Computer not showing on network and can't RDP since new internet

March 22, 2022 8:19 AM

Yesterday we switched internet provider to get FFTP. They installed their own "hub" (BT Smart Hub 2 if its relevant) and since then I've not been able to remote desktop connection to my other computer.

Prior to the switch over we had our OpenReach modem plugged into a TP Link Deco mesh. That worked great. The engineer came and installed a new box inside the house and plugged in the hub. We plugged the mesh into the box instead of the hub but that didn't work and we haven't had time to fiddle with it yet so we're just going with the hub, even at only 5% of the advertised speed, its still pretty fast so we can deal.
The problem is that I can no longer remote desktop to my desktop computer from my laptop.

We have 4 computers, 2 desktops and 2 laptops. When I look at my desktop computer's network,it can see my partner's desktop and my laptop (and the TV and the hub). On my laptop though, I can't see my desktop computer at all or my partner's desktop. (none of us can see my partner's laptop but its his work laptop so that's not so much of a bother)

I asked my partner to try to remote into my desktop and he could from his desktop but not the laptop.

Everything was working fine until we got the new hub.

To avoid having to reconnect every device in the house, when I get the hub I changed the network name and password to the same as the old network. My phone picked it up fine but the computers needed rebooting to connect.

I have checked that on both computers the network discovery is on and the network is private and the target computer still has remote desktop enabled. As I mentioned, my boyfriend can connect to it from his desktop but neither of our laptops can.

One thing I noticed is on mouseover the network is named MyNetwork 4 on the desktops and MyNetwork 3 on the laptops but I don't think that's relevant. I went into regedit and changed it to 4 and it still couldn't see the desktops and then I deleted all the old profiles from the registry and it hasn't made a difference.

posted by missmagenta to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

What's handling the IP address assignment, otherwise known as DHCP? The new box and the mesh network may be fighting and not assigning IP addresses correctly. Or, the computer may be insisting on sticking with its old IP address when the network is expecting everyone to grab new IP addresses. Running IPConfig on the 'invisible' computer may give you information on how it is trying to communicate with the rest of the network.
posted by AzraelBrown at 8:35 AM on March 22, 2022

Response by poster: The mesh is currently unplugged completely. We're just connecting with the Hub from the ISP. The invisible computer is only invisible to my laptop, the other desktop computer can see it and connect to it
posted by missmagenta at 8:40 AM on March 22, 2022

Are you sure you are all connected to the same network? Most of these modem/routers default to 2 separate connections, a regular one for the 2.4 GHz band and a 5 GHz one. If you ended up connected to different ones they won't see each other.
posted by kschang at 9:12 AM on March 22, 2022 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I don't seem to have the option to choose between the 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz (with our original router we had both listed as wifi networks, then we got the mesh and only had 1 version, now with the new BT hub there is only 1 option)

I don't think that's the issue though. I just fired up my old laptop and it can connect to my desktop. Both the old laptop and the desktop were on 2.4 but I asked my partner to try again and he can connect from his laptop now and not the desktop (before it was the other way around) and according to the hub they're both on 5Ghz (as is my new laptop)

Also according to the network view in windows, the desktop could see the laptop but the laptop couldn't see the desktop
posted by missmagenta at 9:34 AM on March 22, 2022