strange network problem

[encephalopathy]

odd frustrating problem with my network.

for some unknown reason my homeserver (called 'vail') intermittantly manages to lose its static ip address of 192.168.1.4 and reverts to an ip address of 169.x.x.x.

this means i can still view shares on the homeserver mapped as \\vail\documents or \\vail\tv but cant see then using \\192.168.1.4\tv

so what? well my popcornhour media player doesn't find the shares when the homeserver has changed ip address to the 169.x.x.x one so i cant watch my films/tv episodes (this is despite having the pch shares setup using 'vail' (and samba) rather than ip address. when rdp'd into the homeserver i can't access the internet via it either, unless its ipaddress is the usual 192.168.1.4

any ideas why this is happening or how i can force the homeserver network card to keep its 192.168.1.4 address? my router is a draytek vigor 2820n

cheers

 

[encephalopathy]

i've used bind ip to mac for it in the draytek router config pages so that it is given 192.168.1.4.

i've just found an option in the properties bit of the homeserver network adapter to give it a fixed ip address so i'll try that set as 192.168.1.4 and cross fingers.....

 

[encephalopathy]

will that matter if i have used the router 'bind ip to mac' for the homeserver network card already? or should i start afresh and allocate say 192.168.1.100 which is outside the router DHCP range?