Windows 10: Random Mac Address On System Boot Seen by Fing Box

Ever since the upgrade from Windows 1809 to 1909, around the beginning of January 2020, my computer produces a random generated mac address from my NIC (not wireless but wired) as seen by my Fing Box. The Fing Box monitors my network for suspicious activity as well as a slue of other features. Including the ability to auto block new wired and wireless connections on the network. I have used this device since its debut a couple years ago and it's never shown this issue before. What is happening is, when my computer boots up Fing notifies me of a new mac address and it is consistent with every boot. And then, only moments later it will disappear, Fing stating it was online for about a minute then it went offline. I first dove into the Fing community and even though there are some reports of this problem happening with other Fing users, I tried the supposed fixes and it has not worked for me, making me think it is an OS issue. As is I believe my OS is somehow for some reason creating a random mac address every time it boots. Here is what I have done so far to troubleshoot...

1. Turned off virtualization in the BIOS and Windows features
2. Disabled the onboard NIC and installed a 3rd party NIC
3. Disabled all hyper v related services
4. Tried a wireless adapter (which does not replicate the problem, only hard wired NIC's seem to cause the issue)
5. Uninstalled onboard NIC drivers and installed original drivers from ASUS and newer drivers from realtek. Also used Microsofts drivers
6. Disabled the onboard NIC which then fixes the problem but then no internet
7. Ran virus scans using Malwarebytes and Windows Security
8. Performed a Windows repair install

I looked over mac address randomization within Windows and it appears to apply to wireless connections only the problem happens over wired connections. The randomly generated mac address's are always different and, do not match my NIC's actual mac address. And the problem does not seem to appear when waking the computer from sleep. It only seems to occur starting from a fresh boot. My network has not changed for a couple years now. I am using Google Wifi (mesh) with Fing Box and a couple unmanned switches.

At this point any guidance would be helpful as to what I should do next. Thank you.

:)

 

About MAC Randomization feature

Hello vikasvashishtha,

Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.

Random hardware addresses are used to make it harder for people to track our location when you connect to different Wi-Fi networks. To enable the feature, you need to have appropriate drivers installed on your machine. However, to address your
questions, kindly check with the below mentioned answers:

1. MAC randomization works with all type of networks.
   
2. Unless the device is connected to the network/Wi-Fi, it cannot be tracked. The MAC address can be used to track your device as it connects to various Wi-Fi access points. Hence, by enabling MAC address randomization, it is hard
   to track the device. The device can still be tracked using other information.
   
3. No, MAC address won’t change after getting connected to 1 network unless you have enabled 'Use random hardware addresses for this network'.
   
4. Yes, every network device has a unique MAC address.
   

Regards,

Mala S

Microsoft Community - Moderator

 

Change Mac address

The MAC address is like your devices ID ,so short of being able to change very core settings ,you're not gonna be able to do anything unless I'm mistaken.

Maybe you don't need to change your MAC address, what is it you're trying to accomplish?

Spoiler: I found this change mac w/o root I can't say whether or not this is an effective method it's just a method I found after searching this topic .
I cant say whether or not it is "safe" or if the software required is free. use at your own risk.

Change MAC Address of Android Devices without Root Access

Go to Settings>About Phone>Select Status and then make a note of the current MAC Address of your Android device.
Download the Android Terminal Emulator application from the Google Play Store. You can directly navigate to the Android Terminal Emulator Google Play Store download page by clicking here.
Launch the above application on your Android device and then type “IP LINK SHOW”.
Note the interface name of your Android device from the list.
And then type in the command below,
ip link set interfacename XX:XX:XX:YY:YY:YY
Replace interfacename with the Interface Name of your network that you noted in Step 4 above and XX:XX:XX:YY:YY:YY with the MAC Address you wish to set.
And that’s it. The MAC Address of your Android device will now be modified/changed.

 

Mac Addresses

There is a physical address list is that the same as mac address?

Of course it says it is a HW address list