Networking Problems Please Please Help!

[davsl]

I have been trying to setup a simple network which is basically a desktop computer wired to a belkin modem/wireless router feeding a laptop wirelessly for the internet etc. After trying to set it up on my desktop PC I am receiving the following message "There is an IP address conflict with another address on the network". Basically I can only use one PC at a time for the internet, as if I try to use both one just will not connect. Any ideas what I have done wrong please? As this is so annoying

[mbossman2]

make your IP addresses DHCP assigned as opposed to static. that should solve your problem.

[davsl]

I set the IP address as static in XP as I read on portforward.com to setup the firewall on my router and this worked fine. Now I have set it back in Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) settings to obtain an IP address automatically. Now I am not getting the message stated at the begginning of this thread and both computers can share the internet connection. But on the other hand my firewall is not letting some programs work normally like they used too, as I would assume the IP address that I put in has changed. This is so frustrating

[Floppyman]

A couple things come to mind:

1) What type of firewall are you using, hardware or software?

2) If you are just trying to forward ports from the internet to one of your LAN machines, you can just set that up in your router configuration page. Usually once a given LAN IP address is assigned to a certain machine via DHCP, it rarely changes to another address once the lease expires (unless there are more clients than addresses or another client has grabbed that address). In short, it the IP your machine got via DHCP probably won't change.

HTH

[telegramsam]

What programs are you talking about that need ports forwarded? Do you have inbound connections that need to be made?