Welcome to Thunderdome

GORDON wrote: Last time I had a router problem with symptoms like that, it ended up being an IP conflict. Two things with the same IP.

What decade was that?

We use the Nest WIFI and no issues.

A decade ago I was securing my shit by assigning an IP to each device, and I had an allowable range of IPs. This kept my guest wifi somewhat secure.

Over.time the number of machines getting replaced was adding up, and there were like 3x more. I opened up the IP range and turned on ... I'm drawing a blank on the common term. The thing that auto-assigns IPs.

It took years, but finally there was a conflict between an auto assigned IP, and one I hard coded into a LAN setting.

GORDON wrote: The thing that auto-assigns IPs.

DHCP

GORDON wrote: t took years, but finally there was a conflict between an auto assigned IP, and one I hard coded into a LAN setting.

Always keep your DHCP range separate from your hard-coded IPs.

What's strange is that my kid's PC has a mind of its own, when it comes to IPs. His machines have been running fine for years, but not recently. Every two months or so Win10 completely forgets how to pull an IP from the router. My range is the standard 192.169.whatever.... and suddenly that machine wants to be 69.something.something.whatever. I have to go into TCP settings and hard-assign the IP, DNS, and subnet. It's all jacked. DHCP settings are still "let the router assign the IP," but it ends up assigned something weird and can't connect to the internet at all until I fix it.

I suspected a malware hijacker for a while, but all scans come up clean. Dunno.

GORDON wrote: What's strange is that my kid's PC has a mind of its own, when it comes to IPs. His machines have been running fine for years, but not recently. Every two months or so Win10 completely forgets how to pull an IP from the router. My range is the standard 192.169.whatever.... and suddenly that machine wants to be 69.something.something.whatever. I have to go into TCP settings and hard-assign the IP, DNS, and subnet. It's all jacked. DHCP settings are still "let the router assign the IP," but it ends up assigned something weird and can't connect to the internet at all until I fix it.

That could be many things, although some on board software is likely.

Scratch and reload his PC. See if the problem still exists.

If you mean 169.254.x.x, that means his PC is not finding the DHCP server or the server is ignoring it. When a PC boots, it broadcasts an IP address request. If it doesn't receive a response, it will auto assign an address in that range to attempt an ad-hoc network with other devices.

My laptop is having issues with it's wireless card. It will often boot and not get an address. It actually shows connected to the router, but with 'no internet' access. I used to reboot to fix it. I have since discovered disabling and enabling the wireless fixes it. In essence, rebooting the wireless card. Like mine, it is probably something local to his machine, or possibly network port. Has he kicked/damaged his cable? Probably not, but worth a quick look just to make sure. My bet, failing PC hardware.

Cakedaddy wrote: My bet, failing PC hardware.

Thus, scratch and reload to start. If it continues, then yes, it's hardware.

Leisher wrote:

Cakedaddy wrote: My bet, failing PC hardware.

Thus, scratch and reload to start. If it continues, then yes, it's hardware.

I went with: It's a minor inconvenience right now, so just live with it. Start shopping for a new laptop to replace this 3+ year old one because reloading is less fun than getting a new one.

Topical:

My new cell phone grabbed the same IP my laptop uses. Suddenly, laptop couldn't connect to much either on LAN or or WAN. Both were set to DHCP.

Manually changed laptop IP to something farther up the range, working now.

It may be time to replace the main house router.

Yeah, that should not be happening, particularly so often.

Leisher wrote: Won this is a conference call Monday. Arrived today.

Nice

I just slaved another router upstairs (turned of DHCP), to my main router in the basement to act as a makeshift wireless access point.... years ago. Now they sell those pods to act as WAPs on the consumer level.

GORDON wrote: WAPs

Yeah, that crossed my mind as I said it.