DHCP versus Static IPs on a Linksys LAN?

ImagoX · #1 October 8th, 2002, 06:05 PM

Hi all,

I recently had a hair-tearing issue with PCs on my LAN at home. I have 4 PCs on a LAN behind a Linksys 4 port Ethernet router. Up till now I had all of them on DHCP, with the NIC cards set to "Obtain AN IP Address Automatically". However, I started noticing issues where one of the PCs on the LAN, which had worked perfectoy for internet access, printer and file sharing, etc. would suddenly drop off the LAN- it could reach the internet, bit not do ANYTHING else- no FTP, chat, file sharing, etc.

At first I thought it was the OS of the PC, so I reloaded the OS. It fixed it for a while, but then it came back. Then I upgraded the firmware of the router- no dice. Then I got the router manufacturer to REPLACE the router- still no dice.

I bought a new PC (for unrelated reasons) in all this, hooked IT up, and a wek later I had the problem on THAT PC as well!

FINALLY, I noticed in lots of Linksys's dox that they say to turn OFF dynamic IP allocation and try STATIC routing for several OTHER issues so I tried it on the newest PC (running XP). What do you know- it cleared it up!! The PC suddenly was on the network, and was able to get to FTP, the web, email, file sharing, etc.

The question is: has anyone seenh this sort of wonky behavior before, and if so, did setting the IP manually on all the PCs NIC cards on the LAN clear it up? Thanks in advance!

**MishY** · #2 October 8th, 2002, 06:19 PM

Hi,

If you're only using the 4 PCs connected to your router and do not plan on adding any new PCs to your network by breaking it up with a switch or a hub I would say static IPs would be the best way to go. If you plan on expanding your network DHCP makes things dramatically easier for you.

I haven't had any experiences similar to yours using linksys routers.

When one of these computers seemingly drops off the network have you checked ipconfig to make sure it's lost the IP it had been assigned through DHCP ?

ImagoX · #3 October 8th, 2002, 06:50 PM

No, I didn't- that's a good idea to check. What I DID notice was that the PC had disappeared from the DHCP table on the router, but with the firmware version I had been running this happened all the time (IPs disappearing from the DHCP table) with no adverse effects.

I don't plan on adding any further PCs with a hub or other device, so I'll just change the IPs on the remaining 3 PCs to static, and hopefully that will fix this going forward. Thanks again!!