I need some help understanding DHPC

I have a 2wire router. It's set up to give out just 3 ip's for 2 laptops and one for an xbox.

When one laptop connects to the router through an ethernet cable, does it automatically use the unused ip, and if so, would the router block it if the same laptop tries to go wireless?

 

Generally speaking, in most laptops when the wired ethernet connection is plugged in, the wireless connection is disabled, so you wouldn't get the situation you describe.

However, if you had both a wired and a wireless connection going at the same time on the same laptop, each would be assigned a separate IP by the router, thereby using up 2 IP addresses for the one computer. In your scenario, that would only leave 1 IP address remaining for either the other laptop or the xbox.

Otherwise, the router should, in general, be agnostic about how many connections a single laptop can make.

 

Oh ok.

Umm... the question wasn't about having simultaneous connections, it was about going back and forth between connection types, but your reply does answer the question, so thanks.

 

Unforunately, the question was ambiguous, so I tried to cover the alternatives it presented. Glad it helped, though.

 

yeah allislost. It does automatically give you an unused IP. The router will not block your wireless interface. it will gives you another IP but it may result problems with this settings. If you want to connect through ethernet, I will disable the wireless interface at your laptop.

Hopes that help

 

I keep both on, they connect to the same network just fine. all you need to know is that XP or Vista does not always choose the "smartest" connection to use.

 

OK. So since there are 4 ethernet ports on router, would using them automatically disconnect the wireless laptops in order to use the ethernet ports? I assume the ethernet ports would have ip priority, right?

And is there a site i can visit that would have this information? youknow... so i can stop asking more and more questions.

 

I dont know why you would want to limit the devices by using a limited number of dhcp leases. You would be better off using mac filtering and adding only the devices you want to have on the network in your allowed list. Doing what you are is giveing you no added security if you think it is.

 

This thread was about figuring out what is happening when our laptops would switch to ethernet and then back to wireless.

 

Yes, and that's been more than adequately answered; now you're getting the true benefit of group-diagnosis, free advice on questions you didn't even know you should be asking, such as why you've limited your router to only handing out 3 IP addresses.

 

Whoops! ha

I guess i didn't give a reason as to why i have the router set up to only hand out 3 ip's, huh? Well i use it as an excuse to make my brother believe that he can't use any other computers and/or game systems on the network.

 

You should be able to obtain the same effect via MAC filtering (although that will not work for a computer that is connected to the router via an ethernet cable instead of wirelessly). That way, you wouldn't need to so severely limit your IP addresses.

You should also be able to reserve IP addresses by MAC so that each time a computer connects to the router, it would get the same IP address - the one that had been reserved for the MAC on its network adapter. For a computer that connects both wirelessly and by wire, you would need to reserve two IP addresses, one for the MAC of the wireless adapter and the other for the MAC of the wired adapter.