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Sprint Home Wifi Router [Wi-Fi Connect][Asus AC66u]


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On 12/28/2017 at 8:41 PM, lilotimz said:

Get rid of the old non updated firmware and load up the standard Asus or Asus Merlin.

I have been trying to read up on finally updating my Sprint wifi connect router at the link below.

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/how-to-sprint-ac-rt66u-to-stock-asus-firmware.25261/

I am a bit confused as to which CFE file version to update.  I see in the zip file that there is a "Zentel_1.30_EU_To_US.bin" which I guess the file you are  suppose to update your MAC address to rename as "newcfe.bin".  Is there a dumb down tutorial that shows how to properly update the router to stock firmware?

I also read that you should flash the 376.3626 firmware first to expand the rootfs partition from 32M to 64M after updating the CFE file before flashing any future firmware versions.

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1 hour ago, ericdabbs said:

I have been trying to read up on finally updating my Sprint wifi connect router at the link below.

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/how-to-sprint-ac-rt66u-to-stock-asus-firmware.25261/

I am a bit confused as to which CFE file version to update.  I see in the zip file that there is a "Zentel_1.30_EU_To_US.bin" which I guess the file you are  suppose to update your MAC address to rename as "newcfe.bin".  Is there a dumb down tutorial that shows how to properly update the router to stock firmware?

I also read that you should flash the 376.3626 firmware first to expand the rootfs partition from 32M to 64M after updating the CFE file before flashing any future firmware versions.

I followed that exact guide and got mine flashed successfully. What changed since then was Asus (and other manufacturers) released new firmware that prevented firmware downgrades past a certain point due to abuses in transmit powers being adjusted and etc. So i would flash something before the 378 range first. 

I've relegated my flashed AC66 running Merlin 380 version to my relatives place as a primary AIO router for their 30 / 30 fiber connection. It had a few connectivity issues initially but a couple of complete resets has made it stable. 
 

I had to mess with my friends Sprint AC66 back in september  since its IPSEC "prioritization" would mess with the Airave 3 / S1000 femto cell IPSEC tunnel back to Sprints network (~300 kbps limit up / down). I would not be surprised if they'll drop the router soon enough too as it's redundant with the Airave 3 / S1000 being able to offer AC WiFi + LTE &/or CDMA without the ipsec tunnel conflict. 

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21 hours ago, lilotimz said:

I followed that exact guide and got mine flashed successfully. What changed since then was Asus (and other manufacturers) released new firmware that prevented firmware downgrades past a certain point due to abuses in transmit powers being adjusted and etc. So i would flash something before the 378 range first. 

I've relegated my flashed AC66 running Merlin 380 version to my relatives place as a primary AIO router for their 30 / 30 fiber connection. It had a few connectivity issues initially but a couple of complete resets has made it stable. 
 

I had to mess with my friends Sprint AC66 back in september  since its IPSEC "prioritization" would mess with the Airave 3 / S1000 femto cell IPSEC tunnel back to Sprints network (~300 kbps limit up / down). I would not be surprised if they'll drop the router soon enough too as it's redundant with the Airave 3 / S1000 being able to offer AC WiFi + LTE &/or CDMA without the ipsec tunnel conflict. 

I was able to successfully flash my router to stock Asus to 376.3626 firmware to expand the rootfs boot partition from 32M to 64M.  Now I successfully flashed my Asus router to the latest Merlin firmware.  I guess I was a bit intimidated by the SNB forum guide and was comparing too much to the suggested youtube video which was for flashing a Tmobile router which does have some different steps since the Sprint router uses MIPS and Tmobile router uses ARM which led to further confusion.  It had good steps in the youtube video but the telnet commands were a bit different.

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Following up on my findings regarding the 80-85Mbps speed cap on this router...

Brother in law just got another one of these routers and hooked it up to his 100Mbps internet. He's experiencing the same thing. Whether wired or wireless, the internet will not test higher than 80-85Mbps. 

I turned off Smart Connect, tried different SSIDs, doesn't seem to make a difference. If anything, I'm very surprised the wired side is limited to 80-85Mbps to the WAN. I confirmed both routers have a gigabit connection to the modems, as indicated by the connection lights. 

I know flashing the firmware will more than likely fix this, but I'm not about to do that on 2-3 more routers as my friends and family get them. :-) Just curious if anyone has found a fix on the stock firmware, perhaps a setting buried somewhere that could be causing this. 

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I always flash routers, I never purchase one that can't support dd-wrt, tomato, openWRT etc.

One thing that's nice though when you have moutiple routers to flash is to do a batch of the same ones at the same time, if you can get your friends / family to order them at the same time and then they all wait and bring them over to you it's actually not all that bad to do 3-5 all at once.

Most of the time it takes to flash a router is the waiting game.  Get a few and just work round robin and by the time you're ready to go back and do the next step the first router is already past the waiting period.

 

Just a thought :)

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  • 1 month later...

I have two SP-AC2015. One from 2016 and other from 2017. The one from 2016 had hardware version 1.5 and CFE version 2.0.0.2. I flashed it to the stock asus firmware using CFE Version 1.0.1.6 (EU). It works great. I have the latest 380.xxx (8120 from Nov 2017) running on it. (A separate comment: I didn't downgrade to a lower firmware first to expand the size of jffs (even though the several posts above this one says (incorrectly I believe) rootfs) to 64M. This comment was in the thread addressing T-mobile version of RT-AC66U router and not Sprint.)

The second one is from 2017 with hardware version 1.5, but CFE version 2.0.0.3. Should I use the same CFE Version 1.0.1.6 (EU) to flash it to stock asus firmware? The device looks the same except the power adapter and the power plug input pin were different compared to 2016 version.

Can someone please confirm whether the CFE 1016 EU will work if the original CFE/Bootloader version is 2.0.0.3? I don't want to brick it.

I haven't seen any mention of SP-AC2015 shipping with CFE 2003 in several forums I have checked. I was hoping that someone who got this router in 2017 had the same CFE 2003 as my router does and report their findings. Haven't seen any yet.

This is the difference I have noticed between SP-AC2015 2002 and 2003 CFEs.

Zentel CFE 1016 (EU)

pci/1/1/pa2gw0a0=0xFE74
pci/1/1/pa2gw1a0=0x1A2D
pci/1/1/pa2gw2a0=0xF999
pci/1/1/pa2gw0a1=0xFE85
pci/1/1/pa2gw1a1=0x1C2D
pci/1/1/pa2gw2a1=0xF924
pci/1/1/pa2gw0a2=0xFE75
pci/1/1/pa2gw1a2=0x1971
pci/1/1/pa2gw2a2=0xF9C8

SP-AC2015 CFE 2002

pci/1/1/pa2gw0a0=0xFE74
pci/1/1/pa2gw1a0=0x1A2D
pci/1/1/pa2gw2a0=0xF999
pci/1/1/pa2gw0a1=0xFE85
pci/1/1/pa2gw1a1=0x1C2D
pci/1/1/pa2gw2a1=0xF924
pci/1/1/pa2gw0a2=0xFE75
pci/1/1/pa2gw1a2=0x1971
pci/1/1/pa2gw2a2=0xF9C8 


SP-AC2015 CFE 2003

pci/1/1/pa2gw0a0=0xFEA9 
pci/1/1/pa2gw1a0=0x1B95 
pci/1/1/pa2gw2a0=0xF9EC 
pci/1/1/pa2gw0a1=0xFEA5 
pci/1/1/pa2gw1a1=0x1B34
pci/1/1/pa2gw2a1=0xFA18 
pci/1/1/pa2gw0a2=0xFE8C 
pci/1/1/pa2gw1a2=0x1B28
pci/1/1/pa2gw2a2=0xF9E7


Does the above difference matter? Or SP-AC2015 with 2003 can still be flashed with CFE 1016 (EU) as is? Or it should be flashed with modified CFE 1016 (EU) with the above changes in red corrected?

Thank you.

 

 
 
Edited by kenpet
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  • lilotimz unpinned this topic
  • 1 month later...

So the AC66u was named as a vulnerable router against the VPNFilter hack. FBI is recommending that everyone with this model update to the latest firmware and do a factory reboot.

The Sprint router wasn't named as being vulnerable. But since it's the same physical router as the AC66u...shoukd we expect Sprint/ASUS to finally rollout an update to the OG firmware?

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So the AC66u was named as a vulnerable router against the VPNFilter hack. FBI is recommending that everyone with this model update to the latest firmware and do a factory reboot.
The Sprint router wasn't named as being vulnerable. But since it's the same physical router as the AC66u...shoukd we expect Sprint/ASUS to finally rollout an update to the OG firmware?
I think they've dropped support for it. You can't use an Airave 3 with it, as it will incorrectly QoS the Airave traffic and throttle it to a couple hundred KB/sec. Honestly your best bet is to flash a third party firmware to it. Merlin is pretty popular and is based on the stock firmware. OpenWRT / dd-wrt is also an option I believe, but I'm pretty sure hardware accelerated NAT isn't functional (you likely wouldn't notice anyway).

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

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22 hours ago, greenbastard said:

So the AC66u was named as a vulnerable router against the VPNFilter hack. FBI is recommending that everyone with this model update to the latest firmware and do a factory reboot.

The Sprint router wasn't named as being vulnerable. But since it's the same physical router as the AC66u...shoukd we expect Sprint/ASUS to finally rollout an update to the OG firmware?

 

47 minutes ago, ingenium said:

I think they've dropped support for it. You can't use an Airave 3 with it, as it will incorrectly QoS the Airave traffic and throttle it to a couple hundred KB/sec. Honestly your best bet is to flash a third party firmware to it. Merlin is pretty popular and is based on the stock firmware. OpenWRT / dd-wrt is also an option I believe, but I'm pretty sure hardware accelerated NAT isn't functional (you likely wouldn't notice anyway).

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
 

I replaced my WiFi Connect router with the ASUS RT-AC1750, which is basically the AC66U-B1. Added benefit is the included USB 3.0 port.

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On 6/8/2018 at 8:10 PM, ingenium said:

I think they've dropped support for it. You can't use an Airave 3 with it, as it will incorrectly QoS the Airave traffic and throttle it to a couple hundred KB/sec. Honestly your best bet is to flash a third party firmware to it. Merlin is pretty popular and is based on the stock firmware. OpenWRT / dd-wrt is also an option I believe, but I'm pretty sure hardware accelerated NAT isn't functional (you likely wouldn't notice anyway).

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
 

I think the AC66U is now legacy on Merlin.  It isn't getting the 384 builds, and I think they are done updating the 380 builds, so I wouldn't expect a new firmware from Merlin for these routers.  The last firmware for it was released early April.  But it looks like ASUS is still supporting it.

Think a flavor of DD-WRT is the way to go and still supported for now afaik.  But if it is being used as a main router, the thing is a bit sore in the tooth these days (very weak processor).  I'd grab something new, even if just the AC66U_B1.  

Edited by red_dog007
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