Windows 10: Strange phones in network

First off you came here asking. Second off, telling someone to move on, is a quick way to not get help from anyone on a forum.

Again, there are certain chipsets that Windows 10 misdiagnoses. First step is use a search engine to see if others are having the same problem, instead of posting first on some tech forum, expecting others to fix your problem.

The first tool to use is Speccy, to see if it sees everything. The second tool is Farbar's Service Scanner and Minitoolbox. Searching for farbar Changing registry settings and services on the whim will cause more problems then solve them.

 

Applying MAC filters is not an attempt to solve this ghost phone problem, it's just one part of a layered security approach to make sure that nothing unwanted connects to my network.
I have full control over everything on the network and the problem in this case is that windows sees devices that are not there.
I have no other explanation than another network bug -> we can't solve it but have to wait for MS to acknowledge it and fix it*Sad
Which is what we have to do with the other problem you mention; windows not seeing other devices that are present on the network.

 

First, Yes I did come on here asking the question. What I didn't do is ask someone to come off like they are better than the OP. Second, you were the one who first told me to move on, so go back to the first thing. Third, I did check out the web search as well as the forum first before posting. Let my iterate on this again. The problem is that I see them in NETWORK, NOT on my ROUTER. Can you understand that. NOT a MAC problem and not a ROUTER problem. Appearntly other people are having the same problem as I am. The reg settings that I changed DID HELP with the network seeing other computers. I have FULL control and able to SEE other computers in my network AFTER applying the reg hacks. So, I guess I did more harm than good with that one. You think someone with the IT background that you supposed to have will be more positive with his answers and be willing to help instead of putting people down.

 

I agree with you. This is not a MAC or ROUTER problem. This is a MS problem. While there are workarounds for a lot of things, which is why this forum is here, there are things that are still a MS mistery, which is why this forum is here. Hopefulley, others will come forward if they have this problem and with any luck, someone can put some light on this.

 

Madness10 I stated move on, that this was not a problem for others to throw their two cents in about random stuff for you to try. It was not pointed at you.

Windows 10 has been misidentifieing stuff with the last major rollout.

As for what it states is a phone, comes up as the same chipset that Acer uses in their tablets.

You have to look at the big picture.

A lot of tablet mfg's use the same chips in their tablets as what are used in cellphones.

As I stated before, you need to be using a search engine first, whether it is on this forum or on the web to see if anyone else is having the same problem.

It keeps down the number of duplicate threads.

 

DoItJust MAC filters has been proven to be a false sense of security. It does nothing for network security, since it can be circumvented.

In the real world, we are not using MAC filtering on the router, since anyone on the network can break through. It also causes big headaches in the home when equipment changes its lease. Especially with Windows 10. We are dealing with a Beta product at the moment, that has created a lot of headaches for people.

 

I took your comment about the different mnfr's using the same chipset, as I did not know that, and took it to the next level. My wife has a Motorola phone and I have a HTC phone. We both have a Samsung Tab 3. I turned off all the phones and tablets and tested to see if and what device might be causing this issue. I have came to the conclusion, that both mine and my wife's phone shares the same chipset as the ZTE, which is the phone that comes up in the network. Both of our tablets does nothing in the network. I know, that sometimes its a different phone than the ZTE that shows up. Now, after knowing all this, I can put this thread to rest and hopefully others that have been having this problem can find resolution like I have. Thank you for your help and hope there are no hard fellings about what has been transpiried here.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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

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