Siemens Speedstream 6520 Firmware Update
Having questions about SpeedStream 6520? You'll find all the hints, tips and help here. Not unless Siemens release drlver firmware. He came back to me saying that there was no firmware update. Siemens speedstream 6520 driver firmware is.
Highlights. Support for ADSL2, ADSL2+. Multi-user profiles and parental controls.
Integrated 802.11 g/b wireless for up to 54 Mbps. 4 Ethernet ports and 1 USB port for connecting PCs to a LAN The compact gateway for shared internet access The SpeedStream® 6520 Residential Gateway provides seamless, standards-based wireless networking with other 802.11g or 802.11b compliant networks and devices. The four 10/100 Ethernet and available USB options provide you connectivity choice. Gateway wizards guide you step-by-step through initial setup and user profile configurations, making the home or SOHO network simple and effortless. Parental controls help protect your family from Internet dangers. Features include site access and time-of-day controls in addition to monitoring and logging capabilities.
I posted this on March 22 this year in another thread. Squack.net writes. Basically, at this point all browsing is fallen over in a heap too, and status bar in browsers say waiting for the relevant remote host.
But, the wi-fi is.up. I can transfer files locally on the WAN via wi-fi and reach the router gateway. Powercycling the router fixes the issue - until another 2Mb or so is throughput. I'm concluding it's something in the transferrence of the data from the ADSL via the wi-fi. Any ideas on what might be causing it, or is it probably a hardware problem? Also, no firmwares to flash for the 6500 series modems.
So that's totally sucking! I feel real dudded that I now have a wi-fi modem that is only best used on USB/Ethernet only. Sorta wastes the real reason to have a wireless network, huh?
And at the time I thought I was right. A techie came out, we fiddled with a few settings here or there. We tried stopping DHCP, but basically it was flaky with a second modem. The solution that I discovered quickly was to run it on USB or ethernet, which runs just fine.
It's the wireless. Now, I'd basically given up on this issue (and so had many, including AdamK), but I have been contacted by one of the myriad people in Wireless Tech Support at Bigpond who advises me that he's just received two bits of update and he'd thought he'd tell me about it. They guy quoted these lines from the documents he received: There has been a problem recently identified with the Siemens 6520 modem. This problem only affects customers on the new platform that are using the wireless component of the modem.
When a customer connects, they experience little to no dataflow. Sometimes changes to the IP configuration (ie: changing the DNS servers or routing requests) will change the status for a short period of time. Customers have reported receiving partial web pages to display often experiencing general difficulty when using a browser. The only way to get a customer up and running is to get them to use a USB cable or Ethernet cable to connect to the modem. Which is what I identified on March 22. But it goes on: Siemens have been alerted to the problem and will be providing a new firmware for the modem in the next few days.
We will be monitoring the situation closely, and early next week we expect to have an update on exactly when the new firmware will be available. Siemens is pulling its finger out about its dodgy firmware!!!!! He also gave me this workaround to help stabilise no through flow issues in the interim. 1) Login to the 10.0.0.138 interface as admin 2) Go to ISP CONNECTION and click on ADVANCED SETTINGS button 3) Click on CONFIGURE THE VIRTUAL ATM CIRCUIT 4) Click on PPPoA in the connection type column 5) Click NEXT button 6) On the PPP options page, tick the checkbox marked OVERRIDE DEFAULT MTU and change the MTU value from 1500 to 1434 7) Click FINISH button 8) Do a soft reboot with the REBOOT button. And in relation to wi-fi lockup, he suggested: 1) Login to the 10.0.0.138 interface as admin 2) Go to HOME NETWORK and then click on ADVANCED SETTINGS button 3) Click on CONFIGURE THE LOCAL SPEEDSTREAM GATEWAY WIRELESS NETWORK button 4) Click NEXT button four times to get to the WIRELESS OPTIONS CONFIGURATION screen 5) Change the value for RTS/CTS to 2346 6) Click FINISH button 7) Do a soft reboot with the REBOOT button.
Hope this helps people out. Now the question is - when and where will the Firmware upgrade be rolled out!!!?!?!? Keep calling Siemens and Telstra would be the advice I'd give out!:) Cheers, Rod. Further to this.
I've just contacted BP Wireless Tech Support who also informed me that the problem related only to customers on the new MOBY billing and infrastructure platform (the platform that was part of the experience@bigpond pilot). The techie said that although there is a firmware upgrade on the way, it can be fixed with the above workaround. Maybe the firmware upgrade is for ADSL2/2+ which is supported by the 6520?? Apparently a fix was loaded into the MOBY platform this week that resolves the Wi-Fi lockup if you reduce the RTS/CTS and the MTU as above.
This is why the above workaround works. If you were part of the experience@bigpond pilot or have the same issues as I reported 6 months ago, try the above changes and see if your Wi-Fi link stays stable, and if lockups disappear. IPconflict writes.
REPLYING TO IPconflict. This problem was fixed at a server platform level some time ago. This eliminates the need for new firmware. Which of course makes you wonder - why didn't bigpond contact all customers who were supplied with this consumer premises equipment on the MOBY platform with a simple email advising them to change the settings?
Would save their tech support a lot of time. Hence the post here. Maybe some other frustrated Siemens Speedstream 6520 people will be helped out with the info being publicly available.
I note the Bigpond Help section hasn't been updated.:) I note the document that was emailed to me by the techie was dated 9 October, and apparently the MOBY update only occurred earlier this month (according to BP Wireless techy). So, no, I don't believe it was resolved for MOBY customers until this month. For example, my wi-fi was flaky last night utilising the old settings and I'm on MOBY. IPconflict writes. This problem was fixed at a server platform level some time ago.
This eliminates the need for new firmware. This is incorrect. It was rolled out nationwide on Wednesday night. Prior to this it was being tested in NSW. The problem was caused by the modem receiving fragmented packets due to the incorrect MTU size of the network. This made the firewall in the modem think it was under some kind of attack. It would ignore the hosts sending the fragmented packets which resulted in only half pages loading etc.
Squack.net writes. Which of course makes you wonder - why didn't bigpond contact all customers who were supplied with this consumer premises equipment on the MOBY platform with a simple email advising them to change the settings?
Speedstream Router
The majority of customers where unable to make changes to the email settings when an email was sent out advising them how to do it. How on earth could they be expected to change a setting buried fairly deep in the modem pages?? The thing is if they had sent an email they would've probably sent it to everyone else as well causing about 5000 calls from people who had stuffed up their cable modem settings and anther 5000 asking if the email applied to them.
Barywhite writes. It was rolled out nationwide on Wednesday night.
Yes, that's what I said. The majority of customers where unable to make changes to the email settings when an email was sent out advising them how to do it. There was no global e-mail sent out.
How on earth could they be expected to change a setting buried fairly deep in the modem pages?? They weren't. A tech talked them through the process. If they had sent an email they would've probably sent it to everyone else as well which is why it was not done.
Anything else? IPconflict writes. Yes, that's what I said.
'some time ago' is not in the last 24hrs. There was no global e-mail sent out. Yes, there was.
In fact it was sent a number of times. The email: Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 12:10:20 +1000 From: BigPond To: BigPond member Subject: REMINDER - Important information about your BigPond email Dear BigPond(R) Member, We recently wrote to you let you know that you need to make changes to your current mail. If you have not already made these changes, you will need to do so by midnight Friday 10th June 2005 or you will not be able continue to send and receive email using your BigPond email account, after this date. To continue to access your BigPond email, your mail client software needs to be configured with the following mail settings: Server Information Incoming mail (POP3): mail.bigpond.com Outgoing mail (SMTP): mail.bigpond.com Account Name: @bigpond.com e.g. You do not need to change or re-enter your password. For detailed step-by-step instructions on how to update your email program settings, just click on Thanks for choosing BigPond.
Kind regards, The BigPond Team they weren't. A tech talked them through the process.
I made the comment in reply to squack.net who suggested an email should be sent so customers could then make the changes themselves: squack.net writes. Which of course makes you wonder - why didn't bigpond contact all customers who were supplied with this consumer premises equipment on the MOBY platform with a simple email advising them to change the settings? Would save their tech support a lot of time. Which is why it was not done.
Thank god it wasn't anything else? IPconflict writes. That e-mail deals with changes to the users' e-mail client application and has nothing to do with the modem whatsoever. I never said that at all. Try and read: barywhite writes.
The majority of customers were unable to make changes to the email settings when an email was sent out advising them how to do it. How on earth could they be expected to change a setting buried fairly deep in the modem pages??
It has everything to do with a user being asked to make modifications to settings most people have absolutely no idea about and how stupid it is sending an email asking them to do it. IPconflict writes. Then try replying to things in context, I find it works well. How about you read things in context. The context was: sending email that describes (if done wrong) how to potentially 'break' a customer's service to over 1/2 million customers is not a good idea. Also the fact most customers are not able to manage it themselves ie. The kind of people who ring up very angry complaining their interweb has been down all week and when it's pointed out to them the modem actually needs to be powered on claim no one had ever told them that and how pathetic the service is.
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(And yes, this happens surprisingly often.). Sly fox writes. New firmware should have more than just the Wi-Fi problem fixed?
Like being able to reboot the modem even when not logged in, and the modem crashing when P2P and browsing the config pages. The modem crashes after a while cos it gets too hot - just like the WAG54G v2's. There's an old thread somewhere where I posted a stack of info about these beasts, along with some of the things I found fixed a few things with them and so on. Basically, keep them fairly cool and they are not.too.
bad a modem. Work them hard and they break:). IPconflict writes. This problem was fixed at a server platform level some time ago.
This eliminates the need for new firmware. There are many other bugs, which I have also raised with Bigpond and Siemens. FTP protocol is broken downloading large files via NEC DSLAM's 2. Router reboots once every day or 2, unless kept cool (this will only get worse when these beasts are made to do ADSL2+) 3. Wireless range is limited, but has good wall penetration (i.e. Ideal for apartments, bad for a large house) 4. DHCP, NTP are buggy 5.
The TNETD7300 chip (more commonly known as the AR7) is incompatible with GSPN chipsets in DSLAM's - can be fixed via firmware. I've currently got my Speedstream on an Alcatel DLSAM and am running tests on it there, rather than the NEC. When it reboots for the first time I will report back here with feedback on my findings and comments. Should be in about 1 week as I keep it fairly cool in a proper rack. AdamK writes.
When it reboots for the first time I will report back here with feedback on my findings and comments. Should be in about 1 week as I keep it fairly cool in a proper rack. How wrong I was. By the time I had finished setting up etc, it actually rebooted itself 13 hours after being cold started. It appears to have happened straight after I had finished a voice conversation with someone over MSN. Seems it didn't like MSN closing off the UPnP port mapping that it had created earlier.
The Siemens is running cooler than say the WAG54Gv2 so in this case I doubt it's an overheating issue, although I could be wrong, cos it still does run excessively warm. Sly fox writes. When abouts do you expect to finish trailling the firmwares and have a public release by BP?
I am expecting a new modem with it pre-flashed with a beta firmware to be on my doorstep tomorrow (Friday) morning. I'll hook it up here straight away and see how it behaves. I'd be wanting to give it at least a few days before I start offering Bigpond and Siemens any feedback, so I will be endeavouring to give it a good shakedown over the weekend and Friday day time (I'm on nightshift currently.uugh).
AdamK writes. I am expecting a new modem with it pre-flashed with a beta firmware to be on my doorstep tomorrow (Friday) morning. I'll hook it up here straight away and see how it behaves. Do you think getting another modem would have any internal changes to the one you currently have, like the modem has some hardware changes plus a new BETA firmware to elimate the problems it has already? (maybe changes to parts to control heat). But i maybe wrong, its all firmware related and the heat is from internal looping of somesort I was thinking, use current modem + the new firmware.
But i suppose its the same modem. Keep us posted anyways. Looking forward to seeing how its going to run. Sly fox writes.
Do you think getting another modem would have any internal changes to the one you currently have, like the modem has some hardware changes plus a new BETA firmware to elimate the problems it has already? I suspect that it will contain the SAME hardware, as it is based on the AR7 chip. So unless a complete hardware overhaul is done, I am fairly sure it will have the same hardware inside, just it will have some changes to the software that drives it all and makes it tick. My Siemens modem is still going after approximately 24 hours running, so that is a bit better, however, UPnP has croaked (I suspect that is what made it reboot the first time) and anything like Azureus is now unable to port map as it needs. Keep us posted anyways.
Looking forward to seeing how its going to run. Also, as a side note, please be advised that I do not work for either Bigpond/Telstra or Siemens and as such am only able to offer advice on ways to get these modems working to peak performance. Sly fox writes. When abouts do you expect to finish trailling the firmwares Okay, I have completed some of the testing. I have tested it out on both NEC and Alcatel DSLAM's.
An FTP issue which I identified and provided feedback to Telstra and Siemens about has been partially fixed. At least now the files do not corrupt, but the download still stalls for 5 - 10 mins at the end.
Wireless has been improved. Signal is not so much stronger but of overall better quality. It certainly allows an Intel 2200BG wireless card to function at a steady 48Mbps on it which is better than the current firmware. Heat issues are no change - this is purely a hardware factor and firmware can only do so much. UPnP issues are improved. If you totally hammer the sucker it's less likely to reboot over the whole deal. But, it still will after a constant hammering days on end I dare say (this is to be confirmed).
The GUI on this firmware is a stock standard generic Siemens GUI and is not likely to be the one that is released to the public, so I cannot comment on how that performed as it is pointless to do so. The way the GUI ends up ultimately is up to Telstra. These modems are done up especially for Telstra to distribute so Siemens are only doing as they are told - fair enough. Have I missed anything?
Speedstream 6520 Manual
Hmm looks ok, If its more stable with the UPnP then should be ok for me. But yeah i agree that it'll crash indefinitely if it was hammered day in day out. I think the range for Wireless is dependent on the arial/and hardware. But good to hear that its more stable:) heat issues should not be to bad if you keep the unit cool.
Also, Dunno if you have noticed but the Time client. When you first set it up it keeps time correct, if you leave it overnight or a day it'll loose time and be 30mins-2hrs out on the old firmware. I dunno how'd you test the DHCP side off things, but if you disable and enable your NIC on your computer you get a different IP address also constant rebooting or something off your PC will cause the same problem, the next one available up the range, and not the same IP you originally had(eg. Instead of 10.0.0.1, WiFi Client has 10.0.0.2, your pc now gets 10.0.0.3, if you get what I'm talking about) You have to reboot the router to gain the first IP 10.0.0.1.
This sometimes becomes a problem with my port mappings. It not annoying, just when it happens it is. Sly fox writes. Hmm looks ok, If its more stable with the UPnP then should be ok for me.
Speedstream 4200
But yeah i agree that it'll crash indefinitely if it was hammered day in day out. Right now I am not hammering it, and it's rebooted 3 times in 24 hours. Because despite the fact that it's well ventilated, right now I am at work and so the air-conditioning is turned off. So the room temperature has crept up to about 26 degrees C. It's rebooting cos it's too hot. When I get home I will run it with the top cover off and see what gives.
But whilst I had the air-conditioning on during the day, it didn't reboot once. Heaven help those up in Queensland when their summer really kicks in - seriously this is winding up to be a MAJOR issue. You should not need to run air-con 24x7 just to keep your dsl modem from overheating, or have a fan blowing on it 24 x7 either. It's a disgrace. AdamK writes. Heaven help those up in Queensland when their summer really kicks in - seriously this is winding up to be a MAJOR issue.
You should not need to run air-con 24x7 just to keep your dsl modem from overheating, or have a fan blowing on it 24 x7 either. It's a disgrace. In the 'PC' room theres no AirCon, just a window, pedistal fan and celing fan. My modem doesnt seem to reboot at all during hot days and i dont have a fan running on it, Funnily it seems to hold up ok. Or im probably wrong.
And im using the LAN, not WiFi so that may have something to do with the amount of heat gerenrated within the unit (wifi makes more to send out signals). Ambient writes. What I've found works (stupidly enough) is to turn the modem upside down; the bottom vents seem to release the heat easier and I haven't had a reboot for days now. I actually popped the top cover off on this one.(note it voids warranty) and that seems to have settled it down so that it only reboots once a day or second day. With the air-con running it won't reboot at all. Humidity is a major killer for these suckers, yesterday was very humid and it rebooted about 5 times during the day. When I got home from work and turned the air-con on, it stopped.
The firmware i have is diff to the firmware on the site. I don't even think my modem is installed. If i do a search of the puter there is nothing on my modem anywhere. Cos i was telstra wireless installed off the bigpond disc but them i just plugged the ethernet in. Is that ok for this modem? Also is there anyway i can turn off the wireless? Basically i live with two people that use it but never gave me money for it like they said they would so i wanna cut them off but i'm not sure how to go about it.?!
VL308 writes. Also is there anyway i can turn off the wireless? Basically i live with two people that use it but never gave me money for it like they said they would so i wanna cut them off but i'm not sure how to go about it.?! You can turn off the wireless if you login to the modem and then go: Home network- advanced settings- configure the SpeedStream gateway wireless network- wireless wizard. It's on the first page of the wizard. Set it to disabled, hit finish and then reboot for it to take effect.
VL308 writes. Is it actually a good modem putting aside all the probs? Ok summary from my experiences (along with others) so far:. The Siemens modem uses the AR7 chip, which tends to run too hot.
Keep it cool otherwise suffer the reboots on a regular basis. The firmware is not native to the chipset. The AR7 chip has incompatibilities with NEC DSLAMS - which Telstra use for ADSL2. Wireless range is excellent up to 30 metres, beyond that it dies off quickly. Time client, DHCP server are both very buggy. For me, Siemens has been working well with me to help improve the product and hopefully resolve the above points. All up I think if they can fix up the firmware and arrange for some better ventilation then this modem could be alright.
One thing you can do to keep it well ventilated is stand it up on it's end with the small feet built onto the one side of the unit, those who do that don't seem to have too much problems with reboots. Apparently a fix was loaded into the MOBY platform this week that resolves the Wi-Fi lockup if you reduce the RTS/CTS and the MTU as above. This is why the above workaround works To help improve wireless with the supplied Netgear WG511v2's you should not need to adjust the MTU, but adjusting the RTS/CTS setting to 2346 as per the OP should improve things considerably. Infact the Netgear drivers only allow you to go up to a maximum of 2346. The MTU setting was for much more serious lock-ups and such, and should be resolved as it was a fault on the Bigpond side causing the grief.