Switching Home Hud off....Good or Bad?

[hexblade]

I've just got a Black BT Home Hub yesterday and i'm so amazed how great this Hub is. As soon as i connected it up, everything ran perfectly. My XboxLive connection is flawless and i can get online with my DS and PSP with ease.

But i've one question about the Home Hub. I've always been the type of person who always switches everything off at night or when i go out, including routers, but i dont know if i should with the Home Hub. I've heard that the BT Home Hub is designed to stay on 24/7. So is that the best thing to do at night or when your out the house. Also, i'm a little worried that switching it on and off all the time could damage it as it's not designed to be switched off.

So basically, is the BT Home Hub quite alright to be left on all the time allowing me to finally break the habit of always switching everything off when not in use. Any advise would be great

 

[Andy98765]

My advice would be to leave it on, in my case I have the BT Broadband Talk phone attached, so it would be useless if I did not leave it on.
If you have just converted to this service a few pointers.
Everyday for the next couple of weeks do unplug the power for at least two minutes.
From BT site
After CD installation and initial connection, the service can take up to an hour to stabilise, and, in a few cases, up to 24 hours (typically on long lines).

During this time you may experience an intermittent connection, usually accompanied by a flashing light (usually labelled ‘DSL’ or ‘Broadband’) on your modem or router. This is normal and is not a fault with the service - it is caused by the exchange testing different speeds to determine the fastest stable speed for your line conditions. Once this process is complete, your service should stabilise.

Although you should have a stable broadband connection after the first hour, the service in fact takes a further 10 days to identify and settle at the final optimum speed for your phone line. During this period you may notice your broadband speed fluctuating. Again, this is a normal characteristic of the way the service works and is not a fault. Hence, during this first 10 day period, we suggest you only call the helpdesk if you experience a total loss of service for more than an hour.

Another thing to do is go into the advanced settings of the router and switch off the firewall, this has the effect of speeding up the link.
Access to router is http://192.168.1.254/ type this into internet explorer.
Password and username = admin
Another change is to automate the time. To do this go to advanced settings, system, time. Tick boxes Auto and summertime select the timezone (UTC) GMT Dublin, Edinburgh, London, and in the box timeserver one type in time.windows.com If you ever get a BT broadband talk phone the time will stay correct as will any fault log records.

 

[hexblade]

I've got the cordless phone for my Hub, so i'll probably have to keep mine on 24/7. I dont know about the other stuff you mentioned..it sounds a little complicated

 

[Andy98765]

If you just click on the link HTTP:/192 etcetc I have already given it will take you there.

 

[SeanT]

the url bthomehub.home also accesses the same control panel iirc, which is my "customer friendly" way of explaining it (whereas 192.168.x.x is permanently burned into the back of my mind) - you don't have to type http:// for either of them of course.
You will probably want to make sure that your PCs have some form of firewall enabled before switching the one in the hub off (which prevents people dialing in on certain ports etc. to your network), otherwise it's a bit like leaving your porch door unlocked to make it quicker to get in but not locking the other one (which btw is a bad idea anyway as then intruders can hide in the porch whilst they force the lock)

 

[Singh400]

Yeah I leave mine on 24/7 because of the HH phone. But before I used to switch it off (before I had the phone).