Originally Posted by Bender

not really... an APIPA address merely means that a DHCP server cannot be contacted whilst the machine is set to automatically obtain an address from a DHCP server. It could be for any number of reasons, not necessarily a PC issue. the machine will then assign itself an address with the 169.254.0.1 through 169.254.255.254 range on a subnet of 255.255.0.0. The machine will continue checking for a DHCP server and if it finds one, will reassign an IP to what it is given.

---------- Post added at 23:19 ---------- Previous post was at 23:07 ----------

simplesimon is right to suggest checking your scope to ensure there are enough IPs free, but that should not really give you an APIPA address assignment without an error stating the DHCP is out of scope addresses. all the same, try reducing the lease time of your scoped IP range to something like 2 hours (i think default is something like 8 days). This means if a renewal request is not sent for that IP in that time, the IP will be free for another device to use.

have you looked in the event log for any further info?

check your network settings to ensure you have configured your DHCP addresses correctly on the machine in question. it may be looking for the DHCP on the wrong IP, or indeed, not at all.

trya different cable and port too - preferably using a physical connection from a known working device.