 Inssomniak Premium join:2005-04-06 Cayuga, ON
| Anyone know how to fix 2wires that wont sync? Has anyone ever looked into why many 2wire modems out there arent syncing?
Im starting to accumulate a bunch of these, all try their hardest to sync, but never do. and I have a perfect, and I mean PERFECT DSL line here at my house.
Seems some part is bad? | |
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  Angelo_ The Network Guy Premium join:2002-06-18 | Re: Anyone know how to fix 2wires that wont sync? prob bad modems... should be able to fix it if you know electronics though | |
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  l0thar
join:2005-12-29 Far Far Away
| It could be that their line interface circuitry got damaged by lightning?
I lost a 2Wire 2700HG, my first one died after getting hit by spikes in the line from thunderstorm. 
The modem lighted up, the DSL light went red to try to establish a connection and it would flash on and on, no connection would ever come thru.
It seems this model is particularly sensitive to this kind of damage, according to posts I found in a Google search. | |
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  pnjunction Teksavvy Premium Premium join:2008-01-24 Toronto, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| They'd be more trouble to fix than they're worth IMO unless it's something as simple as a blown cap. You'd also need some decent soldering skill/equipment to get anything other than a cap or resistor replaced.
Considering the lack of schematics or proper diagnostic procedures and the retail cost of replacement parts, a few rounds of "swap-and-pray" could add up to the cost of a new unit in no time. | |
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 |   Inssomniak Premium join:2005-04-06 Cayuga, ON
| Re: Anyone know how to fix 2wires that wont sync? said by pnjunction :They'd be more trouble to fix than they're worth IMO unless it's something as simple as a blown cap. You'd also need some decent soldering skill/equipment to get anything other than a cap or resistor replaced. Considering the lack of schematics or proper diagnostic procedures and the retail cost of replacement parts, a few rounds of "swap-and-pray" could add up to the cost of a new unit in no time. Ya I know.. was just wondering if anyone put any time into it..
I can solder a 200 pin QFP microprocessor with off the shelf supplies in my basement, so replacing parts isnt a concern, but more of what mart might be bad, if its the whole frontend adsl chip then, ya not worth it. | |
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 |  |   An_Onymous
@teksavvy.com
| Re: Anyone know how to fix 2wires that wont sync? Typical things I would check for are the chips that are closest to any of the outside interfaces as they more likely get blown off first.
- DSL receiver/driver chips. These are interfacing directly to the phone line with minimum protections and I heard of several cases of damaged chips. There are some chances that you can buy these parts (Analog Devices, TI etc)
- Power Supply voltages. Probably okay if you can already talk to the digital side of the modem.
Beyond that, not a whole lot you can do as the main SoC is likely a BGA parts as least in the case of the ST-516 V6. | |
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 |  |  |   CanerisErik Caneris Premium,VIP join:2007-10-03 Toronto, ON
| Re: Anyone know how to fix 2wires that wont sync? said by An_Onymous :
Beyond that, not a whole lot you can do as the main SoC is likely a BGA parts as least in the case of the ST-516 V6. Some of us have access to BGA equipment  -- Erik - Caneris - Internet solutions and more. | |
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 |  |  |  |   An_Onymous
@teksavvy.com
| Re: Anyone know how to fix 2wires that wont sync? Not like you can order the big SoC easily from the vendor easily or that replacing the BGA would make any economic sense for you.
I would recommending looking at the driver/receiver chips in your bone pile. That's the soic-8 right next to the sticker SB10A in picture (ST516V6). It should be very common froml the analog chip vendors were selling their DSL driver/receiver chips - fancy opamp parts.
You are looking at a $1 part and a 2 minutes replacement job. | |
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 |  |  |  |  |   Inssomniak Premium join:2005-04-06 Cayuga, ON
| Re: Anyone know how to fix 2wires that wont sync? said by An_Onymous :
Not like you can order the big SoC easily from the vendor easily or that replacing the BGA would make any economic sense for you.
I would recommending looking at the driver/receiver chips in your bone pile. That's the soic-8 right next to the sticker SB10A in picture (ST516V6). It should be very common froml the analog chip vendors were selling their DSL driver/receiver chips - fancy opamp parts.
You are looking at a $1 part and a 2 minutes replacement job. The 2wire doesnt have such a chip. It has a 100 pin flat pack frontend chip (ST20184). It does the work for sync in a 2wire., Digital out is fed into the microprocessor, and vice versa. | |
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  CanerisErik Caneris Premium,VIP join:2007-10-03 Toronto, ON
| We have what I believe to be the second largest collection in Canada of 2Wires that don't sync. We did look into repairing them last year, but perhaps not enough.
We had an electrical engineer examine them briefly, try to swap some components off a working one, but we didn't pursue it much at the time. One of the challenges is that there are no schematics for any of the components anywhere online. We spent only a few hours on this last year and weren't able to determine at the time where the problem was, and whether the problem was the same in all of them.
If there's an interest we might pursue this again in the near future. -- Erik - Caneris - Internet solutions and more. | |
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 |  HNHarvey Premium join:2008-11-26 Rigaud, QC | Re: Anyone know how to fix 2wires that wont sync? count me in, I have 12 so far.  | |
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 |  |   conundrum8472
@fishtanks.org
| Re: Anyone know how to fix 2wires that wont sync?
i just fixed a netgear rangemax with this problem, by swapping that 8 pin chip.
for future reference, don't recycle chips from other routers, buy new or use one from a firmware-flashed-dead router. | |
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  G1ggidy
@teksavvy.com | I've sucsessfully fixed about 30% of my non-syncing 2wire 2700's by reflashing the firmware.
YMMV.  | |
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 |   Inssomniak Premium join:2005-04-06 Cayuga, ON | Re: Anyone know how to fix 2wires that wont sync? With what version? | |
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 |  |   G1ggidy
@teksavvy.com
| Re: Anyone know how to fix 2wires that wont sync? said by Inssomniak :With what version? The recovery firmware. (425.2?) Whatever the most common version is. | |
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 |   Inssomniak Premium join:2005-04-06 Cayuga, ON
1 edit | Re: Anyone know how to fix 2wires that wont sync? Recently I ran into a new irritating problem, I set up a 2700 here, tested it, put it on my DSL line here at the house, no problem, sync's fast and perfect. I give it to the customer, wont sync. I do it again to another 2700, same thing.
2 other DSL modems sync fine on the customers line.
Only difference is the loop length, here Im on a 900 meter or less loop length, and he is on a 3k meter loop. | |
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 |  |   HiVolt 29 Premium join:2000-12-28 Toronto, ON clubs:
·TekSavvy Solutions..
·Bell Sympatico
| Re: Anyone know how to fix 2wires that wont sync? said by Inssomniak :Recently I ran into a new irritating problem, I set up a 2700 here, tested it, put it on my DSL line here at the house, no problem, sync's fast and perfect. I give it to the customer, wont sync. I do it again to another 2700, same thing. 2 other DSL modems sync fine on the customers line. Only difference is the loop length, here Im on a 900 meter or less loop length, and he is on a 3k meter loop. How long did the customer wait? Could the customer be on an IKNS remote? I recently have had extremely long sync times at work on my backup DSL, both with Speedstream and 2Wire modems.
Literally takes over half an hour sometimes.
Thread on the issue here. »IKNS Remote, why so long to sync? -- GO LEAFS GO! | |
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  fiestaware
join:2008-01-07 | I have *this exact problem* with a refurbed 2700 I just took out of the box. No sync - perpetually flashing red DSL light.
I'm reading this thread with great interest. | |
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 Teddy Boom
join:2007-01-29 Toronto, ON
| If you are buying untested 2wires, you should expect about half to be bad, mostly due to this exact problem. I have about 20 of them myself, and I've tried the reflashing thing with absolutely no luck.
I am on an IKNS remote, but most modems sync within a minute..
Hmm, I guess I need to crack out the pile of dead modems yet again. If I can breathe life into any of them, it is certainly worth a little time. | |
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 |   Inssomniak Premium join:2005-04-06 Cayuga, ON
| Re: Anyone know how to fix 2wires that wont sync? said by Teddy Boom :If you are buying untested 2wires, you should expect about half to be bad, mostly due to this exact problem. I have about 20 of them myself, and I've tried the reflashing thing with absolutely no luck. I am on an IKNS remote, but most modems sync within a minute.. Hmm, I guess I need to crack out the pile of dead modems yet again. If I can breathe life into any of them, it is certainly worth a little time. I bought a lot of "refurbished" ones, I assumed they were tested, but then again, they may have been, just on a short loop. | |
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 |  |   TilhasBB Formally Goden99 Premium join:2000-08-05 canada | Re: Anyone know how to fix 2wires that wont sync? Another thing to try is to replace the power adapter. I've read that the power adapters are known to fail on those 2wires.
So just swap it with a working 2wire to test. | |
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 |  |  Teddy Boom
join:2007-01-29 Toronto, ON
| said by Inssomniak :I bought a lot of "refurbished" ones, I assumed they were tested, but then again, they may have been, just on a short loop. Unless you know better, I'd bet they just confirmed the initial boot worked and called it good. Very unlikely that they actually tested the DSL connection.
Anyway.. Anyone know how to prevent 2wire from updating the firmware automatically? I see lots of discussion of flashing them back to old firmware, but surely it will just get updated again?!? | |
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  Speedy007
@teksavvy.com
| Another thing to look for is blown caps as well. A lot of the non japans capacitors can go, if their in a area that does not get a lot of air, so they will swell up and pop or leak, but they are repairable, just need to find the right type of capacitor. But there is still a chance, that it might have damaged something else near by it as well. But like motherboards on a pc, there is still always a good chance it might be fully salvageable. | |
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 |  Speedy82
join:2009-09-20 | Re: Anyone know how to fix 2wires that wont sync? I do agree japans capacitors are very well made, and rarely pop or leak like the normal ones do. | |
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 |  |  InvalidError
join:2008-02-03
·TekSavvy Solutions..
·Videotron
| Re: Anyone know how to fix 2wires that wont sync? said by Speedy82 :I do agree japans capacitors are very well made, and rarely pop or leak like the normal ones do. Many of the caps that tend to blow up are cheap knock-offs. Some companies got into heaps of trouble when their parts brokers somehow got tricked into buying "lubycon" capacitors instead of "rubycon" ones... same dimensions, same markings except "lubycon" are Chinese knock-offs. Many well-known capacitor brands have run into trouble due to similarly named Chinese knock-off brands. Asus and Abit ran into major trouble due to this name game back in the 440BX days when the first major visible outbreak occurred.
As far as I can remember, all the PSUs that I have ever had to repair contained Chinese knock-off caps. | |
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