So, I bought a Huawei AX3 Quad core router to try and replace my terrible BT Home Hub, that despite being replaced, decides to reboot itself randomly. However, when I pop the old school phone style cable into the Huawei WAN port, it simply won't recognise that its plugged in and just says "no cable detected" When I pop it back in the Home Hub again, no problems. Any ideas?
What internet have you got? FTTC or FTTP? Does the new router's modem tech match what's required for your connection? For FTTC, have you thought about getting a dedicated modem?
Unfortunately as far as I can tell the Huawei is just a router, which would mean it'd need a separate modem. Something the BT Hub has built in. You can buy modems separately if you want - example
Are you plugging an RJ11 (telephone) cable into an RJ45 (Ethernet) socket? If so, that won't work. I mean, it'll fit, but it won't work. The AX3 has no internal modem: it won't talk to an ADSL/VDSL/xDSL line. You'll need a modem between the two - possibly your old BT Home Hub, although that won't fix the problem of the Home Hub rebooting randomly. Otherwise, you'll have to buy a dedicated xDSL modem with Ethernet, or a different new router and send the AX3 back. EDIT: Ninja'd by noizdaemon666!
As others have said, you need a modem, best thing to do is get BT to provide a new hub, they provide it as part of their service, they should send out a replacement after going through diagnostics, you can get alternate modems like the Draytek but you need to know what type of internet service you have, is it G fast etc. If you have an AX3 as a replacement for you home hub alone, it is the wrong thing, if you have them for a cheap mesh setup then you would need to feed them internet from the Homehub into the WAN port. I have been using these all year and have proven to be very reliable.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I am so dumb. Basically I didn't research it because I got given it ages ago, and just assumed it was a modem/router when I thought "oh I should use that AX3 I have in the box in the cupboard" It is hard to tell if the modem is rebooting - but basically I lose all internet connectivity. I might try using the AX3 for WIFI and see if its just the Home Hubs Wifi router that is terrible, rather than the modem.
So I bought one of these a while back which just works, it's dumb and simple which is what I like ... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/224315980766?hash=item343a463bde:g:iSAAAOSws85giVeM
This seems to be the case generally with hardware provided by the telco. The Virgin HH3 for example, (I have one...), is notorious for flaky and inconsistent WiFi
At least, on the bright side - You can replace the BT ones. Virgin's DOCSIS setup means replacing the router is a nightmare. When BT first did their inital FTTC rollout - They reused the existing HH3 (I think? This is going back a bit) and threw on a Modem to the back. Those modems, so far as I'm aware, still work, although they are a little rare now. Might be worth seeing if you can pick one of those up. Alternatively, for the grand cost of £0: See if the Homehub stops faffing about if you throw it into Modem Mode, since it should then have much lower load; if it's something temp related (Again - HH3's had a real bad habit of melting Wifi out from heat); that should help stop it misbehaving.
That's backwards isn't it, VM can go into modem mode and you use your own router solution, the BT FTTC modems don't typically offer this functionality, the FTTP ones do.
