The first question some of you would have concerning this is the simple question of "Why?" The answer is that more people have a mix of PCs and devices these days, some of which (like a file server) a few prefer to assign a static i.e. "permanent" IP address.

Can you use both static and dynamically assigned IPs addresses from your router at the same time? Yes, because IPs are IPs no matter how they’re assigned. And can you configure it in such a way where it always works? That’s also a yes.

The way a consumer router works with dynamic IP assignment is that it will always assign the first available IP address number starting from the smallest number.

Let’s say your router’s gateway (which is almost always synonymous with the address you use to access your router’s administration program in your web browser) is 192.168.0.1. That is the IP assigned to the router itself and does not change unless you change it, which you probably wouldn’t. Every device that requests an IP address whether wired or wireless starts with the dynamic IP assignment of 2 through 255. The first device that connects gets 192.168.0.2, the next gets 192.168.0.3, the next gets 192.168.0.4, and so on.

If you have computers or devices you wish to assign a permanent IP to, simply pick a high IP number in the list to assign.

Using the example above, you have 192.168.0.2 through 192.168.0.255 to assign. It is safe to assume that even with every single device on your network connected, nothing will exceed past IP address 192.168.0.10. For the computer or device you want to assign a permanent IP to, assign it 192.168.0.50. If you have another PC or device you need to give a static IP to, give it 192.168.0.51.

All devices requesting dynamic IPs will get 2 through 49, so unless you have more than 47 dynamic-IP-assigned devices connected to your network all at once (which is highly unlikely), the devices you assign static IPs to will always acquire them.

If you want to give yourself an even wider separation from the dynamic IP assignments, start all static IP assignments at 192.168.0.200 and go up from there.

Would there ever be an instance where all the IPs are used up?

The possibility of this happening is very slim – but not impossible.

It is possible that when a network card on a dynamic-IP device is starting to fail, it will keep dropping its network connection then immediately requesting a new connection over and over again, thereby making rapid-fire requests to the router for new IPs constantly. However in this instance it’s more than likely true the router itself would crash first before running out of IPs.

It should also be noted this is almost exclusively an issue with wired connections when this happens, as wireless cannot make rapid-fire reconnections like wired can.

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