Johnny B Good
05-11-09, 07:36 AM
Copied and paste of an item I posted (slightly off topic) to
uk.comp.homebuilt (I wasn't subscribed to this ng then). This was the
first ng I came across in the usenet ng listings that I thought this
type of posting would be more appropriate to.
I've just proved that this is just a rebadged ZyXEL P-330W model[1].
This is a useful bit of info for those who happen to be wondering why
PEAK haven't bothered to get off their backsides to offer any firmware
upgrades beyond their one and only v4.2.3.0.12 offering (_very_) dated 9
Nov 2007 (actually shown on their website <peakhardware.com> as being
dated 16 Nov 2007) to address the problem of frequent loss of connection
(anywhere from a day to a week in frequency) to the WAN (cable modem)
port.
When I first installed this router, such events appeared fairly rarely
(anywhere from twice a week to once a month) so, for a cheap SoHo
product, seemed an acceptable trade off. I could always soft reset it by
running the setup wizard, leaving the entries untouched as I clicked the
4 or 5 "Next" buttons to get to the restart button (I couldn't find a
dedicated restart option anywhere within the router's web management
pages).
However, these last few months have seen the frequency at which I have
to soft restart it increase to several times a week so I finally decided
to look on PEAK's web site for a firmware update only to be disappointed
to find only the original update I'd already applied over a year ago.
Since I hadn't immediately spotted the model number so carefully hidden
away in the bottom right corner of the back of the box it came in, I
trawled the user manual for a clue and found a reference to "P-330W"
which a google search of took me to ZyXEL's website and some useful JPGs
of the actual router which showed the back panel connector layout and
the front panel LED indicator layout.
The pictures of the router shown in the PEAK manual are a fiction, but
the one on the box is the real McCoy. A comparison of the actual PEAK
router's back panel layout and side panel LED layout matched the ZyXEL
ones to a close enough precision to convince me that, despite a slightly
different plastic skin, the boards in question were, as far as
connector/led layout were concerned, identical. [2]
I downloaded all THREE firmware updates (two of which, postdated the
PEAK one), along with some pdfs (install and user guides and release
notes) and ran the firmware update using the latest one from ZyXEL.
After a nerve racking couple of minutes, I had a working router up and
running.
Of course, I had to type in a slightly different IP address to log into
the ZyXEL version of the web interface since the default IP address was
on a different subnet. Once I'd gotten admin access, I was able to
change the router's address and scope to match the default used by the
PEAK firmware version (I've a NAS box and a print server on static IPs -
it just seemed less hassle to reprogram the router ;-).
Since this firmware update is only a couple of hours old[3], it's too soon
to say whether it has actually addressed the loss of WAN connection
issue (or, indeed, whether it has improved the wireless connectivity
issue complained of by my son, or introduced new issues altogether).
However, be that as it may, I thought I'd impart the good news for those
who might be experiencing the 'lost WAN connection issue' with their
Peak Wireless Broadband Router (Model# 6147ABPK / #154242NRPK) and are
as dismayed as I was at the lack of any recent firmware updates that
would hopefully have addressed this.
[1] The fact that I found a reference to a ZyXEL wireless router model
number in a Taiwanese manufacturer's user manual rather suggests that
it's this way round. I suspect they've simply taken the text straight
from the ZyXEL manual and edited slightly to suit the minor differences
in the webmin setup menus, forgetting (rather fortuitiously) to excise
that "P-330W" reference. ;-)
[2] I've since been advised that XyXEL act as an OEM to a lot of
Taiwanese/Chinese rebadgers such as PEAK and if I'd cared to open the
PEAK router to inspect its innards, I'd have seen the P-330W model
number printed on the PCB.
[3] At this time, the router has now clocked some 22 hours and 42
minutes of uptime and still going strong. However, it's still far too
soon to tell whether the dropped wan connection issue has finally been
resolved. A quick check with my Acer notebook suggests the wireless
connectivity is still working fine (but I normally disable the wireless
and connect via the ethernet port so that's no indicator of the problem
my son was seeing).
HTH & HAND!
--
Regards, John.
Please remove the "ohggcyht" before replying.
The address has been munged to reject Spam-bots.
uk.comp.homebuilt (I wasn't subscribed to this ng then). This was the
first ng I came across in the usenet ng listings that I thought this
type of posting would be more appropriate to.
I've just proved that this is just a rebadged ZyXEL P-330W model[1].
This is a useful bit of info for those who happen to be wondering why
PEAK haven't bothered to get off their backsides to offer any firmware
upgrades beyond their one and only v4.2.3.0.12 offering (_very_) dated 9
Nov 2007 (actually shown on their website <peakhardware.com> as being
dated 16 Nov 2007) to address the problem of frequent loss of connection
(anywhere from a day to a week in frequency) to the WAN (cable modem)
port.
When I first installed this router, such events appeared fairly rarely
(anywhere from twice a week to once a month) so, for a cheap SoHo
product, seemed an acceptable trade off. I could always soft reset it by
running the setup wizard, leaving the entries untouched as I clicked the
4 or 5 "Next" buttons to get to the restart button (I couldn't find a
dedicated restart option anywhere within the router's web management
pages).
However, these last few months have seen the frequency at which I have
to soft restart it increase to several times a week so I finally decided
to look on PEAK's web site for a firmware update only to be disappointed
to find only the original update I'd already applied over a year ago.
Since I hadn't immediately spotted the model number so carefully hidden
away in the bottom right corner of the back of the box it came in, I
trawled the user manual for a clue and found a reference to "P-330W"
which a google search of took me to ZyXEL's website and some useful JPGs
of the actual router which showed the back panel connector layout and
the front panel LED indicator layout.
The pictures of the router shown in the PEAK manual are a fiction, but
the one on the box is the real McCoy. A comparison of the actual PEAK
router's back panel layout and side panel LED layout matched the ZyXEL
ones to a close enough precision to convince me that, despite a slightly
different plastic skin, the boards in question were, as far as
connector/led layout were concerned, identical. [2]
I downloaded all THREE firmware updates (two of which, postdated the
PEAK one), along with some pdfs (install and user guides and release
notes) and ran the firmware update using the latest one from ZyXEL.
After a nerve racking couple of minutes, I had a working router up and
running.
Of course, I had to type in a slightly different IP address to log into
the ZyXEL version of the web interface since the default IP address was
on a different subnet. Once I'd gotten admin access, I was able to
change the router's address and scope to match the default used by the
PEAK firmware version (I've a NAS box and a print server on static IPs -
it just seemed less hassle to reprogram the router ;-).
Since this firmware update is only a couple of hours old[3], it's too soon
to say whether it has actually addressed the loss of WAN connection
issue (or, indeed, whether it has improved the wireless connectivity
issue complained of by my son, or introduced new issues altogether).
However, be that as it may, I thought I'd impart the good news for those
who might be experiencing the 'lost WAN connection issue' with their
Peak Wireless Broadband Router (Model# 6147ABPK / #154242NRPK) and are
as dismayed as I was at the lack of any recent firmware updates that
would hopefully have addressed this.
[1] The fact that I found a reference to a ZyXEL wireless router model
number in a Taiwanese manufacturer's user manual rather suggests that
it's this way round. I suspect they've simply taken the text straight
from the ZyXEL manual and edited slightly to suit the minor differences
in the webmin setup menus, forgetting (rather fortuitiously) to excise
that "P-330W" reference. ;-)
[2] I've since been advised that XyXEL act as an OEM to a lot of
Taiwanese/Chinese rebadgers such as PEAK and if I'd cared to open the
PEAK router to inspect its innards, I'd have seen the P-330W model
number printed on the PCB.
[3] At this time, the router has now clocked some 22 hours and 42
minutes of uptime and still going strong. However, it's still far too
soon to tell whether the dropped wan connection issue has finally been
resolved. A quick check with my Acer notebook suggests the wireless
connectivity is still working fine (but I normally disable the wireless
and connect via the ethernet port so that's no indicator of the problem
my son was seeing).
HTH & HAND!
--
Regards, John.
Please remove the "ohggcyht" before replying.
The address has been munged to reject Spam-bots.