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.