[jazzbo]

Originally Posted by manmachine

First of all thanks to all who replied, especially u2Lynne for the instructions on Static IP's.

I have just one machine connected to the BT Voyager 205 router on broadband and I have no problems using BitTorrent.

I am trying to use Soulseek and the instructions on Portforward.com say that I need to set up a Static Ip address before I can forward the ports.

I never shut down my machine and always leave it on sleep.

Since i do not shutdown the machine I presume that my Ip address does not change. Do i therefore need to set up a Static IP, before i can forward the ports?.

Note that there are two types of static IPs. You can be issued a static IP by your internet provider which means that everytime you connect (or your router is rebooted) you will be guaranteed to have the same IP publically shown on the internet. It's rare to have this without paying extra for it.

Each machine on your internet network also needs to be assigned an IP address, some routers do this dynamically (DHCP) so that it is possible that your PC might get a different IP each time it is booted -- something that is more likely to happen with the more machines on a network. However, it is usually preferable to use static IPs for your local machines and then set a static port forward from the router to your PC.

In the situation you describe, you should be able to just leave the router and PC on. There is a small possibility that things might change if you need to reboot/turn something off/lose power -- but you should just have to reset the settings and off you go.