Tonight, we tried to have a LAN party with about 8 computers. 5 of the computers communicated properly, but a couple would not work on the LAN. Meaning, that they could not find the local server that we were creating for the LAN. I assumed it was a I.P conflict or maybe a port conflict. In order to successfully have a LAN party, should I assign I.P's to each computer so that there won't be conflicts. If so, could you explain to me how to do this? Thanks in advance...I really need specifics on this so that we won't have a messed up LAN again!

either set them all to use DHCP or assign them all maunally. usually a combination thereof doesn't work well Abit NF7-S 2.0 Athlon XP 2600+ @ 2.3GHz 1GB Mushkin PC3200 Sapphire 9700pro 120GB WD 80GB Maxtor VGA Silencer Zalman CNPS 7000B AlCu Aspire 550W

Not quite sure how to do either one.....Explain?

somewhere in your router's configuration settings there should be an option to use it as a DCHP server, and on the machines you'd just need to set each to "obtain an ip address automatically" Abit NF7-S 2.0 Athlon XP 2600+ @ 2.3GHz 1GB Mushkin PC3200 Sapphire 9700pro 120GB WD 80GB Maxtor VGA Silencer Zalman CNPS 7000B AlCu Aspire 550W