Network DHCP not giving out info

[Vini]

I have this problem at home, where randomly, after say a powercut. My connection goes to 'Low Connectivity/Not Connected' and in viewing the status its lost all its DHCP info and is randomly pointing at a strange random DNS server.

Which explains why it doesnt work.

I then have to manually setup a static LAN IP to point it back to the router for it to work again. However, if you give it half an hour and revert back to automatic DHCP IP assigning and repair the connection it works again.

Anyone know why this is, or a fix for it? Other than giving everyone a static IP permanently.

[Moby-Dick]

is your router the DHCP server ?

[Mutley]

I'm guessing you are running Windows....
This is not entirely surprising after a power cut.

Have you tried clicking the "repair" button?
Control Panel -> Network Connections -> <Your network>
Then click on the "Support" tab, then repair. It should try to renew its DHCP lease.

Alternatively, on the previous tab ("general") try clicking "disable". The dialog box will disappear - if you reopen it via control panel again (as above) it will re-enable to connection, which should kick it back into action.

[Moby-Dick]

good point - I was thinking from the server side.

if you type ipconfig /renew into a command prompt , do you get a new address from the router ?

[Vini]

theres no server this just home, its my router which kicks out DHCP.

windows xp all of them.

disabling/enabling/repairing doesnt work unless i manually enter info first.

[Vini]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/167014/en-us

[Mutley]

I'm having a problem with the network interface on my PC at the moment (running winxp/sp2). For some reason that I haven't yet been able to determine, it can only be manually configured, i.e. given a static IP address. If I set it to use DHCP, it just hangs....it used to work, some time ago, but I recently changed it back to DHCP. I've tried reinstalled the NIC drivers to no avail. I'm a bit stumped. I don't think this is the same problem you are having though...
but you could try removing and re-installing your NIC with new drivers...