Roommates have several IP addresses on LAN : how and how to stay at one?

We have a not so bad connection at home, but we have some huge lag spikes. We have a terrible upload rate (around 0,95MBps at peak performance) and as soon as there's too many people on the network, everything is jammed and I can't even make a google search.

While trying to figure out if there is something to be done, we noticed that some machines had many IP addresses assigned, and it varies from 6 to 15.

Could this be bottlenecking the connection ?

We checked on these computers, they don't have multiple IPs on the network card configuration, and the fact the amount varies confuses me. Could the DHCP Server be going crazy ? It seems to affect only three machines though ; they are used by gamers : could a spectific game be collecting IP addresses ?

Saryk

Posted 2017-12-05T02:43:53.367

Reputation: 119

I would strongly suggest checking if you might have two DHCP servers, which could lead to overlapping/conflicting IP addresses. To do so in Microsoft Windows, you can download DHCPLoc.exe from Microsoft. (Slightly older software, and last time I checked, the documentation's age reflected the software's age, but despite what documentation indicates, I believe it does work on Windows 10.) – TOOGAM – 2018-01-04T12:58:14.383

Answers

These are tombstone DHCP leases and they shouldn't bottleneck your router. The fact the router is assigning new leases to the same MAC addresses is unconventional.

When your systems leave the network before your current DHCP leases expire, their turning into remnants and those returning systems are being granted new IP's instead of just renewing their legacy IP's.

I would shorten your DHCP lease duration, down to an hour which forces those systems to renew their leases more frequently, but more importantly the shorter DHCP lease duration should force the router to reclaim those remnants more quickly than what's happening now.

A game or software process doesn't hoarde DHCP leases, it really isn't in a position to do so and even if a software process was, the shorter lease duration should alleviate this since those systems will shutdown or leave the network thus allowing the router to expire those remnants and reclaim them.

123456789123456789123456789

Posted 2017-12-05T02:43:53.367

Reputation: 1 497

That does clarify things up. I changed the lease time, but now if these IPs are ghosts, they're not the ones slowing the connection down. – Saryk – 2017-12-05T03:30:21.813

They're not slowing things down since tombstone leases AREN'T active connections. IP addresses are assigned to physical and virtual network adapters / not programs or even the rudest and greediest video games aren't hoarding leases then using them. All the games and processes are piping their network activity through the physical / virtual adapters. A very good troubleshooting step, is to visit one of those systems such as "Lucas" and from a command prompt, execute ipconfig /all take note of the output, even post it here and you'll see you're systems are still using single IP's. – 123456789123456789123456789 – 2017-12-05T03:36:18.557

These,192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255 are all private IP address not exposed to the public internet. Your wireless router has a DHCP server that hands out addresses. It is usually possible to state certain MAC addresses get a static private IP. You can also just set your network adapter to a fixed private IP.

Your wireless router forwards the request to the outside world on your single public IP address. They could be running virtual machines which are reaching out and grabbing ip addresses. More probable they are IP which the machine had in the past and it just hasn't forgotten them yet.

At minimum you have 192.168.10.2 to 192.168.10.254 available addresses so this shouldn't be a problem. You have a couple longer IP addresses which are just IPv6 locally.

It sounds like you need a router which supports QoS or quality of service. It puts a speed limit on what every gets depending on how its configured. You need to implement a rule to save everyone gets at least ##kbps upload, and the rest is part of a shared pool.

I don't know QoS well enough to tell you how to set that up.

Either you need a router with built-in QoS or an Open WRT or DD-WRT or similiar open firmware compatible router you can flash with said firmware.

cybernard

Posted 2017-12-05T02:43:53.367

Reputation: 11 200

1We changed routers a month ago because we had basically a 4G relay and the 500GB of data were burnt in half a month. The new one doesn't have QoS built in, no tracker, I can't edit the firewall properties to block torrenting and such... I canät do much on it :( – Saryk – 2017-12-05T03:24:45.653

@Saryk You can either get a different router, or get another router to plug into this one. Then disable wifi on your existing router so it can't be used to bypass your new router with QoS support. Otherwise did you check your routers make and model against the hardware compatibility lists of OpenWrt and DD-Wrt and the link? – cybernard – 2017-12-05T03:36:29.017

1Come to think of it I have plugged in a router to the router in the past, so I know that. I haven't understood the last part of your question though, I'm going to check this out right now. – Saryk – 2017-12-05T03:43:21.670

@Saryk Your wifi router has a firmware provided by your routers manufacturer. Open Wrt, DD-Wrt and so forth a replacement firmware which gives you open Linux environments where implementing, from my understanding, is possible. The replacement firmware have 10x the features of standard firmware. https://openwrt.org/

– cybernard – 2017-12-05T03:46:53.057

1Ooh. And how could I install it, and what are the risks ? – Saryk – 2017-12-05T04:01:41.330

Many, but not all, are as simple as download this fille, goto update firmware on the router and select previously downloaded file and click Flash, go, or some other affrimative answer. Well the ultimate risk is bricking your router, maybe you can restore the old firmware maybe you can't. However, if it is on the compatibility list, then the risk should be minimal. Read the notes if any are present for you device. https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/start AND https://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Devices

– cybernard – 2017-12-05T04:09:25.367

1It is a Technicolor TG784n v3, it's not in either of the lists :/ – Saryk – 2017-12-05T04:16:25.370

Maybe google Technicolor TG784n v3 AND open router firmware It is possible your device isn't support, but doing some reaearch first doesn't hurt. Otherwise replace your router with 1. A router with Qos or 2. A full supported alternate firmware model. – cybernard – 2017-12-05T04:40:26.700