2 android tablets have the same MAC address

Question

I have bought 2 DGM android tablets (OS - Google Android 4.0) and whilst setting them both up (at the same time) the wifi connection kept dropping.

I checked the MAC address so I could assign them a static IP address from the router, but noticed that they were both the same on the tablets.

I'm no whizz when it comes to IT (I know the basics), but I've searched the web for what can be done, and I don't understand any of it - BusyBox, rooted tablet, MAC Address spoofing.

Can someone please help me out - or point me to some (easy to understand and follow) tutorials?

Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

You didn't name your device -- but most likely got some China import. There were some readings a little time ago about this issue. Normally, a MAC address should be unique to the device -- the producer probably wanted to save some license costs...

Nevertheless, that background isn't going to help you much. There are some apps available on the Playstore which allow you to change the MAC address (search the playstore for "mac-address" to find them all), like e.g. Wireless Mac Changer or Set MAC address. Note, however, that all of them require root access on your device.

The only alternative known to me would be to return the device(s), explaining your reason (see above), and ask for an appropriate replacement.

Answer 2

This will depend but almost guarantee requiring the devices to be rooted in order to manipulate the hardware.

The only caveat emptor is, this needs root and busybox installed, and that the wifi is active:

1. Plug the usb cable to the device, and invoke this, adb shell.
2. Switch to superuser, i.e. su
3. Invoke this - busybox ifconfig wlan0 down to bring down the wifi device.
4. Invoke this - busybox ifconfig wlan0 | grep HWaddr, see below for Fig. 2a
5. The double X as shown in the captured output below in Fig. 2a, is the actual MAC address, I have this deliberately hidden as not to show it especially on the internet.
6. Invoke this - busybox ifconfig wlan0 hw ether 00:11:22:33:44:55, that should change the MAC address of that wifi device. (This part can be extremely hardware dependant in the aspect of, if the wifi device can allow this - Also if the kernel has the support for that wifi chipset, if that fails - a very cryptic message will appear - ip: SIOCSIFHWADDR: Operation not supported on transport endpoint meaning that the address for MAC spoofing is dis-allowed!)
7. If step 6 works, then to bring up the Wifi device again, invoke this busybox ifconfig wlan0 up, profit!

2a:

sh-4.1# busybox ifconfig wlan0 | grep HWaddr
wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX