Bt Home Hub refuses connection

[kgprodigy]

I have searched these forums and phoned BT but have yet to find someone who can help me. And suprise suprise, this has started happening just after i've had my hub for 1 year and BT say it is now out of warranty...

The problem i'm having is that the Hub, at random times (usually no more than two days apart) will stop allowing anything to connect to it, or the internet.

I have confirmed this with both wired and wireless connections on my PC, Wii, xbox and laptop, all just time out when trying to connect to the Hub's config page or the internet. The devices think they are connected to the net still, but everything just times out.

Have also tried ipconfig/release and renew but no joy.

The only workaround i have right now is to leave it for up to an hour to suddenly start working again, or reboot it by unplugging it.

Anybody else had/having this problem?

[Singh400]

I've had this problem before, but only once or twice. Nothing like you are describing, your home hub has had it. I would just buy another router like Netgear or call BT and threaten to change ISP and request a MAC. They should offer you a deal then.

[sjj84]

Yeah if it's over a year you won't be bound to a contract, if they don't sort you out with a new one, just cancel with them. I suspect you could even then just start again with them and they'd send you a new one. It's stupid how companies work sometimes, I've cancelled phone contracts many times, to start a new one on the same tariff because it was cheaper than upgrading.

[kgprodigy]

Thanks guys.

Yeah i was afraid it was on it's last legs.
Oh well, guess i'll just buzz em and see where the MAC code threats get me!

Singh400; you said you had this a couple of times. Did you do anything to remedy it?

[Singh400]

Yeah just turned off the power for about 10 seconds to the HH and then switched it back on again.

[kgprodigy]

singh400; so do you not get the problem anymore?

Well, i've phoned them. And after requesting a MAC, they have agreed to send me out a new hub and phone, drop my option 3 to £19.99pm (for a new 12 month contract though). but no BT Vision :-(

And, if the problem persists, they have this new thing where they put you onto a "technical manager" who deals with your problem till it is fixed, instead of speaking to someone different everytime.

And... if they can't fix it, they will give me a MAC and let me move on, at no charge.

Not bad eh?? wish their normal customer service was like this!

[Singh400]

No I still do get it (very rarely), but I haven't had it frequently enough for it to cause a problem to me.

[kgprodigy]

Well i've just made a rather confusing discovery!...

I've had my hub working fine these past two days, pc always on, no problems.. then... I fired up uTorrent.

This was running fine for a few hours, then BAM! the hub froze on me again. No internet connection, for ANY device conencted to the hub.

Seems that having uTorrent running is causing the hub to spazz-out. but how on earth can a program running on my PC stop the hub from working?? I could understand if just the PC was affected, but all devices connected??

Very, very odd.

I'm happy i've figured out the "what"... just need to find out the "why".
Any of you guys have any thoughts on this??

Ta.

[kgprodigy]

P.S.

The event viewer shows this message when this happens...

"Your computer was not able to renew its address from the network (from the DHCP Server) for the Network Card with network address ....... The following error occurred:
The operation was canceled by the user. . Your computer will continue to try and obtain an address on its own from the network address (DHCP) server."

And yes, I have set the PC to keep a static address for the hub, but the problem still persists. The only difference is I don't get this error in the event viewer.

[Bubblin]

For info, i had this problem and answered on a previous topic.

The problem lies with the inbuilt firewall, it occurs when continuously downloading at high bit rates, basically the firewall 'thinks' an attack is happening and locks the connection speed to 1mb/s and stays at that speed for approx 1-2 hours (or longer if your pc is still trying to download).

It requires a reset to ge the thing working again.

To get over this, disable the inbuilt firewall in the home hub setting, then as long as your software firewall is decent you shouldn't have a problem, and it should never lock again (unless you have BT Vision, but thats another matter)

It affects only a few unlucky users and not everyone has this problem.

Hope this helps.

[kgprodigy]

Thanks Bubblin, but this is a different problem to the one you mentioned...

It's not just reducing the speed, it's actually locking EVERYTHING out of the hub and therefore the internet and local network.

And it can't be the constant high download speeds that trigger it as I have downloaded files of 4GB+ and full speed with no problems, and if i have uTorrent running with no seeds or downloads, it still happens.

[JH4]

I have a similar problem with torrents, which periodically reboot my modem.
It's not related to any speed issues, as sometimes it does it at a trickle. The new BBC iPlayer which uses the same Peer to Peer torrent system does exactly the same thing. ( I am on Virgin cable BB, btw, not BT, but I reckon it's a very similar problem. I have yet to solve it..) No help to you, I guess, but I would welcome others' input.

[UnGreat]

My old hub (new ones only a few days old) would randomly kick my laptop, 360 and PC off the internet for no reason.

Then in the last few weeks the internet light would go out for long periods and i'd have no web access. My phone line would have crackly hissing noises and a low electronic pulse noise could be heard. Got BT to send out a new Hub (claimed old one was getting hot ) but problem has just returned (after a day). BT (telephones) show my line as being fine.

Torrents are beyond slow and IRC can't hold a connection. And I pay you £30 a month for this BT, shame on you.

[Uridium]

I've had this problem on various brands of router and with various ISP's over the years.

My current Netgear DG834 on Sky Max still does it from time to time now.

a few years back when using a Belkin router Belkin support tried to fix the fault for me with various modded firmwares but gave up in the end

Limiting the number of TCP connections within UTorrent may alleviate it a bit.

[Uridium]

Originally Posted by UnGreat

My old hub (new ones only a few days old) would randomly kick my laptop, 360 and PC off the internet for no reason.

Then in the last few weeks the internet light would go out for long periods and i'd have no web access. My phone line would have crackly hissing noises and a low electronic pulse noise could be heard. Got BT to send out a new Hub (claimed old one was getting hot ) but problem has just returned (after a day). BT (telephones) show my line as being fine.

Torrents are beyond slow and IRC can't hold a connection. And I pay you £30 a month for this BT, shame on you.

Afraid your fault just sounds like a duff ADSL connection