Strange phones in network

bro67 · 02 Jan 2016

I found that out the hard way when I used to have a Nook and Windows would see it as something different.

Manufacturers for phones and tablets are using the same chips and circuit designs, because there really is not much difference any more between the two devices, other then size and RAM.

Also you have to flush the DNS and reset Winsock, since Windows 10 tends to remember old stuff on the network, not forget it when you reboot.

The other is turning off Smb 2 & 3, which is fixing a lot of these issues.

Microsoft felt in their stupidity of wisdom, that SMB/CFS had to be crippled in 10586.

See the last part for Client and enter in Powershell as an admin(right click and choose "Administrator") the following:

To disable SMBv2 and SMBv3 on the SMB client, run the following commands:
sc.exe config lanmanworkstation depend=bowser/mrxsmb10/nsi

sc.exe config mrxsmb20 start=disabled

It should hopefully fix some issues. The handsets if they are out there. The MAC's should be showing up in your router log.

Anytime you see this and question. Go into the router and check for what MAC matches what IP. Then if you are able to label the devices in the router, put a label for you to be able to know active devices are live.

I really do not know if Microsoft will ever get their game together with the Networking side. Since 10 has continued to have problems in the network side, depending on the person and their setup.

DoItJust · 03 Jan 2016

How is this solved?
Still have ghost phones in my network

Madness10 · 03 Jan 2016

DoItJust said:

How is this solved?
Still have ghost phones in my network

Do what I did. Turn off every phone and tablet, refresh your network, then turn one device on at a time to see which one is the culprit. As Bro67 said, some companies uses the same chipset as others. I spent about 1/2 hour locating which device it is. The ghost phone shows up as a ZTE, however, my phone is HTC and my wife's is a Motorola. I also looked at the MAC address of the ghost phone and compared it to our 2 phones on the router and sure enough, it will show either mine or my wife's phone.

DoItJust · 03 Jan 2016

Madness10 said:

Do what I did. Turn off every phone and tablet, refresh your network, then turn one device on at a time to see which one is the culprit. As Bro67 said, some companies uses the same chipset as others. I spent about 1/2 hour locating which device it is. The ghost phone shows up as a ZTE, however, my phone is HTC and my wife's is a Motorola. I also looked at the MAC address of the ghost phone and compared it to our 2 phones on the router and sure enough, it will show either mine or my wife's phone.

As I have explained earlier, the ghost phone(s) mac address is not on the router. The phone is just made up by Win10. It's a bug.
Not solved.

Madness10 · 03 Jan 2016

DoItJust said:

As I have explained earlier, the ghost phone(s) mac address is not on the router. The phone is just made up by Win10. It's a bug.
Not solved.

I'm sorry that you are still having problems. For me, the problem is solved. That is why I marked this thread as solved.

Dave001 · 24 Mar 2018

DoItJust said:

As I have explained earlier, the ghost phone(s) mac address is not on the router. The phone is just made up by Win10. It's a bug.
Not solved.

Old post, but thought I'd reply with a fix anyway.

Disabling WPS on my router fixed the ghost phone problem for me.

cheesethin · 30 May 2019

Dave001 said:

Old post, but thought I'd reply with a fix anyway.

Disabling WPS on my router fixed the ghost phone problem for me.

This link explains whats happening in the first place (it is just phones scanning for available networks, but not actually connecting). And gives possible solutions (though none actually required). Your WPS trick is one answer.

Fix: Unknown and Strange Devices Showing Up on Network - Appuals.com