Networking Issues

[willie45]

Hi

I have a Netgear wireless router which on the whole works well. I have a couple of times recently had the dreaded message telling me some other item is using my IP address and to reboot my router. I have also had a message saying my iPad can't connect to the network. It isn't often and if I restart the device it goes away and all is well again.

I believe the issue might be the number of items using the network. We have my wife's daughter and her partner living with us for a few months and I have a number of work items I use. My wife and I both work from home a lot.

To the chase! Currently the following all connect:

2 iMacs
2 MacBookPros
1 Mac mini
1 Pad
1 iPhone
2 Windows laptops
1 Blackberry ditto
1 other phone - either blackberry or android can't recall
1 Playstation or X-box - can't remember - via powerline connection


The apple stuff belongs to my wife and me and is needed for work so I want it to work properly at all times and I'd like to give it priority on the network. The other stuff is my stepdaughters, and her fiance's, or my stepson's. I'd like it to be reliable but I'm not as worried

I've had two suggestions.

I was told by someone that I should assign static IP addresses to all the stuff I use and that would guarantee a connection. I don't know if this is true and I don't know how to do it. Can anyone tell me if it would help and if so how I'd do it?

Also I was advised that if I stuck an airport extreme ( not express! ) onto the netgear router I could set up a second network which would be independant from the original one and put all my "A list" gear onto that solving the problem that way. Would this work and be better?

Thanks for your help with this.

Willie

 

[mrapplegate]

What is your model for the Netgear? You can get the PDF users manual and it will explain it. Basically you log into the router usually 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.200.1 or whatever the user manual states. Find the correct place in the admin page and enter the MAC address of each device you want to have a static IP address.

You could do that with the Airport Extreme. I am not sure if it would be better or not.

 

[willie45]

Thanks. I found how to assign the static IP but I was really wondering if it would help me. Seems from your suggestion I should do it. Would that be right?

 

[mrapplegate]

I had the same problem and it worked for me. It can't hurt

 

[justperry]

Thanks. I found how to assign the static IP but I was really wondering if it would help me. Seems from your suggestion I should do it. Would that be right?

It works eel, and an advantage of this is that you know which device has what IP.

The best way I find is to get your own Apple stuff on Low IP numbers and the "guest" devices on higher IP's.

Example:

You have 7 Apple devices

192.168.0.10
192.168.0.20
192.168.0.30
192.168.0.40
192.168.0.50
192.168.0.60
192.168.0.70

All 5 other (guests)

192.168.0.100
192.168.0.110
192.168.0.120
192.168.0.130
192.168.0.140
Etc...

This way you know exactly who is who.
There is also a small App called Ip Scanner which allows you to see all devices with their MAC Address,it's free.

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/15326/ip-scanner

 

[willie45]

Excellent. Thanks for your help. I will look into that device Justperry and assign the numbers as you suggest

 

[brand]

I was told by someone that I should assign static IP addresses to all the stuff I use and that would guarantee a connection. I don't know if this is true and I don't know how to do it. Can anyone tell me if it would help and if so how I'd do it?

A static IP address set on the edge devices in no way guarantees a connection to the wireless access point. Additionally setting a static IP address on some of your mobile devices will cause them to no longer receive a dynamic IP when attempting to connect to wireless networks away from home.

 

[DJLC]

A static IP address set on the edge devices in no way guarantees a connection to the wireless access point. Additionally setting a static IP address on some of your mobile devices will cause them to no longer receive a dynamic IP when attempting to connect to wireless networks away from home.

True, although IMO Netgear's DHCP server is a little "special." Might help... I've had issues like this with multiple Netgear routers; everything is fine, except it doesn't know how to handle DHCP leases. To avoid issues with other networks you can save these settings as a new Location in the Network prefpane and change the Location setting as needed.

 

[irnchriz]

What Mrapplebate suggested will would work best.

Essentially what you are going is getting the Netgear router to 'reserve' an IP address for each of your devices by assigning the IP addresses based on the devices MAC address.

So every time you connect you iPad it would get the same address and because the address is reserved in the router you don't have to worry about any other device being on the address.

This way you don't have to set fixed IPs on your devices and they will happily connect to other networks without having to change locations etc.

 

[willie45]

Thank you very much for your help. I seem to have solved the problem.

 

[JKColo22]

. Additionally setting a static IP address on some of your mobile devices will cause them to no longer receive a dynamic IP when attempting to connect to wireless networks away from home.

Umm not true. If he's setting the DHCP router to assign the IP addresses (rather than choosing a static address on the device-which only works if your router is not running DHCP).

Make sure that you set the router to only assign addresses ABOVE the static addresses or you will continue running into problems.

 

[freejazz-man]

it's called a static DHCP LEASE