Netgear ethernet switch ip changes

Hi,

I have two PC's connected via a Netgear ethernet hub. But recently on every start up the IP address is changing from

169.254.207.245 to 169.254.127.90

Does anyone know why this is happening please?

Means that they are not connecting to the roter to get a IP assignment.

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. Do you know what is causing this?

Hearsepilot said:

Try powering up the network equipment before you boot the PC's

Or just leave it on. Really need more info on all network equipment they are using, not that they have a switch and a computer.

Hey, I may have found the problem. I have this ethernet hardware device connected to the switch and when i set the same IP address as the switch then restart the PC, the switch assigns a different IP address

Switches do not get assigned a IP.

Driver170 said:

Hey, I may have found the problem. I have this ethernet hardware device connected to the switch and when i set the same IP address as the switch then restart the PC, the switch assigns a different IP address

That will be because there is a duplicate address on the network and you really don't want duplicate IP addresses on a network - things get messy. To prevent that when assigning an APIPA address the proposed address will be checked via an ARP request to ensure that it is not already in use and if it is then another address will be selected from the subnet (and checked) until it finds one that is not in use.

I will also add that while seeing an APIPA address is usually a sign that something has gone wrong there are instances where an APIPA address is actually not an issue such as putting together a quick and dirty network for some devices to talk to each other but will never connect to anything outside that subnet. I suspect that this is one of those rare cases.

Calm Horizons said:

That will be because there is a duplicate address on the network and you really don't want duplicate IP addresses on a network - things get messy. To prevent that when assigning an APIPA address the proposed address will be checked via an ARP request to ensure that it is not already in use and if it is then another address will be selected from the subnet (and checked) until it finds one that is not in use.

I will also add that while seeing an APIPA address is usually a sign that something has gone wrong there are instances where an APIPA address is actually not an issue such as putting together a quick and dirty network for some devices to talk to each other but will never connect to anything outside that subnet. I suspect that this is one of those rare cases.

How can i set a static IP address? do i need to set a default gateway also