Static IP addresses?

Fabio

Hi all,

I set up a static IP address on my desktop PC the other day and configured port forwarding for utorrent but somehow it seemed to cut off my laptop from the internet.

I have a Zyxel 600 series modem/router and once I had changed the settings to make utorrent faster, the laptop which uses the wireless feature of the modem/router could no longer get on the web. The desktop connects to the modem/router via ethernet cable and the web was fine on that.

I switched back all of the settings anyway so my laptop is fine on the web again but I am wondering could I put a static IP address on my laptop and do the port-forwarding thing on it without stopping my desktop from accessing the web.

Also, would it interfere with my laptop's ability to log into my college wireless network?

Any help would really be appreciated lads.

Hagar

Have you obtained a static IP address from your ISP?

Your session IP address is dynamically allocated by your ISP each time you log in. That means you probably will get a different IP address every time you start a new session.

If you set your current IP address to your current IP address as if it were a static address and get a different IP on your next login it won't match and therefore won't work.

Static IP addresses are normally just that, static.

They are intended for a permanent connection to the web at one location and as such are not really suited for a mobile computer such as a laptop. You could use a laptop with a static IP at your fixed location but to use it in college or elsewhere you would need to use an alternate configuration suited to dynamically allocated IP addresses.

Fabio

No I don't have a static IP from my ISP I don't think....

So basically if I fiddle with the IP settings on my laptop, I could feck up my web connection on other networks such as my college one?

Hagar

You pay extra for a static IP and you have a special contract for it so it's unlikely that you have one without knowing it.

Messing with your settings may cause problems elsewhere, if it works don't fix it.

rrpc

You're confusing private IP with public. The static IP the OP is referring to is the one that would be set up on the laptop instead of getting one from his router. Setting a static IP means that the laptop may not connect to other networks that use different private IP address ranges.

Eircom routers use the 192.168.1.xxx range, other networks may use 10.xxx.xxx.xxx or 172.xxx.xxx.xxx or even another subset of the 192 range. If you've set your static IP to say: 192.168.1.50 for an eircom router at home, then you won't be able to connect to a router that runs on the 192.168.0.xxx range for example.

It's always best to set laptops to obtain an IP address automatically. That way you can access any router that operates on any private IP range.

The public IP address is the one that eircom assigns to your router when it connects to their network. Everything behind the router uses this IP to access the internet. If you haven't paid for a fixed IP, then every time you connect, you get a different public address.

paulm17781

Do you know the IPs the laptop gets from the router? I would assume 192.168.1.x, the x is probably variable.

What you need to do is go into the router settings and either give it a list of static IPs or tell it to use a range of DHCP (This will lets say exclude 10 addresses). If you set the router to give out 192.168.1.10 - 192.168.1.240 via DHCP, you could then assign 192.168.1.241 to your laptop. Make sure you get your the default gateway, subnet mask (probably 255.255.255.0) and DNS addresses, you will need to enter these manually.

I use this kind of set up at home and it works fine. I can't give much help without seeing your set up but this should be possible to do.

Hope that helps.

I'd say the other machine was cut off due to an IP conflict, no two machines (on a network) can have the same IP. I would think you gave the desktop either the laptop or the router's public IP and this is why it didn't work.

Fabio

Thanks for all the replies lads. I think PaulM has hit the spot though with what occured...an IP conflict.

I am in no way good with networking....my weak point in my otherwise not bad knowledge of computing!

What I should do so to enable utorrent to work properly so is to give me router a static IP address outside of the DHCP list so that it avoids any IP conflicts as happened me before.

Is there an easy way to switch settings back to automatically get an IP address when using my college network???
Like going into network properties and select for the laptop to "obtain IP address automatically" rather than using the settings (ip address, dns, gateway etc.) I will have inputed manually???

Thanks again lads.

Fabio

By the way my set up is:

BT 1mb connection - Zyxel 600 series modem/router which links to my desktop via ethernet cable and my laptop runs off it wirelessly.

stanley1

Fabio wrote: »

By the way my set up is:

BT 1mb connection - Zyxel 600 series modem/router which links to my desktop via ethernet cable and my laptop runs off it wirelessly.

Try here, pick your router from list.

http://portforward.com/routers.htm

JohnnieM

You'll still need public static ip or use dynamic dns such as http://www.no-ip.com..
You can use private static ip all you want.. or you might find that the router can have a static dhcp which means your laptop gets the same ip address each time its located on that particular network..
good info there from rrpc

Clash

Fabio wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies lads. I think PaulM has hit the spot though with what occured...an IP conflict.

If you had an IP conflict, Windows should have notified you of it when you logged on.

What I should do so to enable utorrent to work properly so is to give me router a static IP address outside of the DHCP list so that it avoids any IP conflicts as happened me before.

Your router will have a private static IP by default. Eircom ones have 192.168.1.254 as their address. To run uTorrent you don't need a static public address,

Is there an easy way to switch settings back to automatically get an IP address when using my college network???
Like going into network properties and select for the laptop to "obtain IP address automatically" rather than using the settings (ip address, dns, gateway etc.) I will have inputed manually???
Thanks again lads.

Yes, if you click 'obtain automatically' that should do it, but you then have to input the full range when you want to go static again. Windows does not remember them.

Some routers will reserve an IP address for a particular machine, and some do it by default. You can force it to do this by restricting the range for the DHCP server right down to the number of devices that will connect. In other words if you have two computers, you can set the range to be from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.2 If your PC is always on, or always on standby, it should have the first one all the time and the other one will only be available for the laptop, so you'll always get the 192.168.1.2 address.

Fabio

Nice one lads and lassies....nice project for me to work on.