Since the first weeks of 2011, the italian provider Fastweb is delivering this router to new customers. Since it’s a full-featured router, with a full-featured web interface (but inaccessible to the user), it seemed quite a nice idea to study the box a bit.

First a notice: Argo 55 is the model delivered with ADSL contracts, while Argo 95 is the FTTH variant – from what I can tell, the hardware is more or less identical, the only difference being the presence of an ADSL modem in the 55, which becomes a media converter in he 95. Said that, these articles will use the Argo 95 – the one I have at home – as a basis.

So let’s take a peek at the inner guts of the thing:

Argo 95 innards (click to enlarge)

Nice, huh? From left to right we have the power supply section, the media converter, the switch (and, in the lower section, the SoC) and the ATA. In the lower right corner there’s the wireless miniPCI card (an Atheros AR5700G).

These are the main chips on the board (in yellow):

1. SoC: ikanos IKF6836 (http://www.algasystems.net/pub/ARGO95/soc.pdf)
2. RAM: SAMSUNG   K4H511638G-LCCC (http://www.algasystems.net/pub/ARGO95/ram.pdf)
3. Flash: SPANSION S29GL128P11TFI1 (http://www.algasystems.net/pub/ARGO95/flash.pdf)
4. Media converter: IC+ IP113S LF (http://www.algasystems.net/pub/ARGO95/mediaconv.pdf)
5. Switch: Marvell 88E6063-RCJ1 (http://www.algasystems.net/pub/ARGO95/switch.pdf)
6. ATA: ZARLINK Le88266DLC (http://www.algasystems.net/pub/ARGO95/ata.pdf)

So, our router architecture is similar to Belgacom BBox2 (aming others), 16Mb of flash and 64Mb of RAM.

Ok, neat piece of hardware. In the next post, we’ll se what those tasty headers are there for :)

Tagged with: Amtec | Argo 55 | Argo 95 | Elsag | ElsagDatamat | fastweb | hacking | router | take apart

Categorised as: Hacking