Assignment of IP Address

R

roker

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I have another question, if you don’t mind. As you can gather I am new to networking and cannot seem to find my answers in books magazines etc.
I am one of those people with an unstable wireless HP printer.

I assume that the Netgear router assigns an IP address when it is switched on, eg. to my laptop and printer if they are switched on also.

My son and granddaughter are with me temporarily and have been connecting to my wireless.
If I switch off my printer, can the router set up the IP address to my granddaughter or sons laptop that the printer was previously using? Thus messing up my printer configuration.
 
My answer would be no for the simple fact that if the printer changed IP addresses then it would have to be reset up everytime you turn the printer off and back on. I think once an IP addresses gets assigned to a device it gets reserved to that device until the router has a hard reset done possibly.

So the answer you are looking for is no. The printer should be in sleep mode if its not in use so really there is no sense in shutting it off.
 
just learned something. didn't know it went into a sleep mode for the printer. Then again i never shut it off. Nor the monitor. always shut down the tower maybe and mostly once a day.
 
Thanks Johnb35. but it could be the reason that a lot of people are having trouble by loosing their wireless connection to the printer, especially HP. I switch everything off on a night
 
I shut my computer off every night and still get the same ip address when i turn it back on. I also have 9 devices which require ip addresses on my network.
 
DHCP has a lease time once that lease is up and that device is off and another device needs an IP it wont have a problem assigning it to that new device. I would recommend setting up a printer with a static ip that is outside of your DHCP scope.

Say your scope is 192.168.0.100-200 then give it something like 192.168.0.99 you will just have to manually input your subnet mask and gateway and if you dont know what that is an easy way to do it is go to a computer start- run - cmd - ok- ipconfig /all

copy what the subnet mask and gateway is there and DNS info if you need it but i dont see why the printer would need DNS.

Alternatively you can set up a DHCP reservation, this requires you to know the MAC of the device you want to reserve. The MAC is a unique ID on the network card itself, this would allow you to setup your device via DHCP but then tell dhcp that no device can use this IP except this MAC.

If you keep your printer on all of the time then you probably wont have a problem but you may if you keep it off for a few days. Just saying the chance is there... sorry for the ramble.
 
Thanks Quiltface, that explains a lot. Can I not keep the exiting IP address as static,? Because I have had a lot of trouble setting up this printer and drivers and don’t want to tempt fate.
I even had to do a restore to get my printer driver back.
I have a Hostname, MAC address, SSID, Existing address is 192.168.0.3. Do I do this in the Netgear?
What is a subnet mask?
 
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Can I not keep the exiting IP address as static,? Because I have had a lot of trouble setting up this printer and drivers and don’t want to tempt fate.
Click to expand...

You can make a reservation for it in your DHCP server (as long as it supports that)

I have a Hostname, MAC address, SSID, Existing address is 192.168.0.3. Do I do this in the Netgear?
Click to expand...

For the reservation you will need the MAC of the printers NIC and the IP address of the printer.
What device is 192.168.0.3?

What is a subnet mask?
Click to expand...

You technically dont need to know what this is but i will give you a short definition. It is basically a number that states how many networks and devices can be on your network. 255.255.255.0 allows you to have 256 IP address (254 after reserved IPs are taken away...typically) In addition you can have over 2 million networks with that mask.

What is important for you to understand if you have a computer that is 192.168.0.50 and another that is 192.168.1.51 both with 255.255.255.0 or /24 subnetmask they wont be able to talk with each other without a router. however if they had a subnet mask of 255.255.224.0 or /23 they would be able to communicate with only a switch and no extra routing is needed.

But like i said only thing you need to know is what the numbers in the mask are and understand that a typo could cause it not to work right... but not always.
 
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Thanks Quiltface, I am slowly getting an understanding of what I am doing.
The address 192.168.0.3. is what is displayed on the printer wireless setting, which I think is what the Netgear router has assigned to it. It was previously 192.168.0.2.
I know that I can reserve the MAC address in the Netgear, do I set up the DHCP reservation in the Printer or Netgear?
 
I just receivedc info from HP support which as I understand is if I am using the WSD (new to Vista and Windows 7) it does not matter if the IP address changes: they say for me to swop ports?
HP statement
When you install the printer driver, one entry is created by the entries in the Device Manager and then other one is created by the software.

WSD is a feature on Windows 7 and Vista Operating Systems where it will add the printer with the Mac Address and the Host name of the printer. Therefore, even if the IP address of the printer changes there will not be any issue.
 
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