Dynamic V Satic

Hi all.
I have a desk top hard wired to my router with a static ip.
We have several laptops in the house and now of course internet enabled phones, games consoles etc etc.
Just lately I have had a few issues with one of the laptops connecting to the internet.
I cured it by changing the ip address.
I decided to take a look at my router and saw a bit of a mess.
One laptop (the one I had grief with) was entered 3 times with 3 different ip addresses.
I deleted all but the one with the latest ip address.
All seems fine.
My questions are, is it better to have just the desktop with a static and all other devices dynamic?
What is to stop a device from being assigned my desktops ip if the desktop is switched off?
Cheers.

 

Should not make a difference having the desktop static or dynamic.

If the static IP is in the router's DHCP assignment range than nothing.
Assign a static IP outside the range. (For example, Linksys usually assigns a range from 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.149 by default.) Pick a last number from .2 to .99 or .150 to .253 and that will not be liable for any conflicts from dynamic IPs.

 

Ah. That may be where I have been going wrong.
I assinged static ip's to 3 laptops that are permanently in the house.
I did it the wrong way around by the sounds of it.
I had been assigning statics with last number over 100 thinking my router (Thomson) had a range up to 100.
Then when people came using mobiles etc while the laptops were off those statics were assigned to those devices and causing conflicts. (I think). :confused
Does it sound as though that could be what was happening?

Cheers.

 

Sounds like it.
Go into the router configuration pages and see what the DHCP range is and assign your statics outside of that.