Upgrade the Netgear AC1450 Router to AC1750 using a Mac

Eventually, I want to wire certain rooms of my new home with ethernet to get more consistent connections without having to use wi-fi (and as a fun project to learn how to do it). Until then, however, I’m going to bridge that gap wirelessly with a media bridge. I recently purchased a refurbished Netgear AC1450, after learning that it can easily be firmware upgraded to an AC1750 (R6300v2). My intention was to use it as an 802.11ac media bridge, and the latter theoretically gets better 5GHz speeds (1300 Mb/s vs. 975 Mb/s). Actually, that’s just me rationalizing; I really just wanted to do it because I could. For a very well-explained background on the why and how of upgrading this router, as well as instructions on how to do this in Windows, see Upgrade a Netgear AC1450 Router to AC1750 over at Advanced Home Server.

Since those detailed instruction are for Windows, and I didn’t feel like rebooting into Windows via Bootcamp, I did it from my Mac. By the way, most of the instructions here are going to be done in Terminal (which you can find in the Applications/Utilities folder). If you’re not comfortable with that, then find a Windows box and follow those instructions. Actually, I recommend you read them anyway because the process is mostly the same, and he has excellent screenshots of what the feedback looks like. I’m not going into all of the explicit details for everything here, just the general procedure to help those who might want to do this on a Mac. The process goes something like this:

What you need:

First, download the first two from the links above and extract the zips. (I like to put eveything into the same working folder, which I can later satisfyingly trash).

Then, we need python and its crypto package. OSX has python built-in (Personally, I like having the latest so I use the homebrew package manager to install a newer python, but for simplicity we’ll skip that and just use the built-in for this guide). We’ll install pycrypto with the python package manager pip, and we’ll install pip with easy_install.

$ sudo easy_install pip
$ sudo pip install pycrypto

We also need the MAC address of the router. It’s printed on the bottom of the router. (Pro-tip: snap a picture of it with your phone for easy reference, or just write it down by hand if you are a cave man.) While you’re at it, connect the router to your Mac via ethernet, disable any other network connections on your Mac, and power-on the router. The default router IP address is 192.168.1.1. Once you’re connected, you can then send the command to unlock the router (make sure you’re in the same folder where you unzipped telnetenable.py, and substitute the actual MAC address in the command):

$ python telnetenable.py 192.168.1.1 <router MAC address> Gearguy Geardog

That should send the magic juice to the router. (edit: This is how I did it, but if you can’t get python to work, you can also try this pre-compiled standalone OSX/linux version of telnetenable.) You should be able to telnet into the router now:

$ telnet 192.168.1.1

You will get a BusyBox shell and prompt. Once we’re in, we just have to convince the underachieving Mr. AC1450 that he’s actually the awesome Mr. AC1750 by giving him a new Board ID with the following command:

# burnboardid U12H240T00_NETGEAR

You should get some positive feedback that the command succeeded. Now power cycle the router (unplug it, wait 10 seconds, plug back in). When it’s booted, go to its web interface in your browser (http://192.168.1.1) and log in. Navigate to Advanced > Administration > Router Update. Use the AC1750 firmware that you downloaded to update the router, let it reboot, and voila! You have a shiny AC1750 router!

If you ever want to revert back to AC1450, repeat this procedure, but substitute this Board ID: U12H240T99_NETGEAR
and of course download and install the latest AC1450 firmware instead.

References:

4 thoughts on “Upgrade the Netgear AC1450 Router to AC1750 using a Mac”

  1. Steven Rubin

    I was hoping you can help me. You state that “you can then send the command to unlock the router (make sure you’re in the same folder where you unzipped telnetenable.py, and substitute the actual MAC address in the command)” I’m not sure how to do that. Can you be more specific? For the first 2 commands ($ sudo easy_install pip and $ sudo pip install pycrypto) I was able to just punch that into terminal. How do i execute the next command from the same folder i unzipped telnetenable.py? Thanks

    1. Wun Post author

      Hi Steven,
      When you open Terminal, it usually starts in your home folder. (If you type ‘pwd’, it will report the current folder that you’ve navigated to.) You can navigate to other folders by using the ‘cd’ command. So if, for example, you unzipped the telnetenable.py into a folder in your Downloads folder, you can type ‘cd Downloads’ and then (if it’s in a subfolder named netgear-telnetenable-0.1) type ‘cd netgear-telnetenable-0.1’ to get there. Type ‘pwd’ again to make sure you’re in the right location. If you’re not, you can also type ‘cd ..’ (cd dot dot) to go “up” a level in the folder structure. Here’s a good basic guide to navigating around in the Terminal.

      Once you’re in the right place, type in the next line in my guide (the one that starts with ‘python’), but make sure you substitute your router’s actual MAC address in the spot indicated in the command.

  2. Hao Tan

    Hello Wun,

    I’ve followed your instructions and when I tried to telnet into the router, this is what I get:

    telnet 192.168.1.1 23
    Trying 192.168.1.1…
    Connected to 192.168.1.1.
    Escape character is ‘^]’.

    No BusyBox. Any help would be appreciated.

    Thanks,
    Hao

    1. Hao Tan

      Figured it out after reading through the comments in the tutorial for PC users. For what it’s worth, the MAC address you see in the admin console is incorrect. Use the one that Wun had suggested, which is printed on the bottom of the router. Good luck.

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