I have a Huwaei / Vodafone HG556a, trying to get OpenWrt on it.

I'm somewhat stuck, because:

• I don't know what hardware version I have. The wiki's table of supported router models / versions does not list the serial number of the one I have (mine starts with 31110, which is not in the list.) Trying to telnet to the router to run "hwversion show", as mentioned in the wiki, fails with a "connection refused by remote host" error.

• When I open it up, the PCB is somewhat different from the photos. I presume this and the different serial number is because I have a different revision of the board ?

The other problem is that any firmware I try to upload through the web interface (after pulling the power, hold "restart" button, plug power, and keep holding the button for 20 secs) is rejected with an "the uploaded firmware contains an illegal image" error. This might be because the firmware contains a list of "compatible" serial numbers, and mine is different ?

Any ideas ? Any insight from someone who flashed this router before ?  Sorry for n00b question :-)

Ok let us see those PCB pictures. Is it really a HG556a router, what does the label at the back of the router show? more pics

It rejects the image because the header does not meet requeriments the CFE of your router wants. You should provide an OEM firmware your router is able to flash, for analyzing the header to see if it can be solved.

Additionally you could connect a serial console to see the bootloader output, and check if it was intentionally crippled by Huawei.

Picture of the PCB, "front" side:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Jonas … /photo.jpg

Will post a high-quality one tomorrow.
There is nothing interesting on the other side of the board.

WiFi chip is   Atheros AR9223-AC1A
Flash chip(?) is   MX29GL128EHT2I-90G
Chip above the CPU (ram?) is EM6AB160TSA-5G
CPU is BCM6368KFBG

On the back of the case:
Model: HG556A
HW Version: HG55VDFA VER.C

Seems like this is a different (new ?) revision with some hardware differences.

One of the Hardware differences is that the wiki says that the board has an SPI controller with pins exposed at the place for a Si3050 chip which isn't soldered, but in my case, there is a chip there.

Have tried to find a stock / OEM firmware, but have not found one. Will search for one & ask on Vodafone forum.

Will investigate the serial console, and dig out my soldering iron for it I guess :-) Would love to see this working, since stock firmware is terrible, and the hardware is quite good.

Thanks for your help :-)

(Last edited by JonasCz on 25 Mar 2015, 11:49)

Hi, the Si3050 chip shouldn't be important, apart from this, it's exactly the same board. If it rejects the firmware, then the culprit is the bootloader, might be too old or too new.

You could try to downgrade the bootloader using an OEM firmware with the bootloader included, try with this one:

https://broadband.vodafone.ie/download/ … a_B025.zip

After flashing this firmware  you should be able to flash any openwrt firmware. Your hardware version is B.

Nope, it is refusing that firmware also :-(

My settings screen for the router looks somewaht different, and the instructions on the vodafone forum say to upload via the normal web interface, and not via the bootloader. In my case, there is no option in the web interface to update firmare, so I have to do it with the CFE bootloader (Hold "restart" button while plugging power, then upload firmware)

Is there a way to bypass CFE bootloder and flash directly via serial or Jtag ?

(Last edited by JonasCz on 25 Mar 2015, 12:14)

You can use the TFTP flashing procedure via serial console, but not sure if it will make any difference.

With the current firmware, did you login as admin user?, with latest versions login/pass should be advanced/advanced. A guest login won't have any option for upgrading the firmware.

You can also use JTAG, you won't have any restrictions to flash any bootloader/firmware. Flashing the only the bootloader should be enough.

Aha! That gives something useful!  Was previously logging in with vodafone / vodafone . Wil try to downgrade the fw with this "admin" interface, and will report back.

EDIT: I will prob. not do this for now, since stock firmware seems to be working OK.

(Last edited by JonasCz on 25 Mar 2015, 21:26)

good evening
I flash my back 556a HG56BZRB ver.A with this firmware: HG556a-C-squashfs-cfe.bin
of this link

since when I do the network scan for Access Point ,he gives me nothing

Please help me and thank you

(Last edited by nasrou on 7 Apr 2018, 15:13)