What is the use of the USB port on the back of the optical modem? If there is no response when plugging in the USB flash drive, it does not mean it is broken. I have tried both Huawei and ZTE backends.

Last week, Fa Xiao came to me with a USB flash drive and said that the ZTE F663NV3a that came with mobile broadband at home had a USB port on the back. He plugged in the USB flash drive for half an hour and flipped through the background for a long time. Not even a drive letter appeared. He suspected that the optical modem was broken. I asked him not to rush to report for repairs. I also made this mistake last year.: If it doesn't light up or respond when you plug it in, it's often not because your USB flash drive is broken, but because this port is not designed to be used as a computer USB port.

The USB port on the back of the optical modem is not mentioned by many masters when installing it, but it is not a decoration. There are jobs that can be done, but you have to choose a model, a format, and a working mode. This article records the results of the two machines I tried from Huawei and ZTE, so you can judge whether your own machine is worth the hassle.

Make it clear first: The optical modem USB port is not a computer USB port. Only one of the three ways to use it is the most stable.

Plug the U disk into the USB port on the computer, and the system will immediately pop up a drive letter. The USB port on the optical modem does not have this logic. There is no Windows behind it, only the small system of the optical modem itself. After plugging in the device, whether the optical modem recognizes it and what it does after recognizing it all depends on what menus the operator has left for the firmware.

I’ve ranked the common usages in order of reliability. The first is U disk as family shared disk , after plugging it in, open FTP or SMB sharing in the backend of optical modem, and the computer and TV at home can read the photos and videos in the USB flash drive. This is the most stable way to play Huawei’s old optical modem, and it’s what I actually use myself. The second is Turn old printer into a network printer , plug the USB printing cable into the optical modem, and all computers in the house can send printing tasks. There is no need to carry the laptop to the study room to plug in the cable. The third type is what many people think When charging port , there is indeed some power to replenish the phone, but the port standard is basically 5V, 0.5A. Not only does it charge slowly, some models and firmware do not output power at all. Used as the main charging port, it is not as good as the five blessings and one security on the wall.

There is one more thing that needs to be said: Not every optical modem has complete USB functions. I have seen that the ZTE F663NV3a hardware clearly has a USB port, but in the mobile custom firmware, the sharing menu has been cut down to "USB backup".」 ； I have also seen that the indicator light of Skyworth SK-D840N does not light up even when a USB flash drive is inserted. After checking, I found that the firmware is just an empty shell. So if there is no response after plugging it in, don’t doubt the U disk first, don’t doubt the cat first, first doubt whether this function exists.

There is no response when inserting the USB flash drive, 90% of the time it is due to the format first.

Last year, I took a 64G USB flash drive and plugged it into Huawei HS8145V. The format was exFAT and I enabled home storage in the background. After waiting for five minutes, it was still empty. Format it back to FAT32, plug it in again, and it will be recognized in a dozen seconds. Later, I checked the forum and found that others using NTFS accepted it, but many machines like exFAT did not buy it. The optical modem is not a computer. The file system support depends on its built-in kernel. No one can guarantee that all formats will be accepted.

There is only one order of insurance: First take a small USB disk and format it into FAT32 try. 8G and 16G are the least likely to cause problems. Large-capacity U disks are sometimes written as large FAT32 in Windows as FAT32, and even some old cats cannot recognize them. I really can’t recognize it, so try NTFS with a single partition. I recommend putting exFAT at the end. Many old firmware’s support for it depends on luck.

Don’t make the capacity too large. The small system of optical modem is not a NAS. If you plug in a 2T mobile hard disk, let’s not talk about whether it can be mounted. Scanning the directory will take a long time. I tried a 1T Western Digital mobile hard drive, and the HS8145V recognized it, but opening a folder was obviously slower than a USB flash drive. Therefore, it is most suitable to use a USB flash drive of dozens of gigabytes to temporarily share photos and upload firmware backups. ； If you really want to cram a few TB of movies into it, you’d better just buy a NAS. Performance account of optical modem and router I said before, don't use it as your main storage.

Huawei HS8145V enables U disk sharing, and the background is hidden in "Home Storage"

For the Huawei HS8145V I have on hand, the path is to enter the backend of Optical Mode and look for "Network Applications". The first item is "Home Storage". Plug in the USB flash drive, check "Enable FTP service", fill in the user name, password, and port number yourself. Leave the root path unchanged and save it. Then open the resource manager on your computer and type in the address bar ftp://192.168.1.1 , enter the account and password just now, and the files in the USB flash drive will come out.

Some versions also come with SMB sharing, which is more suitable for Windows users than FTP. You can type it directly in the resource manager. \\192.168.1.1 You can see it. I tried FTP, which is the most common. Some firmwares turn off SMB by default. You need to find the switch to turn it on first. There is a detail here: The backend address of optical modem is not necessarily 192.168.1.1 , common in the telecommunications batch 192.168.2.1 , mobile common 192.168.1.1 . Don't just type the IP address I wrote, first look at the gateway address in your mobile phone's WiFi details. That string of numbers is correct. If you can’t get the backend entrance or account password, check first Mobile optical modem WiFi password article , both stickers and backstage are available.

After opening sharing, don’t pull out the USB flash drive. Just pull it out when reading and writing. It is a trivial matter if the U disk file is damaged. The USB service of optical modem is stuck, and sometimes it needs to be powered off and restarted to recover. If you really need to unplug it, turn off sharing in the background first and wait ten seconds before taking action.

I want to print wirelessly with an old printer, so I tried the HS8145C5 set.

My cousin's old HP inkjet only has a USB cable, which can only be plugged into a laptop. If I want to print a copy on the computer in the living room, I have to unplug the cable. I tried using his Huawei HS8145C5 for one night. In the end, instead of using the TCP/IP printing port of the router, I used SMB sharing. Many people are stuck here.: According to the 9100 port configuration of OpenWrt on the Internet, nothing works, because the optical modem protocol is not that protocol at all.

The correct order is this. First plug the USB cable of the printer into the Optical Modem, log in to the Optical Modem backend, go to "Daily Applications" in "Applications", find "Home Sharing", and check "Turn on storage sharing and printer sharing". After swiping the page, the printer model appears below, and you recognize it. Then go back to Windows and press Win+R to enter \\192.168.1.1 Press Enter and the printer will appear on the network. Just double-click and follow the prompts to install the driver. At my cousin's house, it took about ten minutes from plugging in the cable to printing the first test page. The longest issue was finding the wrong path at the beginning, and I kept thinking about adding a TCP/IP printer.

This is not guaranteed to be recognized by all printers. After the USB printing cable is plugged in, the model number can be displayed in the background, which is basically no problem. ； If it does not display for a long time, either the printer is too old and does not support it, or the USB function of the optical modem has been cut off by the operator. In that case, don't be stubborn. A USB print server worth dozens of yuan, or directly changing to a printer with a network port, will save time than competing with a optical modem.

ZTE F663NV3a and bridge mode are the other two "no response"”

I picked up the mobile version of the F663NV3a I sent and took a look. There was no word "Home Storage" in the background, only "USB Backup". In other words, the USB port of this cat is mainly used by installation and maintenance personnel to back up configuration files, not for home sharing. The hardware is there, but the firmware is not turned on. Even if you plug in a hundred USB flash drives, there will be no response. This is the carrier lock function. Don’t waste time doing a factory reset. Most of the time you will still have this interface after the restore.

Another common false fault is bridge mode . After the optical modem is changed to a bridge, it will no longer dial up or issue IPs. Many functions related to LAN sharing will be discontinued, and the same is true for USB sharing. At this time, if you insert the USB flash drive, the mobile phone and computer will naturally not be able to see it. If you want to know if your home is bridged, go into the backend of the router and see if the WAN port IP is a public network address. The specific way to determine is: The article about changing the mobile optical modem to bridge Wrote in. If you really want to share the USB flash drive, plug it into the router after bridging it, or leave the job to the NAS.

I also stepped on a more hidden pit: Before inserting the U disk, the optical modem is on. After inserting it, the background will not be refreshed. Consistently powering off and restarting the optical modem and waiting two minutes before logging in can sometimes be more effective than plugging and unplugging it ten times. In the small system of optical modem, the identification of many peripherals is not as easy as hot-swapping.

Whether it’s worth the trouble or not, you need to check your seat first.

My final conclusion to Fa Xiao is:: There is no need to worry about his mobile version, because the firmware does not provide a sharing menu, and the USB port is just a decoration. If you really need to share, read these three lines before deciding.

I’ll also put it in order for you.: First check if there is a "Family Storage" or "Family Sharing" menu in the background. ； Yes, format the U disk as FAT32 and insert it. After turning on sharing, power off and restart the optical modem. ； Without a menu, you can basically call it a day without trying any more mysterious operations. When there are more and more devices behind the router, and the optical modem has to take care of both dialing and sharing, we must first solve the problem of the number of devices. The article about limiting the number of devices in Optical Mode The third-speed solution here is much more practical than the USB port.

Just remember one sentence is enough: The optical modem USB port is "only when there is a menu can you play", not "should it respond when plugged in". Find the menu first, and then talk about the USB disk format. This will save you half the trouble.