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Switching from Auto DHCP to Static IP on Broadband Router

Mark.J

Administrator
Staff member
ISPreview Team
I've decided to disable the DHCP server on my NetGear DG834N router because every now and again it seems to get into a random conflict with Windows Vista that causes the OS to hang and the router to need a full reboot.

It doesn't occur that often but I decided to do something about it and disable DHCP, which should have meant a simple Static IP assignment in its place. So I did the usual.. IPv4 properties and set as follows:

Computer IP: 192.168.0.2
Subnet: 255.255.255.0
Gateway IP: 192.168.0.1
Primary DNS Server: 192.168.0.1

FYI - For those not familiar with disabling DHCP, the DNS is not my ISP's or even OpenDNS because that is normal for this setup. I tried them as well though but obviously they didn't work.

Now the thing is, this does work.. sort of, but I find that most websites will refuse to load. The network data/IPs all seems to be correct and, knowing the odd behaviour I’ve had with the router firewall before, I’ve also tried it with that disabled and it still occurs. Websites like ISPreview.co.uk come up and work fine, as does Google, but you can’t search on Google. Most USA based sites won't load.

I haven’t even begun testing this with other systems (e.g. XP) to narrow down the cause but maybe somebody else has a bright idea because I don’t have the time to do all the testing right now and will just re-enable DHCP instead. I have a feeling it’s either Vista being crap, again.. or my router being faulty.. again.
 
In addition to the ipv6 suggestion, I'd also ask whether this is one that needs the vista registry fix for DHCP (I'll keep sauggesting this until *someone* finds a use for it...)? Though without checking I have a feeling that this would mean that nothing worked at all, rather than only partially.

In no particular order (and partly assuming that .1 is the router with DNS enabled)
- is the router one of those that has trouble with DNS when DHCP isn't on?
- is the router one of those where the DHCP/DNS combination means lookups are tagged with short timeouts?
- could this be an external routing issue?
- could it be e.g. UPnP messing about?

That said, I'm more than happy to suggest that Vista is entirely responsible for all of it ;)

And after having that 'familar' feeling about this one, I checked an older thread and will add a suggestion of randomly tweaking firewall rules just for the sheer joy of the experience because we all know how fun that can be.
 
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Lol thanks :).

What is the link to that registry fix?

I would be surprised if IPv6 was to blame because it sets all that stuff up correctly. I hope to get some time today so I can test with XP and then we'll know where the problem is really coming from.
 
MS KB 928233 : Vista is perfect, non-Microsoft DHCP servers are not. You will comply. etc.
NB it lists two possibilities for tweaking, one allows a failed MS DHCP request to be re-tried as a 'normal' DHCP request, the other sets *all* DHCP requests to be 'normal'. This is 'normal' in the sense of being what everyone else does.

Whether this actually has anything to do with the problem you are seeing is another matter entirely! Unless despite appearances ip4 isn't actually working at all and there's some ip6-ip4 mangling happening at the router.

The weirdness here though is the partial-functioning aspect. Is there a correlation with e.g. '.co.uk' and '.com' sites working/failing? Being able to reach google but not search on it is a bit bizarre.
 
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