Preamble

Most routers connect to the internet on one side, and to the computer by means of the IEEE ethernet port via a cat 5 cable. The router may connect the same way to other devices also possibly; such as other computer(s) maybe, and/or a NAS server perhaps. This is known as a LAN (Local Area Network).

To set up a network it’s not just a simple matter of connecting up and everything works hunky-dory though: The network settings have to be correct inside each device in order that it knows where everything else is. With Windows XP Microsoft have simplified this operation with the Network Setup Wizard, or "NetSetWiz" as I refer to it. Without going into all the complicated technical details, you run the NetSetWiz on all computers and other devices using Windows, after having correctly connected up your network, and it sets up each device to interact with the other devices running Windows.

Even though the NetSetWiz didn’t appear until XP was released; it’ll work on pretty much any version of Windows in use today. Microsoft have done a fairly good job as regards this wizard with backwards compatibility.

Inevitably, though, there are times when things break down, and it doesn’t seem to work quite as it should.

Even when using just a single router with a single computer, which doesn’t usually require any assistance from the NetSetWiz, there can be communication problems occurring between router and computer.

I’m writing this article mainly because I notice that I’m getting a larger than usual number of visitors who’ve been searching Google with a term similar to "BT Home Hub doesn’t connect with computer" or "Computer can’t see BT Home Hub". I have quite a few references to the BT Home Hub on this blog, which is why Google refers it to the visitors; but not a lot if anything as regards troubleshooting.

Guts

So you’ve connected the BT Home Hub as BT suggest: Filter at or near the BT socket with telephone and computer connections running from it; the cable connected from the filter to your BT Home Hub. The power adapter plugged in to a live 13 Amp socket, and the low-voltage output lead connected to the power input of your Home Hub.

(*Note: The recent BT Home Hubs; 2.0 and above, require a working voltage of 15 Volts. The older BT Home Hubs, before 2.0 require a working voltage of 9 Volts: Therefore if you’re replacing an old Home Hub with a new 2.0 or greater, you would probably have problems with it, if it works at all, if you don’t use the power adapter supplied with it and use the old one instead. (I don’t advise using the new adapter with an old Home Hub; although it may or may not work as a temporary measure. (Then again it might damage the old Home Hub due to over-voltage – I don’t know and I don’t intend to experiment in this area.)))

You power everything up and – No internet connection.

First check that the top three lights on the Hub are lit up and are blue. If not then refer to the documentation supplied with the Hub. If yes then check the cat 5 cable connection between the router and the computer. (Unless you’re using a wireless connection.)

If there’s nothing wrong with that, check that your ethernet adapter is working properly and has a driver or the correct driver installed. You can do this in Device Manager. If a yellow mark with an ! is attached to your ethernet adapter’s icon in Device Manager, I suggest you right-click on the icon in question and remove the device from the list. Following that click "Actions" at the top of the Device Manager page and "Scan for hardware changes". The computer will see the device and add it back to the list, then it’ll look for and install the driver again. When it has done this the ! should vanish and the ethernet controller should work correctly. If not then you have a problem with the driver that you are using and need to get a new driver from the motherboard’s manufacturer or the manufacturer of your ethernet controller.

If everything is OK so far but you still can’t connect to the internet then there may be a TCP/IP error in that your Home Hub has assigned your ethernet controller an invalid IP address. To solve this you can either reboot both the computer and the Home Hub, or to save rebooting the computer you could go to a command prompt and type in "ipconfig /flushDNS": (Note the space between ipconfig and /flushdns.) This will empty your DNS cache where the invalid IP address has been stored, and the Hub will hopefully assign a new, correct IP address when it reboots.

There was a typo in the above paragraph previous to 27th November 2008, for which I apologise.

Going this far should have sorted all but a tiny percentage of problems. if you’re still having problems I suggest that you refer to the documentation that was supplied with the Hume Hub, or phone BT themselves on 0800 800 150. Unfortunately their call-centre is in India, half of their representatives are totally computer-illiterate and are reading from a script, and a lot of them have such strong Indian accents that they’re rather hard to understand. Some of them also have no intelligence to speak of.

If you are replacing an old BT Home Hub with a new model 2.0 or greater then it should be possible to plug it straight in  to the existing connections as before, remembering to swap the old 9V power adapter for the new 15V power adapter.

It is quite possible to run your BT Home Hub without using any of BT’s software. I suggest that you don’t install the Norton Security Suite provided with the Home Hub as this is bloatware. Use something else instead with equivalent function. See this article on an alternative antivirus/antispyware solution.

I also suggest that you might like to not install the BT Broadband Desktop help client unless you are computer-illiterate: The reason being is that some antispyware vendors consider the BT Broadband Desktop Help client as spyware/malware, and the Home Hub will work perfectly well without it being installed. If you don’t know much or anything about computers, or are a technophobe, then I suggest that you do install the client.

The wireless connection manager software provided by BT is a waste of space IMO, and sometimes conflicts with the Windows equivalent – which is all you need. I suggest if you can that you totally disable the BT wireless connection manager and use the equivalent built into the operating system instead.

Please comment on this article and give your views and suggestions.

Addendum

I’ve had a few enquiries about the BT Home Hub from Google that I feel I should just mention:

First: Should I leave my BT Home Hub switched on all the time?

Yes and no: I would suggest that you don’t leave it on 24/7 week in, week out. Give it a few hours’ break now and again, otherwise it gets funny at times. Other than that I’d say yes; use it to your heart’s content: If you want to go up and watch whatever on the computer in your bedroom then doze off and leave the Hub on all night why not? It doesn’t use much power, and if you’re worried about someone hacking your wireless while you sleep you could set it to switch wireless off at a certain time. Also it updates at night sometimes: Around 1AM time: Whatever you do; don’t switch it off while it’s updating or it’ll never work again. Read your handbook.

If you have questions about using certain services with it then you can use pretty much any service with it: DSL, TCP/IP, FTP, HTTP, Peer-to-peer, (Watch out though: I happen to know that BT have set up sensitive equipment, set up to record illegal file downloaders’ IPs; so if you do it via BT you’ll probably get caught. I realise that not all P-P involves illegal downloads; and that there’s also a highly ethical side to it: Just to let you know that you’re being watched by electronic eyes.) but you’ll need to set it properly in some cases: Refer to the handbook that was packed with it when it arrived.

If you have a question then why not scrawl it on the wall in the sidebar? It might as well be used.

…And I’ll add a little more to the above:-

Your BT Home hub doesn’t have to be connected to your computer by wires – You can connect wirelessly: How secure is this? The Home Hub 2.0 has a secure wireless connection using 256-bit encryption. (Older models use 128-bit encryption and less-secure wireless protocol by default. Those models require settings to be altered to enhance security. 2.0 upwards are inherantly more secure by default and require no setting to become so.) Connecting is a synch: First you’ll have to have either a wireless card fitted via a PCI slot inside your computer, or you can use an external USB wireless dongle.

You’ll also need your BT Home Hub’s wireless key; which is printed on a card that was delivered inside the Hub’s packaging with the rest of the paperwork. There is a space in the instruction booklet to write this into, which is useful if like me you lose the card.

I won’t go into graphic detail about the process. Simply either set up your wireless connection, via your computer’s internal wireless card if it has one, using the software built into the Windows operating system (XP or Vista.)(I don’t recommend using Windows 9x: It’s old, insecure, and problematic. If you are using Win 9x then get a better operating system.)(Linux and Mac users refer to your operating system’s documentation.) or plug your wireless USB dongle into a USB socket on your computer and set up the connection using the software built into the (Windows, Linux, Mac) operating system.

The BT Home Hub 2.0 has an internal antenna and will connect to your computer via a wireless connection within most properties. If your property is so big that it’s out of range then you can probably afford a second BT Home Hub anyway. If you can’t get a signal due to a blamk-spot then you’ll have to move your computer to a different location.