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[Mediocris]

I love this modem router. With one of the two ports always connected, in this case to a Siemens Gigaset VoIP base station the 2680 consumes 3W and 29 kWh per year. The other port is connected to a gigabit switch which is powered on when required. The ports appear to be energy aware?

The wireless though has proved difficult.

I recently bought this unit as a recycled one and noticed the first time I got to the web form that the SSID had been set to SKY1CFCD and assumed the unit had previously belonged to a Sky TV customer. So I did a hard reset and set the unit up with my own SSID. Then I hid the SSID.

No problem connecting on my laptops ( win7 and win8) but my LG 32LN575V could not see my SSID the only one it could see was SKY1CFCD and it wouldn't accept the password. So I went and set the router's SSID to SKY1CFCD and gave it a weak password. Yep! It connected and so did my laptops.

Next day my laptops would not connect. Strange, so I unhid the SSID and gave it a new name. The TV recognised the new SSID but it would not accept the password. The TV fortunately had a WPS feature so I hit the button on the router and it connected.

I keep on seeing SKY1CFCD on the win8 laptop but with only one bar as though its not getting a full power output. What I really want is to hide the SSID but my TV won't allow my SSID to be entered. I never got around to using WPS on SKY1CFCD. Anyway the SSID is unhidden and everything is connecting fine.

Whats going on? Do these modem/routers have a hard wired SSID that is not mentioned in the documentation?
   

[FurryNutz]

If you factory reset the modem, it should clear all that. Did you use the reset button in back?

What Browser are you using? Try IE or FF to manage and set up the router...

[Mediocris]

Yep! I used the reset button on the back several times. I never did a web form factory reset because the blurb said they did the same job. I'm not sure but I think it set the SSID to dlink. It would make sense for D-Link to hard wire an SSID for the reasons explained. But do we know for sure that this is the case?

[FurryNutz]

Yes, all D-Link WiFi products default to dlink when factory reset.

I would clear any browser cache after you factory reset. Ensure you fully clear out any browser history and cache.

What region are you located?

[Mediocris]

UK. Whats your relationship with D-Link? Can you find out for sure whether there is a hidden SSID built in?

Coincidentally, I installed today an add in called 'DNS Flusher' for another problem I had.

Can't see this causing the problem?

[FurryNutz]

We just volunteer and do some beta FW testing as external users. Were not employed by them.

Try using a different PC to set up the modem.

If nothing works, I recommend phone contacting your regional D-Link support office and inquire about this...

Let us know how it works out.

[Mediocris]

Well it turns out that the DSL-2680 does NOT have a hidden SSID hard wired into it.

I registered my unit with D-Link (I was already registered):

http://www.dlink.eu/support/ssplogin.html

This portal is heavy on Java and Firefox 24.0 doesn't like it. Instead use IE10 to see all the menus some of which disappear under FF.

I raised a case referring to what had been said here. The first response by them was to introduce me to inSSIDer v3 via a link. As soon as the instrumentation was launched I could see that the mysterious 'hidden' SSID did in fact come from a Sagecom WAP with a very weak 90dBm signal.

So I again hid my SSID and this is where things got interesting. InSSIDer displays at first a channel without an SSID. After hiding the SSID two channels appeared: one with my own SSID and a hidden channel.

I had no problems connecting the TV although I had to do it manually entering the SSID, password and encryption (AES). The only device that could not be connected was my Kindle touch mono e-reader. It wouldn't let me enter an SSID. In other words it didn't know about hidden SSID.

I wouldn't say I live a sheltered life but when it comes to microwave router smog, I do. InSSIDer revealed that mine was the only Wifi point in my neighbourhood with two more very weak points coming and going. Fortunately, the stronger unhidden SKY SSID was being picked up by the TV otherwise I would not have seen anything.

Out of interest today I took my laptop with me whilst my wife drove to my daughter who lives only a mile away. As soon as I left my vicinity the screen filled up with loads of wireless points' dozens of them. I was amazed at the number that were unsecured most of them BT but they could have been hot spots.

Had I lived just a bit nearer to this wifi smog I would have immediately twigged what was going on? But on my journey through this smog I never saw a single hidden channel wifi point – so much for strong security.

Just a note of caution on Win8 and inSSIDer, Win8 at first displays 'hidden network', you connect to it but the words 'hidden network' remain making you think that the router is sending out more than one channel. It isn't!

Whilst Windows has logged you onto a previously hidden channel it doesn't have the sense to realise that hidden network has the same MAC address as the one you previously connected to.

The danger is you might again try to connect using the same SSID – it will fail. The same applies to inSSIDer. It sees the hidden channel and the one you connected to but you can see that the MAC addresses are the same. Makes sense from an instrumentation point of view.

You will have fun playing around with hidden SSID, I know I did. Could not have sorted this without inSSIDer:

http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/

Try it its free.

 

[FurryNutz]

Glad you found the information and thanks for sharing.

Yes we know about InSSIDer and use it frequently.

Also review this for some Wireless Congestion info:
Router Troubleshooting Suggestions and Tips

Enjoy