Router Homepage Access Issues

Hi guys

I wonder if someone can help. I have a BT broadband account and use a BT Home Hub Version 2 (type A). Recently I have had problems accessing the routers homepage (192.1.168.254) from my devices. Basically I have 2 laptops, an iPod touch & an iPhone 4. Now all the devices can all happily access the hub's homepage but as soon as I turn my main laptop on all the devices suddenly start returning an 'access error: 503 - service unavailable' message. I don't lose any internet connectivity, the problem just surrounds trying to access the hub's page. Oddly the main laptop doesn't get affected though and can still access the router homepage fine. Then I will turn the main laptop off and after a few minutes all the other devices (other laptop, iPod touch & iPhone 4) will now be absolutely fine and are able to access the hub homepage. This problem doesn't always happen but I'd say 75% of the time when the main laptop is switched on it occurs.

I don't think this used to be an issue and the only thing I can think of changing is my main laptop. It has McAfee Security Centre on it. Recently there was quite a few major updates on the McAfee suite downloading. The whole look of it changed and even the system tray icon changed (changed to an M inside a shield as opposed to an 'M' inside a square box). I believe the problem co-incided with this update. Does anyone know of this problem? I think McAfee is prompting this problem. I tried the McAfee forum without joy. Also I introduced the iPhone 4 to my home network recently so maybe that has triggered something. Although switching the iPhone 4 off doesn't suddenly allow the other devices to access the homepage.

Thinks I have already tried without success:-
1- Replacing BT Home Hub with a different one
2- Switching on UDP tracking on McAfee firewall settings
3- Turning the McAfee firewall off for a short period
4- Connecting main laptop via ethernet instead of wireless
5- Running several spyware scans (spybot, mcafee etc) to ensure spyware is not flooding router
6- Eliminating iPhone 4 from network
7- Ensuring hub security is WEP

Something on the main laptop is triggering the issue. None of the other devices lose internet but they just can't get into the Home Hub page 192.1.168.254. Even when the main laptop is switched off it then takes a good 10 minutes for the other devices to be able to get in. Very odd. I do find it surprising that a single laptop being on can affect all the other devices. Some kind of service starts running though that causes some kind of block.

Thanks in advance,

Wayne

Is the main laptop wired or wireless? Are the other devices all connected wirelessly?

Thanks for the response. All the devices connect wirelessly. I have tried a wired connection to the main laptop but it doesn't seem to make a difference.

Have you checked that all the devices have distinct IP addresses?

You could try something like wireshark on your main laptop to monitor traffic.

www.wireshark.org/

They are all deployed automatically. Am just at a loss, never used to have this problem. I think McAfee has triggered it.

A quick suggestion:

Is there a "reset " button on the BT home hub? A hard reset will clear the NVRAM, which may have become corrupt, especially if the firmware has been updated.

Hi noinchki,

Yes there is a reset button. Doing that will clear the issue but the problem keeps coming back. It's not a corrupt hub as this is my second hub and the same happened on both. I am convinced some kind of service is running on the main laptop causing the block. Pretty sure it's McAfee triggering it but even turning off the firewall doesn't clear it. Sometimes after a while (say half hour) the devices will be able to connect to the router homepage once the main laptop goes on. However this is rare and for the most part they cannot. Always the same error, 'access error:503 service unavailable'. Until it goes off and even then it can take 10 minutes or so before they can access the homehub or ping it. Strange that they can all still surf the internet happily throughout and my two laptops can still file share just fine. It's just this one page they can't access '192.1.168.254'.

Thanks
Wayne

Your posting has the wrong address

192.168.1..254 is required

Hi, Yeah, the BT Business Hub router IP address is 192.168.1.254

Hi Wayne,

If you are convinced it is due to McAfee, then try uninstalling it?

I used to use McAfee, but because of the overheads it imposes and an issue with my "free" O2 installation, I've switched to using Microsoft Security instead and not looked back.

Regards, Nick