For example, you might sign up for a few hours of Wi-Fi on your tablet. You shouldn’t use this to bypass time restrictions on a network, but you can transfer your connection time to another MAC address. Once I changed my new laptop to my old laptop’s MAC address I got into the network.Īnother reason to change your MAC address is for wifi networks that limit the time or number of connections. The IT help desk was closed, but I needed to connect to the network with a different laptop. I ran into this problem once connecting to my office computer. Your router or another piece of hardware might only accept or give out connections to a particular MAC address. The most common reason for changing your MAC address is some other device is locked to an old address. If you change it to an existing number, you’ll confuse your network. It’s like the phone number of your hardware. This setting doesn’t give you any speed or performance benefit.
With a little change to his MAC address, he’s in the network! | Shutterstock Why Would You Want to Change it? Apple and Microsoft don’t make it easy to change your MAC address, but it is possible. Generally, it just works, but sometimes you need to change it. The MAC (media access controller) address is a unique identification number for your computer’s networking hardware.
