This subject comes up from time to time and I have finally got round to creating a quick guide to this – it’s quite easy to do but I just thought it might help some newbies.
You may want to use this method if your router’s DHCP server is playing up, or you want to make sure your PC’s IP doesn’t change (useful for running servers or setting up networks).
This example is for Windows XP, but other Windows versions should be similar
1) Open the ‘Network Connections’ folder
There are several ways of doing this:
A) Using the desktop – double click on the ‘My Network Places’ icon and then click on the ‘view network connections’ entry in the left-hand pane.
OR
B) Using the Start Menu, e.g. ‘Settings’ -> ‘Network Connections’
2) Open the connection’s properties
Find the network connection (USB or Ethernet) that your PC uses to connect to your router.
Right-click on it to bring up the menu and select ‘Properties’
This should display something like the following:
3) Select the ‘Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)’ item from the list, and then click on the ‘Properties’ button.
This will display the TCP/IP properties window:
The example is based on a router which has an IP of ‘10.0.0.2’ which is the ‘gateway’.
4) Entering the details
Enter the details that suite your situation – select ‘Use the following IP address’, then type in the IP you want for your PC (represented by the 10.0.0.X in the example above) – remember not to use the gateway IP here, and also be aware that no two devices can have the same IP.
To reduce the likelihood of a conflict, you may want to enter an IP outside of the router’s DHCP range (e.g. a router might have a range from 10.0.0.4 to 10.0.0.15, so an IP of 10.0.0.20 would be suitable here).
Remember, you can’t use the same IP as the router – If your router has an IP of 10.0.0.2, then you cannot use that IP (for 10.0.0.X in the example) – you must use something else like 10.0.0.30.
The default ‘subnet mask’ is ‘255.0.0.0’ which is usually entered by Windows automatically – this can be changed depending on the IP range of your router (e.g. if your router’s IP is 192.168.0.1 then you would use ‘255.255.255.0’).
You may manually enter any valid DNS IP in the relevant boxes, but you can also enter the router’s IP here, which will enable the PC to use the same DNS server(s) that the router tries to detect automatically.
5) Once you are happy with the settings, click on ‘OK’, and then ‘OK’ – some Windows versions will ask to reboot at this point to let the settings take effect. If not, you can refresh the connection ( https://www.routertech.org/guides/info/ping-ipconfig/ ) or just ‘Disable’ and ‘Enable’ the connection, from the menu:
Once the connection had been re-established, you should be able to use the PC’s new IP as you see fit.
For a more detailed guide see Snerkel’s guide: http://www.tech24.arce.co.uk/static.htm