devices listed as unknown on router

[petrefax]

just a quickie....

3 PCs on my network, connected to the same router, lets call them PC1 and PC2 and PC3

when checking the attached devices on my router, i'm getting 2 of the PCs showing up as "PC1" and "PC2" but the last one is showing up as "unknown"

- All PCs are connected to the router via wired connection
- All PCs have static IP addresses assigned, the properties of which (apart from the IP addresses themselves obviously) are identical
- All PCs are running the same OS (Win 7 ultimate)


how do i get the name of PC3 to show as "PC3" on the connected devices table on the router?

its not a massive deal, but i have multiple routers and multiple devices scattered around the building so as part of a wider spot of troubleshooting it would be really handy if i could quickly identify and eliminate certain devices

thanks

[dave87]

Why would you have multiple routers? How have you got your network setup?

[petrefax]

my house fairly large and is a mixture of old stone cottage (thick walls which imprede wifi signal) and new extension (insulated with foil-backed fibreboard, which also plays havoc with wifi signal)

in order to maintain the best ADSL signal i have the main router connected directly to the pre-filtered BT master socket, which is on the ground floor & left hand side of the house. The only way to conceal the router, becasue i really don't want it sitting behind my front door in the hall, was to pass the cables through into the pantry & site it in there. however this puts it outside the main stone walls and within the foil-insulated extension so the wifi signal from this serves the kitchen only

(neither do i want to go to the expense and hassle of re-siting the master socket tbh)

the majority of things being connected via wifi are 1st floor, right hand side of the house, as far away from the main router as possibe (as dictated by sod's law). i have an RJ45 running from the router to the approx area so seeing as i have an old router which wasn't being used for anything else, it made sense to add the old router as a wifi extender

does that answer your question?


(when i get back from the shops i'll do a network diagram )

[dave87]

How have you connected the router you are using as a wifi extender? Did you plug the ethernet cable from the main router downstairs into the WAN port on the router or into one of the ethernet ports on the back?

[khan4youuk]

have you tried manually adding mac for the third pc into router

[petrefax]

How have you connected the router you are using as a wifi extender? Did you plug the ethernet cable from the main router downstairs into the WAN port on the router or into one of the ethernet ports on the back?

routers aren't really the issue, they work perfectly fine.

as far as the routers go i have router 1 (main router) connected to a gigabit switch which connects to a few wired devices including router 2 (wifi extender) via rj45 into LAN port on router 2, i have DHCP enabled on main router only & have specified a distinct IP address on router 2 so all is well

due to the switch, nothing is wired into router 2, this is used solely for wifi purposes, but checking attached devices on router 1 shows up the full list of devices connected with one of them always listed as "unknown"

.

have you tried manually adding mac for the third pc into router

haven't tried that tbh, but i'm not sure i'd want to start having to muck about putting each & every device's mac address in.

the scenario i've highlighted is a simplistic view of this network, there are a few more than 3 devices attached & will soon be more so i don't really want to start having to do this if i can avoid it....also i'm keen to get to the bottom of why i's (not) doing this.

basically i'm lazy! if its done this on other devices without me having to life a finger, i want to know why it hasn't done it on this one!

[petrefax]

found it!

PC listed as "unknown" was my wife's, she'd set the network type as public & not home.

reset the network type to home & up popped her computer name