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Hello there,

I would like to share my experience in fixing my UTStarcom WA3002G4 ADSL 2+ router/modem after having flashed it with some wrong default firmware present in the CD that came along with that modem purchased from BSNL. You can directly jump onto the steps if you don’t want to be bothered about my bitter experience in figuring out the feasible way to flash and the assumptions I have made therein.

EXPERIENCE :

Though there are innumerable posts/threads in the internet on this, it was a hard time to figure out the exact steps to fix – flash my UTStarcom WA3002G4 ADSL 2+ router/modem with an appropriate firmware. Because, each of the threads/posts discussed about the steps to be followed in a discrete manner – leaving out some intermediate steps to follow. Of course, there would have been assumptions about the intermediate steps therein, but for an impatient person like me that approach seemed to be inadequately helpful.

Well, enough of talking, let me tell you the steps I followed by which my UTStarcom WA3002G4 modem/router was reborn!

ASSUMPTIONS :

Assumptions made(rather the state of my router/modem with the wrong firmware!) :

1) Power LED is steadily lit.
2) DSL LED is not lit(there is something about this DSL LED and Limited or No Connectivity I need to share. I will share in the end – Don’t want to obstruct the flow).
3) No other LEDs are lit(duh!)
4) You get Limited or No connectivity as the connection status after the wrong firmware flash. And yeah, you will see some fake IP-Address assigned by DHCP(not actually).
5) After the modem/router is powered on and when you see the “Limited or No Connectivity”, 192.168.1.1 is unreachable when you ping(Again, duh!)
6) But, only while the modem/router is booting(just after the power up action), you could see a TTL value of 100 received by the ping action(ping -t 192.168.1.1). The value 100 means that the boot loader is alive! Thank God! So, only task left is to restore the firmware and let the boot loader load that firmware – yeah, more of unnecessary info I am sharing – But, for the sake of clarity, I am compelled to do so!

**** STEPS TO RE-FLASH A WRONGLY FLASHED UTSTARCOM WA3002G4 MODEM/ROUTER ****

Here we go. Simple steps followed :

1) Connect the router/modem to PC using ethernet cable and have the power adapter connected to the router/modem as well.
2) Power on(duh!).
3) Manually assign a static IP-Address to your PC(Any IP-Address would do as per my experience, say 192.168.1.3) with subnet mask 255.255.255.0. Don’t worry about other stuffs – Default Gateway, Preferred DNS, Alternate DNS, blah blah – Let them be blank. No problem. Now the connection status should be “connected” instead of “Limited or No Connectivity”.
4) Switch off the router/modem using the power button at the back.
5) Keep the hard-rest button(micro-switch accessible through a round pin-hole/tiny hole at the bottom of the modem/router near its right-leg(cushion) – Easily, this tiny hole can be missed amidst the square holes present to help in the ventilation) pressed with a refill/ball-point pen tip.
6) Switch on the router/modem using the power button at the back – Keep it pressed for 2 secs before releasing – Better not to use technique – Plug-out and plug-in the adapter from socket – Reason? I will share in the end – Don’t want to obstruct the flow.
7) After a short while(few secs), you will be able to see the ping command displaying receiving so and so bytes etc with a TTL value of 100(boot loader is up!).
Now, in your PC browser keep on refreshing the page 192.168.1.1.
9) You must see a page asking to “choose a file” to upload the appropriate firmware – At this juncture I chose the BSNL Dataone firmware I had downloaded and my browser(Chrome) showed the progress of the upload in its bottom-left corner. There after it started showing the page with the information indicating it will take about 2 mins to flash the uploaded firmware and that the modem/router will automatically reboot thereafter(You should see the change in connection status from Network cable unplugged to plugged to Connected with Limited or No Connectivity as we yet don’t have the DSL connection in place once the flashing is done and the router/modem reboots).
10) That’s it. The router/modem is reborn! \m/ If needed, reboot(soft-reset using the power button at the back) once and you shall be able to access the much needed 192.168.1.1 – Time to celebrate! Note that the hard-reset button has to be kept pressed all these while(1-9 if needed until 10th step also). Otherwise, the boot-loader will move ahead and try to load the wrong firmware unaware of its incorrectness! Yeah, continuous ping(ping -t 192.168.1.1) replies with TTL 100 is very crucial to the success of the flash.

**** STEPS TO RE-FLASH A WRONGLY FLASHED UTSTARCOM WA3002G4 MODEM/ROUTER ****

Left over information which I thought would obstruct the flow all these while :

Well, now let me tell you the issue that I told of obstructing the flow all these while. It’s about the Connection Status – “Limited or No Connectivity”. Whenever I plug-out and plug-in the adapter from socket, no doubt the router/modem reboots automatically on its own as its power button would still be in pressed state. But, the IP-address assigned by DHCP(actually not) will be a fake one – 169.something.something.something and the connection status would be “Limited or No Connectivity”. The funny thing is the DSL LED would be well lit at this point! This same fake indication – DSL LED being lit happens also when the modem/router(when in powered off state) power button is pressed and released very fast – in a second. This very issue provoked me to re-flash my router with any firmware I had(invariably, I had a wrong one)! And the annoying Limited or No Connectivity I expected not to reappear once re-flashed. To me additional annoyance, the router/modem breathed its last breath when I fed it with poison in the form of wrong firmware.

Okay, though the above “Limited or No Connectivity” is very much prevalent even after re-flashing when the above actions(plug-out and plug-in, and power outage and restore), my UTSTARCOM WA3002G4 modem/router is back in action after my 5-6 days of mental agony and struggle, saving some money as well!

Hope this helps someone in future if at all has same problem, though its lengthy and has some unnecessary info here and there!

For those who would be wanting to know the firmware I have used, here is the full file name – 3.08.BSNL_02.01.02_tr64._fs_kernel, size : 1.86 MB (1,953,751 bytes) and size on disk : 1.86 MB (1,953,792 bytes).

Cheers,
Raghavan

PS : The “Limited or No Connectivity” issue has been discussed at great length across the internet. But, I have no luck after trying all sorts of things – especially, the approach involving the assignment of static IP-Address, sub-net masks, freely available public DNS server address. I somewhere read that it might be related to the voltage provided by the power adapter, though not sure and also haven’t thought of replacing it either. Let me know if anyone has a working solution for this.

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Have posted here to help out the people who might come here in search of a relevant solution in this blogspot. Thanks.

here is the link to download the latest version i made :
http://ustmb.ir/Projects/TurboC_Fixer_Installer.exe

Best Regards:
S.Hossein Hasan Pour

You’d think that particular step would be automatic? Or in the instructions?

Thanks.