Belkin USB Network Hub (Model F5L009) - Control Center Can't Find the Belkin USB Network Hub

Submitted by Kevin Kleinfelter on Sun, 10/26/2008 - 13:17

I had the devil of a time getting a Belkin USB Network Hub (Model F5L009) to work.  Symptoms included:

  • I could ping the device (after I located its IP address from my DHCP server)
  • I could open the device's web server (using its IP address from my DHCP server)
  • Other computers on my network could see it
  • On my laptop (from the real machine and from a virtual machine), "Control Center" (the device's user interface) clicking "Manage Network USB Hubs" (from the "Search for and manage Network USB Hubs" prompt) would always bring up an empty "Connected Network USB Hubs" list.

I tried the following to no avail:

  • Disabling McAfee
  • Windows Firewall was already disabled
  • Rebooting
  • Re-installing the driver
  • Adding another Ethernet device (a Belking USB Ethernet Dongle)

Along the way, I decided to disable ALL other NICs (including the Microsoft Loopback Adapter), and it started working.  Eventually, I narrowed it down to the loopback adapter. 

Solution -- Disable Microsoft Loopback Adapter.

BTW - Support from Belking was abyssmal.  It was pigin English, and it suggested that I try a number of troubleshooting steps that were clearly proven to be unnecessary from my list of what I had tried.  (i.e. Don't tell me to check to see if I have my Ethernet cable plugged into my laptop.  If I can ping the device, I clearly have a network connection!)

Of course, like many problems, once you know the solution, it is trivial to repeat the solution.  However, it took me weeks of part-time troubleshooting to discover the loopback adapter as the root cause.

Another note: If you extract (via 7-zip) the setup.exe for this device, then you can get a prompt to enter the device MAC address if you run ...\utility\wired\setup.exe from the extracted folder.

Update:

After all that work to get the Control Center to see the hub, it could see the devices on the hub, but it still couldn't "connect" to them.  There is nothing in the way of diagnostic messages to provide a clue as to why it can't connect.  The Belkin FAQ suggests a firewall or a VPN problem, but neither is active on my (real or virtual) machine.  I'm throwing it out.  After ~20 hours, the opportunity cost (in MBA terminology) is just too much.  From what I read, for many people, even when they get it connected, it is an unreliable connection.  One less piece of clutter in my home.

Comments

hansjoerg (not verified)

Tue, 11/18/2008 - 07:09

Comment: 

Hello, maybe almost too late, but I found at http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-528161.html
the following (and it works with loopback driver!):
In the windoze driver, when you click Configure General (click on the word general), you'll get a "Network USB Hub Settings" dialoge with a little window showing the hubs you are connected to, which is of course, empty. Now, if you click on refresh options, THE TRICK FOR NEW PLAYERS IS HERE. They specifically ask for the broadcast address of the subnet your network hub is on....DON'T BE FOOLED! You're suppose to enter the IP of the hub not the broadcast address like the dialog tells you. When you do, you can see the devices.

Anonymous (not verified)

Mon, 01/26/2009 - 23:55

Comment: 

After hours of screwing around with mine (same problem, everything was set up right, no firewall or av issues, but couldn't connect to the hub)  as soon as I put the hub's IP in the broadcast box it worked like a champ!  Thanks.

TXBBQ (not verified)

Tue, 01/19/2010 - 17:47

Comment: 

I had the same problem, and let me say I can't agree MORE that Belkin's  (non)'support' IS ABYSMAL!!! I will NEVER buy another Belkin product.  That said, hansjoerg's direction worked perfectly for me. That was exactly it! Interestingly though, after reading a couple of other about changing the last ip number to 255, I tried it, and that did not work. However, when I removed the ip addy totally, unchecked the "administer network" box and clicked "apply" the HUB still sees all my devices, and it worked just as it always did. Mine stopped working suddenly although I had not changed anything! Now it's working again. Go figure!

Anonymous (not verified)

Thu, 02/04/2010 - 14:38

Comment: 

Thanks for the advice. I had many issues after doing one of the more recent windows updates to XP Pro (no issue with my Macs...) The solution to check "administer network" and add the router address with the 255 worked immediately. You guys saved me from a lot more frustration...
Cheers

Heart (not verified)

Sun, 03/21/2010 - 12:25

Comment: 

On my network we manually set the ip's to 10.0.0.xxx. How do I find the ip of the F5L009 so I can get into it and manually set the ip? I have tried resetting it, 192.168.1.1, .2, & .255. Is there some dos window command like ping that will list all of the ip's connected and pingable?

Anonymous (not verified)

Sun, 02/21/2010 - 20:26

Comment: 

I had a similar issue.  Devices would not display in the Belkin control center.
I have VPN and I had to open the AT&T Global Network Firewall and uncheck the box for my wireless network connection which was listed as an Adapter.  Now it works fine.

Kyran (not verified)

Mon, 09/06/2010 - 16:31

Comment: 

Yeah that worked for me! Strangely tho I had it working first then it decided to stop working but all the other systems on my home networkcould see it!
 
Thanks for putting this out there, helped amazingly :)

carlo (not verified)

Mon, 01/10/2011 - 15:14

Comment: 

thanks guys I also experienced similar troubles and was nearly to throw the damned piece of plastic out of the window: the appearance or not of connected devices seemed totally random not predictable and of course even less controllable
i forced the ip as suggested by erik and now it works seemingly constantly
grazie, ciaooo!!!

Anonymous (not verified)

Thu, 03/10/2011 - 01:09

Comment: 

I got network usb hub (F5L009) working with the driver for a F7D4301 Play Max Wireless Router. Please see instructions I posted on the following website

http://www.sevenforums.com/network-sharing/2821-belkin-network-usb-hub-f...

I personally had issues with the silex software and windows 7 64x. It would intermittently drop the devices connected to it.
The F7D4301 driver has been working well for close to a month with the network usb hub.

Anonymous (not verified)

Wed, 03/30/2011 - 08:14

Comment: 

Great tip ! that's it, you have to enter the ip address of the usb-hub ;)

Damon (not verified)

Tue, 08/30/2011 - 15:02

Comment: 

This was a real nightmare espically for people who are not familar with routers, etc. I wasted a lot of time playing with firewall settings, etc and was about to give up when I stumbled upon the solution.
The solultion was to get the IP address of the HUB from DHCP Active IP Table this will vary from system to system but for me it was 192.168.1.101. This allowed me to log on the HUb (the password is field is empty) and confirm it was working.
I then added this IP address to the Port Forwarding section for the required TCP/UDP port i.e. 19540. I am not sure if this was necessary.
The key was to manually add this IP address to the list of broadcast networks under the find hubs refresh options of the belkin software. Something which would never of occured to me if it had not been for someone elses post in this forum.
Cheers

Damon

Anonymous (not verified)

Mon, 05/04/2009 - 00:26

Comment: 

I have the new software version 1.4 and the new firmware installed on mine. I was able to see the hub from the desktop, but not from the laptop. Actually, I saw it once and managed to install the printer, which worked for a few days and then I lost the connection. I was about to throw this thing against the wall until I saw this post.
Anyway, the broadcast address tip worked for me, but I didn't want to really put in the actual IP of the hub since it's on DHCP. I took a chance and tried 192.168.1.255, which is the broadcast address for a default router set to 192.168.1.1 with 255.255.255.0 for subnet mask. Anyway, this worked for me without having to disable any interfaces. We'll have to see for how long...
I do have my router flashed with DD-WRT firmware and I had enabled to VPN client, but there's no reason for the desktop to work but not the laptop.

Anonymous (not verified)

Mon, 05/11/2009 - 22:33

Comment: 

Bought a hub on EBay and after installing it via the manual (first mistake) it didn't work.  Thankfully this forum exists.
 
192.168.1.255 worked great.  Thank-you.

Rich (not verified)

Sun, 07/19/2009 - 01:50

Comment: 

I had the same problem.  The Belkin network USB hub was set to 192.168.1.150 right out of the box and would not DHCP with my router that was set to the 192.168.0.0 /24 range.    Since I was not going to reconfigure my entire home network to talk to it, I emailed Belkin support.   I got the most useless response back that you could ever imagine.
Then I did some research on the web and found out how to reset the box to factory defaults:
- Unplug power
- Press and hold the reset button while plugging the power back in
- Hold for 15 seconds.
Thats it.  The box DHCP'ed normally and has worked perfectly ever since.

It's Me (not verified)

Sun, 08/09/2009 - 01:30

Comment: 

Thanks Rich, I spent hours before finding your message. I did exactly what you said and everything is working fine.
 
 

Steve (not verified)

Mon, 10/05/2009 - 21:46

Comment: 

I also want to thank you, Rich.  Could not get the thing to work with any other suggestions.  It's default IP address was something like 79..., not the typical 192.168.1.xxx.  I couldn't get it to take anything else...

Anonymous (not verified)

Tue, 12/29/2009 - 05:06

Comment: 

Wow.  I had tried everything.  I stumbled across your post and it was so simple.  Thanks for this, Rich.
Tbone

zach (not verified)

Sun, 01/17/2010 - 11:34

Comment: 

i installed this on an xp & two windows 7 machines.
one of the windows 7 machines would see the devices in the control center, but wouldn't connect to them. (it would act like it would for a few seconds then quit).
I turned off the windows firewall & rebooted with no success.
Wierd enough, I turned the firewall back on & checked the inbound/outbound rules. The Belkin software totally screwed up the rules.
I had to edit the inbound & outbound rules it created & check the boxes so the rules would apply on private profiles.
Then, create an inbound rule (or check the settings if its already there) called SXUPTP. Make sure private profile box is checked, & this needs to open UDP port 19540.
That worked for me...seems rather interesting that windows firewall still seemed to be on even after i theoretically turned it off...

Hop Frog (not verified)

Mon, 12/20/2010 - 16:45

Comment: 

Hello Zach,
Can you tell me what Firewall you changed and how?
I have the same problem as you -- upgraded to Win7 and now my F5L009 will not work. The control center software sees the devices, but they can not connect. I have Windows firewall turned on, but also am running Comodo firewall free edition. Even if I turn both off, I still have the same problem though. Thanks!
Hop
Ps, I'm not a newbie, but I'm not an expert either, so if you can be as detailed as possible, that would be great. Thanks!

dirk adamsky (not verified)

Fri, 03/26/2010 - 04:04

Comment: 

Hi Kevin,
 
I also had big problems with the Belkin. I have installed the software (the combined Belkin and Silex software) on a win 2003 server. After that the connect.exe found the hub and did see the hardlock key (Aladdin) but I could not connect. After I disabled the windows firewall the belkin could connect to the Aladdin hardlock key. Right now I am trying to find out which firewall ports I have to exclude.

 

Feenix (not verified)

Mon, 06/21/2010 - 20:20

Comment: 

i had this running on my laptop but reinstalled windows and couldnt find the hub. I have my hub running through my att uverse recever and wrks great with all my other computers...but couldnt find from laptop...after using refresh options and inputing the ip address of the hub it seems to be wrking now...thanks to all that posted, and agree belkins websit was no help....the least they could do is give a link to this page.

Tacis (not verified)

Sat, 09/04/2010 - 14:21

Comment: 

I reviewed the posts and none quite applied to my problem.  I have had great success with my Belkin hub.  I did suddenly, after allowing another computer access one of the dirves lose the ability of any of them to appear in the My Computer window.  By pure luck, and  two days of trying to deal with Belkin's wothless support system, stumbled on this solutions.  I went to My Computer then Network then double clicked Network USB Hub and everything appeared in the My Computer window.  Hope this helps.

Anonymous (not verified)

Thu, 03/10/2011 - 05:51

Comment: 

Please see my detailed post at:

http://www.sevenforums.com/network-sharing/2821-belkin-network-usb-hub-f...

I was able to get windows 7 working with the belkin usb network hub over wifi with new drivers software. I tried the silex america software and it worked intermittently. It would connect and disconnect periodically.

The new software is for a belkin router with a usb hub built into it, but it appears to use the same chipset at the belkin router. It has worked well for me with a fujistu scanner.

Good Luck.

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