Hi all Let me start by saying - I know almost nothing about this subject - so this question might not make a great deal of sense. I apologise in advance! I have a Netgear DG834 router and play World of Warcraft. When there is a patch to download for the game, it downloads at a rate of about 2kb per second. Not good when the patches are 100Mb. The reason, I am told, is that I need to forward certain ports to my computer - which I guess means to stop blocking traffic from the download server, and to allow it into the right bit of my PC. So I set up rules on the router such as: ################ Service: WoW1(TCP:3724) Action: Allow Always Send to LAN Server: 192.168.0.1 WAN Users: Any start 0.0.0.0 finish 0.0.0.0 Log: Never ################ This is for Inbound traffic. I set up similar for outbound. There are 2 other rules too, which are set up the same way. Here's the problem: It has no effect. I can stomach it if I've done it right, but it doesn't seem right to me that I've got the IP Address of the router rather than the computer I want it to forward to (ie. mine!). But I don't know what my PC's IP address is, since its dynamic. Should I use a static IP and forward to that? Am I missing something really obvious? Have I actually done it correctly and its just that the server is very busy? Please help! As ever - all advice gratefully received Cheers Tom

"Should I use a static IP and forward to that?" Yes. I don't know much about this subject either, but do know that you need to forward to your computer, which dictates a static IP.

Terry is correct. You use a static IP and forward to that, not the router IP. However, your suspicions are correct in that the port must already be open (or another one is being used as well) because if not, there would be no traffic through it, not even at 2kbps. Peter

Thanks very much Peter / Terry. I'll revisit my setup. I assume that there are no implications for security in my using a static IP - but that the "dynamism" is only so that people can have varying numbers of PCs on networks. If I'm right, then please don't worry about posting back - but if I'm wrong, or there is any other aspect to this which I should consider, then please do! Thanks very much again for your support Tom

Using static IP instead of dynamic to connect your PC to your router simply means you do the bookkeeping. Punching a hole in your router's firewall (called port forwarding) has obvious security implications.

Yes - thanks Terry. I fully intend to do this ONLY when I need to download a patch, but then to cancel the port-forwarding. Thanks again for the warning Tom