Safe to Disable DHCP?

[tox0tes]

I have a linksys wireless router, and I used the forwarding feature to unblock the ports required to play an online game. The ports still seemed to be closed because my game wasn't working, and it was later that I found out that port forwarding can only work if DHCP is disabled. Right now DHCP is enabled.

I do not know what DHCP is, and I am wondering if it is safe to disable it.

[pave_spectre]

DHCP is Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, and it automatically asigns IP addresses to host PC's that are properly configured when they boot up.

If you disable DHCP, and your host computers are configured to use it, you will need to manually assign correct IP addresses to those machines.

[deddard]

Welcome aboard!

As pave-spectre pointed out, DHCP can be disabled on the LAN side of the Router, (but not on the WAN side if your ISP requires you to use DHCP) and manual assignment of IP addresses can be done. The process isn't particularly difficult, but if you're not familiar with it, just post back and we'll give you the necessary pointers.

[Independent]

just disable that dhcp if you need and don't forget that you'll need manually enter IPs, gateways and DNS. It's very simple procedure you just need to now what they are. (probably IP will be 192.168.0.2 and so on until 192.168.0.x, gateway will be 192.168.0.1 and DNS IP you can get from your ISP).

[malcore]

You could also try "Port Triggering", which should be an option at the bottom of the port forwarding window. This is good if you use more than 1 computer on the router. You don't have to manually configure IP addresses for all computers. When a port is "triggered" the router will remember the IP address that triggered it and allow traffic from specified ports on the WAN side. For example, MSN Gaming Zone, the trigger port is 47624 and the incoming ports are 2300-2400 and 28800-29000. Or battle.net, trigger 6112, incoming ports 6112.

You can still only use one machine at a time to online game using this method.

[tox0tes]

Thank you for your help, but it didn't seem to solve the problem.

I disabled DHCP, I forwarded to the right IP address, I disabled all firewalls, I disabled all antivirus.........and my game still does not work. I even used an online firewall test, which checks for any open ports, and it found none.

Is there anything else that I haven't considered which could be causing port forwarding to not work?

[deddard]

OK, we need to take things one step at a time. Don't worry about the game for now - let's just see if we can get the network talking at all.

You haven't said whether you are connecting to this router wirelessly or through ethernet.
Another thing to know is if you are also running a Software firewall. If you are running a software firewall and it has been configured for htis game, or if you don't run a software firewall, then read on:

The easiest way to test things is to connect through an ethernet set up - this allows you to eliminate problems more easily. You can connect wirelessly later if you need to.
After connecting by Ethernet, and setting up your internet connection through the normal wizard, try the following:
Go into the Router, and set it's LAN IP address to 192.168.2.1, with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0
Now go to your PC (I assume there is just one?) and set it's IP address to 192.168.2.10, subnet mask 255.255.255.0
Set the default gateway, and the DNS server on the PC to 192.168.2.1
click ok, and get out of the config settings for TCP/IP.

Now test the connection - can you get to the Internet ok? if so, then we know that the addressing is working ok. If not, then we need to check the settings again - hit the reset switch on the router if you need to.

Next, if you can successfully connect to the Internet, make sure that your router has logging switched on (if it supports this) and try running the game. can you connect? With logging switched on, you may be able to find the cause of the problem if you are still unable to connect.
Most games which need port-forwarding will list the port htey usually use. Some routers even have the ports listed.
Go through the router's recommendations for opening the particular port required if you cannot connect, and try again.
If this is successful, and you then want to try wireless, then you should first try things without encryption, - make sure that the wireless lan card is in the same network (192.168.2.x) and uses the same default gateway and dns server. If you can connect without encryption, then it's time to move on to trying things with encryption enabled. - you obviously don't wnat an open wireless link, but tryign with no encryption first is the easiest route to follow.
let us know how things go.