Some customers are having problems with their new ADSL2+ lines. Most of them own a Cisco 857 ADSL router used to surf the web and stablish VPN remote access to their offices. Since ISP are upgrading their DSLAMs, routers have started to have lots of problems syncing lines with the new set of parameters.

So, after further investigation, there’s a very easy solution that can fix this problem. It’s all about a firmware upgrade for DSL interface hardware.

Cisco has an enhancement in Cisco ISR/ISR2 DSL and ADSL HWIC devices which enables the router to read firmware from flash instead of the embedded firmware of IOS. This enhancement was made by Cisco to provide the end-user an option using which he could selectively upgrade his router firmware instead of upgrading the whole IOS. This is to overcome problems and bugs in the DSL firmware.

The router follows three steps on boot:

  • Read firmware from flash
  • If firmware file is found in flash, compute the checksum of the file read from the flash and check this computed checksum matches the checksum stored in the firmware. If it matches initialize the firmware variables with details of firmware
  • Else initialize the firmware variable with the details of embedded firmware of IOS

So, as any other file to be stored in flash, we have several options to do this. We can, xmodem transfer, ftp, tftp and so on. Once you have the file in the flash, we can reload the router and run a show dsl interface atm0 to see everything is Ok.

Here we have two results of the previous command, before the upgrade:

NBGW# sh dsl interface atm0
 ATM0 Alcatel 20190 chipset information
 ATU-R (DS) ATU-C (US)
 Modem Status: Showtime (DMTDSL_SHOWTIME)
 DSL Mode: ITU G.992.5 (ADSL2+) Annex A
 ITU STD NUM: 0x03 0x2
 Chip Vendor ID: 'STMI' 'IKNS'
 Chip Vendor Specific: 0x0000 0x0001
 Chip Vendor Country: 0x0F 0xB5
 Modem Vendor ID: 'CSCO' 'IKNS'
 Modem Vendor Specific: 0x0000 0x0000
 Modem Vendor Country: 0xB5 0xB5
 Serial Number Near: FCZ112521MY
 Serial Number Far: ^A
 Modem Version Near: 12.4(6)T7
 Modem Version Far: 6.7.1.8IK005010
 Capacity Used: 70% 100%
 Noise Margin: 16.0 dB 21.0 dB
 Output Power: 19.5 dBm 12.5 dBm
 Attenuation: 45.0 dB 25.0 dB
 Defect Status: None None
 Last Fail Code: None
 Watchdog Counter: 0x91
 Watchdog Resets: 0
 Selftest Result: 0x00
 Subfunction: 0x00
 Interrupts: 7664 (0 spurious)
 PHY Access Err: 0
 Activations: 1
 LED Status: ON
 LED On Time: 100
 LED Off Time: 100
 Init FW: embedded
 Operation FW: embedded
 FW Version: 2.5.42
 DS Channel1 DS Channel0 US Channel1 US Channel0
 Speed (kbps): 0 6015 0 640
 Cells: 0 6369 0 1371
 Reed-Solomon EC: 0 120 0 0
 CRC Errors: 0 0 0 0
 Header Errors: 0 0 0 0
 Total BER: 0E-0 0E-0
 Leakage Avarage BER: 0E-0 0E-0
 Interleave Delay: 0 16 0 12
 LOM Monitoring : Disabled
 DMT Bits Per Bin
 000: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 3 6 7 8 9 9 9 9
 010: A 9 9 A 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 8 8 8 7 6
 020: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 4 5 6 7 7 8 8
 030: 9 9 A A A A B B C C C D C C D D
 040: D 2 D D D D D D D D C C D D D D
 050: D D D D D D D D D C C D D D D D
 060: C C C C C C C A 8 A 7 7 6 9 9 B
 070: 9 A A A A A A 8 A 8 A A A A 0 A
 080: A 9 9 9 9 7 0 8 8 7 0 6 5 5 2 0
 090: 0 0 0 2 4 5 0 0 5 6 6 6 7 7 7 7
 0A0: 6 5 5 5 0 2 0 0 2 4 5 5 5 2 5 5
 0B0: 7 7 7 6 7 7 6 7 7 7 7 6 7 7 7 6
 0C0: 6 5 5 7 6 6 5 5 5 5 3 0 0 0 0 2
 0D0: 5 5 5 6 6 6 0 5 3 3 6 6 6 7 7 6
 0E0: 6 7 7 7 7 6 6 5 4 2 0 3 5 5 5 6
 0F0: 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 0 6 5 6 6
 100: 5 4 5 0 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 4 4 3 2
 110: 0 0 0 0 2 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 2
 120: 0 2 3 4 4 0 3 2 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3
 130: 3 3 2 0 0 2 2 2 0 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
 140: 2 0 0 2 2 2 2 2 0 2 2 2 2 2 0 2
 150: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 160: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 170: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 180: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 190: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 1A0: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 1B0: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 1C0: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 1D0: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 1E0: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 1F0: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 DSL: Training log buffer capability is not enabled

And after the upgrade:

NBGW# sh dsl interface atm0
 ATM0
 Alcatel 20190 chipset information
 ATU-R (DS) ATU-C (US)
 Modem Status: Showtime (DMTDSL_SHOWTIME)
 DSL Mode: ITU G.992.5 (ADSL2+) Annex A
 ITU STD NUM: 0x03 0x2
 Chip Vendor ID: 'STMI' 'IKNS'
 Chip Vendor Specific: 0x0000 0x0001
 Chip Vendor Country: 0x0F 0xB5
 Modem Vendor ID: 'CSCO' 'IKNS'
 Modem Vendor Specific: 0x0000 0x0000
 Modem Vendor Country: 0xB5 0xB5
 Serial Number Near: FCZ112521MY
 Serial Number Far: ^A
 Modem Version Near: 12.4(6)T7
 Modem Version Far: 6.7.1.8IK005010
 Capacity Used: 83% 100%
 Noise Margin: 12.5 dB 22.0 dB
 Output Power: 19.0 dBm 12.5 dBm
 Attenuation: 44.0 dB 25.0 dB
 Defect Status: None None
 Last Fail Code: None
 Watchdog Counter: 0x3F
 Watchdog Resets: 0
 Selftest Result: 0x00
 Subfunction: 0x00
 Interrupts: 8252 (0 spurious)
 PHY Access Err: 0
 Activations: 1
 LED Status: ON
 LED On Time: 100
 LED Off Time: 100
 Init FW: init_3.0.010_nobist.bin
 Operation FW: AMR-3.0.010.bin
 FW Version: 3.0.10
 DS Channel1 DS Channel0 US Channel1 US Channel0
 Speed (kbps): 0 6015 0 640
 Cells: 0 902 0 1028
 Reed-Solomon EC: 0 4 0 0
 CRC Errors: 0 0 0 0
 Header Errors: 0 0 0 0
 Total BER: 0E-0 0E-0
 Leakage Avarage BER: 0E-0 0E-0
 Interleave Delay: 0 15 0 12
 LOM Monitoring : Disabled
 DMT Bits Per Bin
 000: 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 2 4 7 8 9 9 9 9 9
 010: 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 8 9 8 8 8 8 7 7 6
 020: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 3 4 7 7 7 8 9 9
 030: 9 A A A B C C C C D D D D E E E
 040: E D E 2 E E E E E E E D E E E E
 050: E E E E E E E E E E D E E E E E
 060: D D D D D D D B B 9 B B 7 B B B
 070: A B B B B B B A 9 9 A B B B 0 A
 080: A A A A A 8 7 9 9 8 8 8 7 6 4 0
 090: 0 0 4 5 6 7 7 0 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7
 0A0: 7 7 5 5 0 3 1 0 2 5 6 7 7 4 6 7
 0B0: 7 7 8 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7
 0C0: 7 7 5 7 7 7 6 6 6 6 4 0 0 0 0 4
 0D0: 6 6 7 7 7 7 0 7 4 4 7 7 7 7 7 8
 0E0: 6 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 5 3 0 5 5 6 7 6
 0F0: 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 0 7 7 5 7
 100: 5 5 6 0 6 6 6 5 5 5 5 6 5 5 4 4
 110: 2 0 0 2 4 4 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 4
 120: 2 4 5 5 4 0 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
 130: 4 4 4 0 0 4 4 2 0 3 2 3 3 3 2 2
 140: 2 0 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 0 2
 150: 0 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 0
 160: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 170: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 180: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 190: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 1A0: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 1B0: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 1C0: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 1D0: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 1E0: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 1F0: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 DSL: Training log buffer capability is not enabled

Below a list of firmware files for these DSL Cisco routers:

Note: These files were upload time later this post was first created. Many of them are proven working on 877 series, and I’m not sure they will work in 857 models. Given the fact that these are firmwares for the Alcatel DSL chipset, its highly probable they will work, but I didn’t check this fact personally, so use them at your own risk.