. In short: RTFM and make sure the setup notes are sent to the correct address.
For my DSL installation, I opted to rent an Actiontec GT701-WG DSL modem with built in wireless B and G. Cool.
After setting up my little DSL AP I happily connected to the office from my laptop. And then I re-connected. And then, anything that used the network just froze.
As it turns out, the damn wireless adapater on my laptop would just fail while connected to the AP. No real errors. In fact the log file of the Intel 2200 BG would show that there were no connection errors. At this point you may blame the Intel Wireless 2200BG adapter but then you would be WRONG! If I use the same laptop with a D-Link 2100AP, everything works just fine!
For now, I’ve disabled the wireless AP on the modem and I am using the D-Link 2100AP instead.
The next step is to hack the DSL modems firmware becuase it runs Linux!
BusyBox on dslmodem login: XXXX
Password:
BusyBox v0.61.pre (2004.07.16-20:31+0000) Built-in shell (ash)
Enter ‘help’ for a list of built-in commands.
# cat /proc/meminfo
total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached:
Mem: 14950400 14536704 413696 0 1626112 5173248
Swap: 0 0 0
MemTotal: 14600 kB
MemFree: 404 kB
MemShared: 0 kB
Buffers: 1588 kB
Cached: 5052 kB
SwapCached: 0 kB
Active: 5996 kB
Inactive: 2604 kB
HighTotal: 0 kB
HighFree: 0 kB
LowTotal: 14600 kB
LowFree: 404 kB
SwapTotal: 0 kB
SwapFree: 0 kB
# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
cpu model : MIPS 4KEc V4.8
BogoMIPS : 149.91
wait instruction : no
microsecond timers : yes
extra interrupt vector : yes
hardware watchpoint : yes
VCED exceptions : not available
VCEI exceptions : not available
# cat /proc/mounts
/dev/mtdblock/0 / squashfs ro 0 0
none /dev devfs rw 0 0
proc /proc proc rw 0 0
ramfs /var ramfs rw 0 0
Hey, I have an extra Microsoft MSN branded modem if you want to try that out. It doesn’t have Wireless capability, though. Who knows, mabye it runs some version of Windows 2000? Hahaha.
I finally got around to flashing the MSN DSL 1000 router to the SMC Barricade 7401BRA.
It was difficult finding a system with a USB controller that was compatable with the flash programmer.
I tried using this modem, but I could never get it to sync with my ISP. It would detect the DSL line but that was about it.