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BT HomeHub help please

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Tim Downie

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Feb 7, 2009, 5:25:23 AM2/7/09
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My neighbour knocked on my door asking for help with his newly installed
Homehub as he couldn't connect wirelessly to the hub.

I took a laptop and cable & plugged in direct but still couldn't connect to
the hub let alone the internet. (The hub was showing 4 blue lights which I
think shows that everything is supposed to be working).

I tried a soft reset but still no joy with the cable so I entered the
wireless key just incase I could make a wireless connection but this still
didn't work.

Perhaps foolishly, I then did a hard reset (working on the principle that
this would probably be the next step to be suggested by customer support)
but still no joy with a wired or wireless connection.

Have I missed a stage out or does this mean that there has to be a fault in
the hub?

Tim


Ato_Zee

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Feb 7, 2009, 5:44:52 AM2/7/09
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> My neighbour knocked on my door asking for help with his newly installed
> Homehub as he couldn't connect wirelessly to the hub.

First step use an RJ45 wired connection to eliminate wireless
security authentication problems.

> I took a laptop and cable & plugged in direct but still couldn't connect
> to
> the hub let alone the internet. (The hub was showing 4 blue lights which

> think shows that everything is supposed to be working).

Is his ISP BT?
I have a BT 2700HGV Hub and had to hack it to work with Zen.
Zen needs username/password which the 2700HGV wouldn't
accept.
My other BT hub BT Voyager 240 works with any ISP but is
non-wireless.
So what hub is your neighbours and his ISP?
Hubs have default IP addresses, so with an RJ45 connection,
put the hubs IP address in your browser.
You do have the manual/user guide for the hub?

Peter Crosland

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Feb 7, 2009, 6:11:12 AM2/7/09
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The 2700HGV is the BT Business Hub and has no similarity with the current BT
Home hub. Nor has the BT Voyager. Assuming it IS a new BT Home hub it comes
with documentaion and software that should work AOK. Included is software
that enables the BT support to remote control it and sort out wireless
connection problems. The OP should check that the wireless card is set to
use the correct encryption method normally WPA2.

Peter Crosland


The Natural Philosopher

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Feb 7, 2009, 6:56:26 AM2/7/09
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And set your PC up to do dhcp off it, or set it to another IP address in
the same subnet.


i.e. the general principle is this

rest the hub completely..usually there is a rest buttin you hold dwn for
30 secs wihile powering up. tHis wipes the flash ram and all configs.

look in manual to see hwat default IP address is, say its 192.168.2.1

make your PC's ethernet IP address 192.168.2.2

put 192.167.2.1 in the browser URL bar.

You should be able to contact the router by a wired connection this way,
and start setting it up all over again.

> You do have the manual/user guide for the hub?

you may be screwed if you dont..but online these things abound..

James R

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Feb 7, 2009, 12:43:19 PM2/7/09
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"Ato_Zee" <ato...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:wCdjl.2638$Cr4...@newsfe26.ams2...

>
>> My neighbour knocked on my door asking for help with his newly installed
>> Homehub as he couldn't connect wirelessly to the hub.
>
> First step use an RJ45 wired connection to eliminate wireless
> security authentication problems.
>
>> I took a laptop and cable & plugged in direct but still couldn't connect
>> to
>> the hub let alone the internet. (The hub was showing 4 blue lights which
>> think shows that everything is supposed to be working).
>
> Is his ISP BT?
> I have a BT 2700HGV Hub and had to hack it to work with Zen.

How dramatic, you DIDN'T have to hack anything! All you did was
insert one or two addresses in to the DNS Block to stop it connecting
to the BT update servers.
All details available via Google. The addresses you put in are no
longer used anyway, what you need are the new ones to stop being
updated with v6 firmware.
The 2700HGV is a cheap £10 thing from ebay, although many will
rip people off trying to charge £30 upwards stating they are "unlocked".
You can do that yourself. They can easily be ruined if flashed with the
wrong firmware and SBC and SINGTEL firmware is not as good as
the original BT firmware if you have a good quality line and 16Mbps
connection. There is also a lot of rubbish about them transmitting with
400mW of power, again that is false unless you have a very early
model running SBC firmware. Various script based controls for
increasing power in later models only changes the log value and the
router is electronically limited to 100mW max.
Apart from that, they don't support QoS or UNPNP, so you need
to set up a number of port forwarding rules in order for applications
to work correctly and at the maximum speed.
For a £10 inc delivery router it's worth taking a chance, but for day to
day use - they do fall behind more modern up to date routers on the
market. You can get a dual band 2.4/5GHz router for £35 on ebay!

Why would he be using a BT hub on anything other than BT?

Ato_Zee

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Feb 7, 2009, 2:37:15 PM2/7/09
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> For a £10 inc delivery router it's worth taking a chance,
>
> Why would he be using a BT hub on anything other than BT?

Because I'm with Zen, not BT, CAT5 wired, don't need wireless
at the moment, might be useful if someone comes to stay
with a wireless enabled laptop.

Just under a tenner delivered, low starting price on eBay,
was worth the risk..

Four other modems give speeds from 2528000 to 5728000
The 2700HGV BT hub gives the 5728000, noise margin 6dB,
and holds this speed down to Current Noise Margin 2dB
with low error rate and no retrains.

Performance pretty near to that of my
Linksys WAG54GS, which if the BT 2700HGV should go pear
shaped, I'll swap in.

There are several hacks for the BT I just chose a simple
one that didn't need a reflash, just a simple edit to what it is
allowed to connect to. Remove BT, insert zen username
and password..

Also have a BT Voyager 240 works fine with DMT tool
but a burst of noise will knacker the speed for a week
or more unless I use DMT to reset the target SNR.

All in all the BT2700HGV works well, with Zen, a
cheap investment that I'm happy with, but it did
take just over a month to reach 6dB and 5728000.
Pity it doesn't support DMT tool.

tin...@isbd.co.uk

unread,
Feb 8, 2009, 5:14:57 AM2/8/09
to
Ato_Zee <ato...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > For a £10 inc delivery router it's worth taking a chance,
> >
> > Why would he be using a BT hub on anything other than BT?
>
> Because I'm with Zen, not BT, CAT5 wired, don't need wireless
> at the moment, might be useful if someone comes to stay
> with a wireless enabled laptop.
>
> Just under a tenner delivered, low starting price on eBay,
> was worth the risk..
>
> Four other modems give speeds from 2528000 to 5728000
> The 2700HGV BT hub gives the 5728000, noise margin 6dB,
> and holds this speed down to Current Noise Margin 2dB
> with low error rate and no retrains.
>
Yes, I believe the 2700HGV has a good reputation for getting
acceptable performance on lines with low signal level.

--
Chris Green

Peter Crosland

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Feb 8, 2009, 5:48:18 AM2/8/09
to


It has a good reputation for giving good results on noisy lines. However, in
the case the OP is talking about the device is a BT Home hub with the blue
led's. This is a completely different piece of equipment.

Peter Crosland


Adrian C

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Feb 9, 2009, 7:33:50 PM2/9/09
to
Peter Crosland wrote:
>> Yes, I believe the 2700HGV has a good reputation for getting
>> acceptable performance on lines with low signal level.
>
>
> It has a good reputation for giving good results on noisy lines.

It may be worth noting in this thread that the "contribution" from the
Tiscali idiot "James R" is (as usual) completely misleading. His
googling attempts failed him, and he now looks a greater idiot (if that
could be any harder).

The 2-Wire built 2700HGV is a known good router BT spec for their
business users, and with other ISP's does need hacks to unleash it from
the locked down state BT supply it in.

--
Adrian C

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