Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Random Device Showing Up In My Network

R

rossgumbrell

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 8, 2006
100
35
Hove, South East England
Right, it seems this has come out of the blue. Im wondering if anyone can help me.

We have a wireless network in the house (Netgear DG834N) with the following devices connected to the network (as of typing this):

1 x iMac
2 x Macbooks

Im using a macbook myself, it shows the other macbook and the imac in the 'shared items' in the finder sidebar.

However, recently its been showing:

a 'PC server' named: mac001ff354bb00

our wireless network is password protected and secure. im curious as to what this item is???? anyone?? Is someone hacking?

We live in a suburb (only around 5 house may be able to see our network as its draft-N), and still had this random device showing up when we had a Netgear DG834G.

On a side note. We have a few other things in the house which are wireless enabled but NOT connected (or even switched on for that matter...):

Another iMac
2 x PBG4
2 x Ipod Touches
2 x Sony Vaio's
1 x advent desktop
3 x sonos systems
1 x sonos controller
1 x PSP
1 x Xbox 360.
 
rossgumbrell said:
Right, it seems this has come out of the blue. Im wondering if anyone can help me.

We have a wireless network in the house (Netgear DG834N) with the following devices connected to the network (as of typing this):

1 x iMac
2 x Macbooks

Im using a macbook myself, it shows the other macbook and the imac in the 'shared items' in the finder sidebar.

However, recently its been showing:

a 'PC server' named: mac001ff354bb00

our wireless network is password protected and secure. im curious as to what this item is???? anyone?? Is someone hacking?

We live in a suburb (only around 5 house may be able to see our network as its draft-N), and still had this random device showing up when we had a Netgear DG834G.

On a side note. We have a few other things in the house which are wireless enabled but NOT connected (or even switched on for that matter...):

Another iMac
2 x PBG4
2 x Ipod Touches
2 x Sony Vaio's
1 x advent desktop
3 x sonos systems
1 x sonos controller
1 x PSP
1 x Xbox 360.
Click to expand...

What you are seeing is your neighbor(s) pc's etc. that are within range of your wireless router. Apparently even though your network is secure, theirs are not. You may want to let them know. It is nothing to worry about on your end, but on their end it should be cause for alarm.
 
merl1n said:
What you are seeing is your neighbor(s) pc's etc. that are within range of your wireless router. Apparently even though your network is secure, theirs are not. You may want to let them know. It is nothing to worry about on your end, but on their end it should be cause for alarm.
Click to expand...

Sorry I left out something.

Your other devices (even though they are off) are probably cached. You can download OnyX (a free maintenance utility) and clear all of your caches, but one you power them back on, they probably will be cached again.

Again, this is nothing to worry about.
 
merl1n said:
What you are seeing is your neighbor(s) pc's etc. that are within range of your wireless router. Apparently even though your network is secure, theirs are not. You may want to let them know. It is nothing to worry about on your end, but on their end it should be cause for alarm.
Click to expand...

but a computer has to *connect* to a network for it to show up in shared item list?
 
rossgumbrell said:
but a computer has to *connect* to a network for it to show up in shared item list?
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. Your router is on an ISP network. If your neighbor is using the same ISP and his router is not secure and he has some sort of file sharing enabled, your router will detect the presence and forward that to your Mac.
 
On further investigation after setting the router up with a MAC address access list i noticed that the random device has the same MAC address as my mum's new 24" iMac although it shows up along side this in the 'shared' sidebar.

Its showing up as a 'PC Server' and sometime its there when shes connected to the network, sometimes its not. Though we have noticed that when this 'PC server device' is connected to the network, the whole network crawls along very slowly and her iMac isnt even able to load up any web pages (using safari) or connect to any other computers for filesharing or vice versa.

Could this possibly be a new breed of Virus/Trojan thats come through!? :confused:

:apple::apple::apple:
 
merl1n said:
Not necessarily. Your router is on an ISP network. If your neighbor is using the same ISP and his router is not secure and he has some sort of file sharing enabled, your router will detect the presence and forward that to your Mac.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I think you're wrong here.

The router will act as a firewall, it will also be his NAT server, his computers will be on a local subnet IP addresses e.g. 192.168.1.xxx

I find it highly unlikely that any computer that's not in his local subnet would show up as shared in the sidebar.

OP try;

Disconnect the WAN cable and see if it still shows up.

Have you tried clicking on the PC Server share?
 
iBecks said:
Sorry, I think you're wrong here.

The router will act as a firewall, it will also be his NAT server, his computers will be on a local subnet IP addresses e.g. 192.168.1.xxx

I find it highly unlikely that any computer that's not in his local subnet would show up as shared in the sidebar.

OP try;

Disconnect the WAN cable and see if it still shows up.

Have you tried clicking on the PC Server share?
Click to expand...

Yeah, i thought it sounded a bit unlikely. Also, we are using an ISP that is mainly used for commercial properties and not residential. This is because i spent 9 months working in the south coasts (England) leading Apple Premium Reseller, who had a sub company who supply internet. Got the internet for 1/2 price as i worked there.

I have tried disconnecting all the cables from the router, hard re-set the router, and upgraded the firmware on it. All with no luck. Its deffo to do with the iMac.

Ive connected as a guest to the device and tried connecting using my mums login to it but with no luck. Though looking back, i used her full name and not her short name to connect to it, maybe why thats why i couldnt connect. I will try with her short name when it appears again, as of right now, its not showing up, only her iMac is.

When connected as a Guest, no files or folders are shown in the device and i am unable to drag any files into it.

Side note: NO computers in the house are set up to use Boot Camp or any kind of those programs (Parallels etc).

:apple::apple::apple:
 
I recently had the same (or similar issue). I have an iMac G5 and out of the blue a device named PowerMac with a MAC address after it started showing up. It was similar to my address and I thought I'd seen it before.
Anyways, turns out that it is the Ethernet MAC (I'm connected via Airport).
So, I went to Sharing in the System Preferences and noticed that my computer name had been changed to blank. So I just put back my old computer name and it solved it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back