what is a DHCP address?

[shahedz]

trying to go through the trouble shooting procedures for my ROKU soundbrige, they keeping talking about a DHCP address. what the hell is that?

what does DHCP mean?

 

[Nick_UK]

DHCP is used when you have one computer (or network device like a router) on a network which assigns IP addresses to other computers on an "as required" basis. You normally tell the DHCP device what range of IP addresses to allocate, and it keeps track of the allocation.

 

[shahedz]

cheers Nick. i have a Netgear WGR614, you wouldnt happen to know how i can make it give my ROKU a static address that doesnt keep changing eveytime the ROKU is turned off and reconncted?

 

[Nick_UK]

You can only do this if the router allows a long "lease time" for the DHCP addresses. Usually if you give a PC (or the ROKU, if possible) it's own static address, a DHCP router will allocate that, as long as it's in the allocation range, and not already allocated.

 

[shahedz]

cheers Nick, since you explained what it actually means, i went into the set up page for the router and managed to reserve an address for ROKU, which means now when i turn it on i dont have to keep reconencting to the router and it just connects automatically!!

 

[pragmatic]

DHCP should hopefuly alow a static ip to have a given address and move the one on a dynamic ip to an unused one, although i suppose it all depends on how its implemented.

 

[shahedz]

thats what ive done now, given the roku a static address ( they call it a reserved address on the netgear . so im hoping its the same thing) although now the B*stard thing connects , more often but sometimes it doesnt, cant anything ocmputer related in life be staright forward?

 

[Knightshade]

A DHCP reservation would use a mac address (Hardwares unique identifier). Looks something like this AE-12-D3-AS-D4-F2. You would basicaly reserve an IP address to the mac address.
If you have a DHCP range of say 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.0.100 you would not be able to reserve any addresses within the DHCP range. The first static IP address you could use would be 192.168.0.101
I'm not familiar with your equipment so all I can do is give you rough advice. You may be able to set your DHCP router to 'lease never expires' You would then have the equivilent to a static address.
HTH

 

[shahedz]

i got a ROKU soundbrige and i can make it connect and wokr fine no problem, the only thing is when i attmept to turn it on it cannot connect again so i have to run the wizrd on the roku eveytime, they mentioned i the troouble shooting to give it a static ip through a DHPC or whtever its called! this is where i got lost, i have a NETGEAR WGR614v2. you wouldnt happen to know how to give it a static IP would you? cheers!

 

[overkill]

Which model do you have? The soundbridge should connect fine using DHCP on either a wired or wireless connection. With a Wireless connection you need to make sure you have the SSID sorted and if you have them the wep keys ready.

DHCP means Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol.

 

[shahedz]

HI Overkill

i have the M1000, i just dont get it, because when i turn it on it connects after i do the wizard and it plays fine, its just annoying because i have to keep doing the wizard everytime i use it. in the trouble shooting it indicated it if it had a static IP from a DHCP it should be fine! any ideas?

 

[shahedz]

how od i sort out the ssid and wep keys?

 

[Knightshade]

Shahedz,
You have a wireless ADSL Router which has a DHCP server which is running and suppling addresses to the devices on your network. The Soundbridge being one of them. Is this right?
If so you need to connect to the router via a web browser. Typing in the ip address of the router in the browser address line will bring this up. Find out what IP range the DHCP service is using by looking up DHCP settings. If this is using the whole range 192.168.0.1 -254) then it will need to be changed.
To set a static IP address you must have some spare addresses within the IP address range but outside the DHCP range.
I would imagine the Soundbridge will have a manual setup function. If you can get into the network address settings and change the 'config by' settings from 'DHCP' to 'Manual' You will then be able to assign a static IP address and subnet mask to the Soundbridge. Something like IP 192.168.0.1 Subnet 255.255.255.0 depending on what your ip range is.
I'm working in the dark here but this is the way you would setup a network device like a print server to work on a network. If you want to set a static address on a device you must remove the DHCP settings first.
I don't know if this will help you but for more info you could check out: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/home-network.htm
Gives a basic overview of how things work.

 

[shahedz]

Hi Knightshade

thanks for your indepth reply, i have managed to reserve a specific IP address for the ROKU,

192.168.0.2 ROKU 00:10:C6:4A:F1:B4

that is what is on a table on the netgear set up but for some reason i still need to manually connect it, its doing my head in now, i cant understand why this is,

LAN IP Setup

LAN TCP/IP Setup

IP Address . . .
IP Subnet Mask . . .
RIP Direction None Both In only Out only
RIP Version Disabled RIP_1 RIP_2B RIP_2M

Use Router as DHCP Server
Starting IP Address . . .
Ending IP Address . . .

Address Reservation
# IP Address Device Name Mac Address
1 192.168.0.2 ROKU 00:10:C6:4A:F1:B4