Computers have the same IP address

I recently had my laptop warn me that two devices had the same IP address. I rebooted and the problem seemed to correct itself. Unfortunately I have seen the same message a few times since then. There is a desktop computer, a laptop, an XBox, and a Playstation that use the wireless signal. I would like to know what I can do about this.

I am assuming that the gaming systems are matching up with my laptop since the problem did not occur until I got the laptop.

Windows 7 Home Premium
IP and DNS are both set to automatic on my PC. The other PC is not mine so I am not sure what the settings are, but since auto is standard I would assume it is the same as mine. As I stated I believe it is the gaming systems causing a problem.

Any help on how to rectify this situation would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

 

There are a couple of different things you can do.

1) Create a .bat file to keep on your desktop to release and renew your IP address.
Open a text editor (Notepad for example) and copy the following commands into it -
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew
Save this as "Bad Connection" for example with a .bat extension and place it on your desktop for easy access when you have connection problems either IP conflict or otherwise.
You just click on it and a command window opens and does the commands and closes when complete.

2) Check your router's DHCP range. This is the range of IP addresses that the router can assign.
For example, my Linksys WRT54G had a default range of 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.149 so a total of 50 addresses were available to be used.
You could assign a static IP address either outside this range (except for 192.168.1.1 which is the gateway by default and 192.168.1.254 which is the broadcast address) or inside the range but not the first 10 or 15 numbers of the range.
This should cut down on the conflicts.

I'm sure there are other things you can do but those are 2 quick and fairly easy possibilities.