No u can set a static I.P. as long as you set the TCP/IP settings on the laptop to stick to that address, in fact in practice u might fine that u only have to enter a manual I.P address on the machine in question the tell the rouer to forward ports to that address.

Well, i have question, my desktop has both a wireless (to broadcast to the laptpos in the house) and normal router connected to it. I'm not sure which one I'm supposed to port forward( I'm trying to port forward a game called Starcraft, if this info does any help) because both seems to be used and dependent on another. I have a NETGEAR WGR614 v6 (the wireless one) and a 2Wire Homeportal 1000S (the normal wired one).

Wow...this is going to be lengthy.

Static IPs are easy to create, just as easy as DHCP reservations. Basically all the router is looking for is a permanant IP to direct traffic to on that port.

So, if your DHCP lease ends and your IP changes internally the router will continue to forward the traffic to the IP indicated...which means, no Starcraft for you!

To make things easier on you see if your router features a DHCP control panel where it will allow you to configure an IP to associate with a MAC address. When a DHCP request is issued from the PC, the DHCP Server (your router) will say "oh yeah, that's MAC address FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF so I'm supposed to always assign the IP 192.168.1.50 to it...here is your lease so you can happily play Starcraft"

If there is no DHCP control panel, or a way to reserve IP addresses, you're going to have to manually configure an IP. Here is a good how-to for configuring static IPs on machines (but you are probably not going to want to use the IP address/Subnet Mask they did).

http://ns1.nt.net/test1/files/How%20...%20in%20xp.pdf

For reference, "ipconfig/all" is a very valuable tool in finding out your MAC address and current IP or NIC status. If you're new to networking or find this stuff confusing, always grab multiple printscreens of "ipconfig/all" results throughout the process so we can help you if anything gets messed up. You can run this tool by:

Start>Run>"cmd"> then "ipconfig/all"

Please let me know if you need additional help getting this up and running.

If you use your laptop wirlessly, forward traffic to the IP of the wirless adapter, otherwise, just send it to your normal hardwire NIC.

Jon

lagspike,

Why do you have two routers? Furthermore, why are your broadcasting a wireless signal in addition to the wireless signal being broadcast by one of your routers? It sounds like you have an unnecessarily convoluted setup.

Unless you have a very good reason for needing your current setup, take your router without wireless out of the loop and stop broadcasing a wireless connection from your desktop.

Let us know if there is a reason why you have your network set up that way.