Static IP, should be easy!

[JoeDude]

I have my network setup now running from wall to modem to router to computers. The router handles the login and connection settings.

The router, a Linksys BEFSR41, is set to obtain IP automatically. Just like the ISP wants. It then assigns the IP's to my computers.

I had configured the router for a set of 10 IP addresses, then told my computers to report to the router with a static IP inside that range. Everything worked dandy for about 2 months.

Then, about 2 months ago, it suddenly stopped and just didn't work. I messed around a bit, set everything back to automatic in the computers, restarted/reset everything and bang it worked fine again.

What am I doing wrong to keep thse computers at static IP's from the router?

[Void Main]

First of all you want to assign static IP addresses *outside* of the DHCP range, not within it. Otherwise your router will assign that address to some other device eventually and you can't have two computers with the same IP address on the same network. Try assigning your machine a different address (outside the DHCP scope but still on the same network), then ping the old address and see if something else on your network got assigned the address you used to have assigned staticilly.

[JoeDude]

I can't believe I didn't see this before. In Setup, it has the internet values, which is set to obtain IP automatically. Then right under that, it has local network. I disabled local DHCP server. So now, I should pretty much be able to assign whatever IP I like, provided it's not a reserved one...correct?

[Void Main]

Well, in the example you show in your picture you can assign IP addresses in the range of 192.168.1.2 through 192.168.1.254 with a network of 192.168.1.0 and netmask of 255.255.255.0. The router is 192.168.1.1 and the broadcast address would be 192.168.1.255. But you might just as well have left DHCP turned on. You can still statically assign addresses in that range as long as they do not fall in the DHCP range (which would have been 192.168.1.100-192.168.1.110). Why would you not want to use DHCP? I actually do both at home. I assign static addresses to servers and use DHCP on everything else. I even force specific addresses via DHCP based on MAC addresses to a couple of my machines because I want to restrict them differently at the firewall.