Question : Home Networking Problem

My friend has a home network that has worked fine for about 2 years then it started to act funny but only on his pc.  The other two (one wired, one wireless) work fine.  He has a linksys WRT54G v. 3.1 router and has recently updated to version to 4.30.5.  Almost everytime he logs on a new IP address is assigned.  Sometimes when downloading the download will stop completely and won't continue.  In the event viewer I found this error:

Event Type:      Error
Event Source:      Tcpip
Event Category:      None
Event ID:      4199
Date:            12/1/2006
Time:            8:49:44 PM
User:            N/A
Computer:      JBIRD
Description:
The system detected an address conflict for IP address 192.168.1.101 with the system having network hardware address 00:13:CE:17:51:25. Network operations on this system may be disrupted as a result.

OR

Event Type:      Warning
Event Source:      Dhcp
Event Category:      None
Event ID:      1005
Date:            12/1/2006
Time:            8:55:20 PM
User:            N/A
Computer:      JBIRD
Description:
Your computer has detected that the IP address 192.168.1.101 for the Network Card with network address 000CF18488A0 is already in use on the network. Your computer will automatically attempt to obtain a different address.

My friend has tried to disable his firewall (ez Armor) but after he does and then restarts, the internet doesnt work at all.  He has also tried resetting his router and reinstalling the firmware with no luck.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you.

Answer : Home Networking Problem

This is a common occurance with using wires and wireless PC's.  What is happening, your wireless PC's are getting assigned an IP Address that normally the wired PC uses.  And your wired PC is expecting it but when it starts, rather than dynamically reassigning itself a new one, it stil keeps the old one.  I been finding this a lot on PC's that habe not been updated to Service Pack 2.

First, make sure all PC's have been updated to SP2 (If you can).

Then create a static IP address on the wired PC.  Use 192.168.1.1 as the default gateway, use 192.168.1.120 as the IP address if the PC, SubNet of 255.255.255.0.  You are going to have to get the DNS Server 1 and 2 information from the Status Page in the router.  Put that info into the respective spots in the Static IP page and hit Apply and OK.  Restart the PC and you are all set.

Good Luck!!