I need a router that can reserve a wireless ip address

[Valerie]

I am looking for a router that will allow me to reserve ip adresses for computers that are connected to it. It doesn't matter what my virginmedia ip address is.

My husband does some videoconferencing from home but this only appears to work if his laptop gets the first assigned ip address ie my router is on 192.168.1.1 and the laptop needs to be 192.168.1.2

With our current router (netgear wgr614 - doesn't seem to have much in the way of configuration options) the only way we can get this to turn off all computers, reboot the router, and turn on hubbies pc first.

I'd like a wireless n router for speed and would prefer to be able to reserve a wireless ip address but a wired one would do. I've done some searching and think this might be possible - does anyone know of a router that can do this and that they'd recommen?

thanks

[Raistlin]

If you manually assign your husband's IP address in the laptop it will always retain it until you change the configuration again.

Assuming he's on XP:

Start > Control Panel > Network Connections
Right-click on the wireless conection and select 'Properties'
In the list of protocols in the middle scroll down to 'TCP/IP', click on it, now press the 'Properties' button
Set the following:
IP Address: 192.168.1.2
Netmask: 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway: 192.168.1.1
Preferred DNS Server: 192.168.1.1

Click ok on this window, then click ok on the previous window, both windows should now be closed.

Reboot the laptop and you should find everything is working fine and that the IP address is as you want it to be.

Note that if your husband wants to connect to a different network he may need to alter these settings or put them back to automatic.

[Valerie]

The problem with assigning the ip address from the laptop is a) hubby would need to change this when moving from work to home and b) the router will still have already given out the desired ip address to a home computer switched on before hubby's pc.

As far as we can see the video conferencing software requires him to be first on the router list. So I need to be able to reserve the ip address from the router or go through the rigmarole of switching everything off and rebooting the router.

[Maribel]

Originally Posted by Valerie

The problem with assigning the ip address from the laptop is a) hubby would need to change this when moving from work to home and b) the router will still have already given out the desired ip address to a home computer switched on before hubby's pc.

As far as we can see the video conferencing software requires him to be first on the router list. So I need to be able to reserve the ip address from the router or go through the rigmarole of switching everything off and rebooting the router.

Login to the router and then click "LAN IP setup" (bottom left hand side menu). You can assign IPs to the laptop and the rest of the devises there. If you need more detailed instructions, let me know.

[idi banashapan]

add your husbands machine to the DMZ on the router. This should forward on the data to the specified machine.

I have a linksys (WRT160N) which has all the options you'd ever need on it. for home use, I really can't fault it.

you could always use port forwarding too

[Valerie]

Maribel
I've reserved a lan ip for my husband and rebooted my laptop which had the offending ip address & it has now assigned me a different one - so far so good. Hubby out at present so can't see what his laptop would get when connected. However that is a lan rather than wireless so will look at Bender's suggestion of the Lynksys router too.

Bender
not sure how to add pc to dmz on my router. There is a 'default dmz server' mentioned on the wan setup page but I don't know if this is the right thing.

---------- Post added at 14:45 ---------- Previous post was at 14:24 ----------

yay success
hubby home and connected via wireless and got the desired ip address!! momentarily I (on .4) got a message saying there was an ip conflict so I repaired the ip connection (got .4) again and hubby got his .2 and was able to connect in to work. Hope this continues to work & many thanks for your help!!