i will begin this by saying that i am not a sys ad, and what i have learned so far was all from tinkering here and there. i really am just a beginner.

i work in a small lab, where our internet connection comes from a LAN cable connected to a main hub. our lab's 9 computers used to be served by 2 switches connected in a series to the main LAN cable. everything was fine until someone gave us a linksys wireless router (WRT54G v5) -- really, we're grateful, but now we can't get 3 of our computers to connect to the network.

what i have are 4 computers connected to the first switch, which is connected to the main LAN cable. the router is connected to the first switch, then is connected via cable to 4 other PCs. 1 laptop is connected via wifi.

so far, i've only gotten one PC to connect via cable connection to the router and the laptop's wifi connection is fine. however, after setting a static IP for that one PC, i noticed that the laptop shares the same IP address (i.e., if i connect to our mail server via telnet from both computers, i look like i'm connecting from the same host). so i need to know, can i change the ip addresses on the computers connected to the router so that they'll be using the department-assigned ip addresses?

also, the other 3 computers connected via cable to the router won't connect to the router (i can't get a ping response from the router using the other computers and none of them will connect to the web-based utility). what did i miss?

i am at my wits end. please help.