Updating my 3-branded (simlock-free) HUAWEI 5830

tiptronic — Tue, 18 May 2010 00:00:35 +0000

This is the ballad of me buying a mobile router for my iPad (and it’s friends):

So I just bought a HUAWEI 5830 Mobile Router. Unfortunately it was 3 (UK) branded and it had no webinterface and no MacOS X Software on the data partition, which is a ‘really bad thing™’

So I decided updating the firmware using VMWare Fusion and Windows 7, since there seem no updating tools for MacOS X available. -> I got the firmware from brickpoint (I’ll provide the link later).

The updater didn’t recognize the installed firmware, but I decided to continue… And – guess what… something went wrong and the router was ‘bricked’ (I thought). No more restarting, etc… was possible. It simply ignored all button presses. Even removing and re-inserting the battery didn’t work.

On Google I found a blog-entry from a guy with the same problem. But he was one step ahead and already could reactivate the ‘dead’ 5830, by removing the battery for a while and entering firmware-mode again.

So I tried applying the firmware over and over again – removing the battery between the runs, etc…

What I found out was, that the battery wants to be removed for at least 20-30 seconds, otherwise the device would not ‘forget’ it’s bricked state.

After removing the battery for quite a while, re-inserting it I could then re-activate the 5830 pressing the ‘Connect’ (the uppermost button) and the ‘On/Off’ (lowermost) buttons simultaneously until 2 lights switch on (this is firmware-update mode).

After that, I could connect the device to the computer (unfortunatley works only in Windows – I used VMWare Fusion and Windows 7) and launch the mentioned firmware-updater. Despite the screenshots I found on the web, it didn’t recognize the installed firmware, but I decided to continue anyway.

(You must be patient, because the progress-bar only updatest occasionally!!)

After the 3rd try the firmware-update finished successfully and I had a working webinterface on the device. I quit VMWare and launched Safari to fully configure the device. (MacOS X 10.6.3, iPhone, iPad, Macbook Pro) – which then worked like a charm.

The Software-Interface from Huawei is astinishingly good and all options are easily to configure.

I was using the ‘brickpoint’ – software (which is the original HUAWEI-firmware) (I’ll provide the link later) and my 5830 had no simlock, netlock etc…

One more (strange) thing to mention is, that despite the descriptions on the web, the firmware-updater didn’t recognize the firmware on the 5830 (it said ‘unknown’). So, although this is *really* not recommended, I decided to do the firmware-update anyway. And it worked.

Now the 5830 performs great and saves me the money updating my iPad to the 3G version. (which in return saves more money than the 5830 costs )

It now works great on ‘T-Mobile (Germany)’ and o2 (Germany). I couldn’t get it to run with my Vodafone-Surfstick-Flat, because they block ‘Websessions’.

Testing from the iPad

tiptronic — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 20:01:36 +0000

A Couple of things don’t work (yet) on the iPad – but all in all it is not too bad.

Ft. Myers Beach

tiptronic — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 17:55:58 +0000

Not Bad for a beach in town

Englewood Beach

tiptronic — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:58:01 +0000

Stitched with AutoStitch for iPhone

Bowman Beach

tiptronic — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:02:53 +0000

Stiched with AutoStitch for iPhone

Testing Photogene

tiptronic — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:09:17 +0000

Auto-Stitched photo enhanced using Photogene

Testing Auto-Stitch

tiptronic — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:02:26 +0000

Just checking the brand new Auto-Stitch.app on the iPhone. Results were impressive so far – let’s see what it looks like on the web:

Viva Lake Las Vegas

tiptronic — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 18:27:23 +0000

Big

Rockies

tiptronic — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 20:38:23 +0000

Cool view from up here

SFCold

tiptronic — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:18:28 +0000

Oh my… it’s cold in San Francisco this year. So the last MacWorld with Apple looks like to get a truly rainy day… (The picture is from yesterday, when the sun was still shining )

Room with a view

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