If you are like me, you probably have 30 or more devices connected to your home network: phones, printers, network storage devices, TVs, Blu-ray players, game consoles, media players, IoT devices, and finally computers.
Wow! With all of these devices, you probably also want to exchange data and files between them. Well, this usually works fine as the device’s DNS name is used most of the time.
If the IP address changes, you can still use the DNS name to access the device. However, there are quite a few cases where you end up using an IP address to access a device, and if that IP address changes, you will have to reconfigure the device.
For example, I have a printer that also scans and saves a file directly to my computer. However, it uses the IP address instead of the machine name. Every time the machine reboots it gets a new IP and I have to enter this new IP into the printer. Such a pain!
In this article, I will show you how you can assign static or fixed IP addresses to devices on your network without manually configuring each device. For example, you can always assign a static IP address to a Windows PC by going to network settings, but it is much easier to assign a static IP address on your router.
This saves you the hassle of customizing 20 devices and allows you to manage all your static IP addresses from one central location.
Most modern routers have some sort of IP address reservation page or configuration option that you just need to find, usually under the Local Area Network or LAN section. Here I will show you how to do this on AT&T U-verse and Netgear routers.
Hopefully it’s the same on other routers like Belkin and D-Link. If you have any problems just google your router model and the phrase “DHCP Reservation”.
Find the router’s IP address
First, you need to log into your wireless router using a web browser. To do this, you need the IP address of your router
If you already know this, you can skip this section. To find out the IP address of your router, you can simply find the default gateway on your computer. Here’s how.
Open a command prompt on any PC using the following procedure:
Windows XP – Click Start, Run and type CMD.
Windows 7/10 – Click Start and type cmd
Windows 8 – go to the Start screen, right-click, select All Apps, then scroll right and click Command Prompt
Now, at the command prompt, enter the following command, which is just one word:
ipconfig
You should have a screen like this:
Make sure you are looking for the correct network adapter. For example, the above screenshot says “Ethernet Adapter Local Area Connection” which is the IP address information for my Ethernet connection.
If you are using a wireless connection, it should say “Wireless Adapter”. You need the IP address listed in the Default Gateway list.
Now take this IP and open your web browser. Enter it in the address bar and press Enter.
This will load the web interface for your wireless router. Note that you may have to enter your router username and password to gain access.
If you have never changed it, you can go to routerpasswords.com, which lists all the standard ones for many routers. If you have the original packaging, it should be there too.
http: //www.rutherpaswords.com/
If you do not remember the router password and the default password does not work, you will most likely have to reset the router first. This will restore the factory settings and you will have to re-configure everything.
Set a static IP address
Now that you have connected to your router, you need to find the section that shows the current IP addresses allocated by the DHCP server. On my AT&T router, I had to click Settings, then LAN, and then IP Allocation.
To assign a fixed IP address to a device, simply find it in the list and click the Address Assignment drop-down menu. By default, it is set to Private from pool: IPRange.
From the dropdown list, you can select a fixed IP address. Just make sure you don’t select a fixed IP address that is already occupied by another device on the network.
On my Verizon FIOS router, it took quite a few steps to set up a static IP address. After logging in, you must click “Advanced” at the top or side.
Here you will see a link to IP address allocation in the Routing section. At the bottom you will see a button “List of connections”. Go ahead and click on it.
You will now see a list of all leased DHCP servers on the router. All of them should be dynamic by default. To change this, you need to click the “Change” button next to the lease you want to make static.
Finally, check the Static Lease Type box and click Apply. You will now see that the lease type has changed to Static and the Expires column is set to Never.
For my Netgear router, the process was slightly different. First, once logged in, you should go to “Connected Devices” to see all connected devices and their MAC addresses.
Find the MAC address of the device to which you want to assign a static IP address and click LAN Settings.
Click the Add button under the Address Reservation section, and then either select one of the radio buttons at the top or enter the information manually.
That’s all! This is a much easier way to assign static or fixed IP addresses to devices on your network, rather than manually configuring them on the device itself. If you have problems or questions, please leave a comment and I will try to help. Enjoy!
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