DHCP Auto or On?

[ozzpala]

Setup a new wifi extender today, all worked fine however one device wouldn't connect properly (Steamdeck), would only connect if i manually entered the details into the network information its like it wasnt automatically being given a IP. Went into the extension settings and noticed that the DHCP default gateway was wrong. Changed it to the correct one and instead of DHCP auto its now on. Was this the correct thing to do as its completely solved my issue of that one device not connecting up.

 

Not very clued up on networking so any help would be great

[RONOTHAN##]

My general rule of thumb for networking is if it's working like you want it to, don't touch it. 

[Syfter]

On 6/13/2022 at 5:15 PM, ozzpala said:

Setup a new wifi extender today, all worked fine however one device wouldn't connect properly (Steamdeck), would only connect if i manually entered the details into the network information its like it wasnt automatically being given a IP. Went into the extension settings and noticed that the DHCP default gateway was wrong. Changed it to the correct one and instead of DHCP auto its now on. Was this the correct thing to do as its completely solved my issue of that one device not connecting up.

 

Not very clued up on networking so any help would be great

Nothing you did was ultimately incorrect. I personally would leave it alone, DHCP or "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol" just delegates which device gets what IP for a reserved amount of time. Setting the IP info statically is totally normal and in most cases won't cause you any issues. 

 

Could your router hand out the IP address your steamdeck is using at some point? Potentially.. This would result in a IP conflict which can cause some wonky behavior. If you wanted to prevent this from happening in the future you could always create what's called a DCHP reservation in your router even though you aren't technically using DHCP for this device. This would reserve that IP only for that device thus removing it from the allot scope of IPs. All you would need to know is the IP that you've assigned to your steamdeck and its MAC address.