Lost IP address

[thornogson]

After getting the shared printer working yesterday logged off and shut everthing down. Come this morning and the lap top is fine logs on to the internet OK. The main desk top PC won't connect to the internet, because it had lost it's IP address. Put the address back in and now it connects to the internet and I can browse, but try to get the mail in outlook express and it says cannot establish a connection?
So two problems,
1. do I have to leave the main PC permanently switched on or is there some way of making the wireless card keep it's address?
2. What has gone wrong with outlook express?
Any ideas appreciated.
Graham.
desk PC and laptop working with a wireless router and windows XP Home.

[thornogson]

Sorted out the outlook express problem, but left the PC on all last night so the IP address would not be lost. Any ideas anyone?

[r32]

So the desktop has a wireless card in it too?

Check that your router is configured for DHCP (which means IP addresses will be automatically assigned to each device connecting to it.)

Also XP should connect to the router and get an IP address each time the pc boots up. Make sure you have 'Obtain IP address automatically' set in your TCPIP properties for the network connection.

To assign an IP address manually to your machine (to test DHCP is working) type:

IPCONFIG /renew in a Command Prompt window.

This should assign your machine an IP address.

[thornogson]

Thanks for that R32.