Electric Socket Powered Ethernet Network gives strange IP address

Question

So, all of a sudden, one day I turned on my PS3 and could not get an IP (ethernet) from DHCP from my router. How strange I thought. It's ethernet wired through those home networking electric plug sockets - using power line networking, like the ones from Devolo etc. The wireless works fine - and I have 5 port switch too.

Initially I thought my PS3 was playing up, but I took out the ethernet cable and plugged it into my laptop - did "ipconfig" and it came up with the wierdest settings:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : mshome.net
   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::6028:37d:9c35:c800%12
   Autoconfiguration IPv4 Address. . : 169.254.200.0
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

Whereas - these ip addresses are totally out of range - and I don't understand where they have come from - no wonder my PS3 could not connect to the router and get an IP address. Incidently, if I "ipconfig" wirelessly on my laptop I get these settings:

Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : home.gateway
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) WiFi Link 5100 AGN
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-16-EA-25-10-04
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::3c94:81ce:c11d:f0af%11(Preferred)
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.104(Preferred)
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
   Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 22 December 2011 23:02:59
   Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 26 December 2011 09:50:23
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.254
   DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.254
   DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 184555242
   DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-12-F6-8A-28-00-1D-BA-1A-A1-B3

   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : fe80::8492:c4e4:4dea:af10%11
                                       192.168.1.254
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix Search List :
                                       mshome.net

Does anyone know whats going wrong here? I would dearly love to get my PS3 working again - or any other device working via powerline networking

Answer 1

169.254.x.x is the self-assigned subnet. If there is no IP address configured for a device and it can't contact a DHCP server, it will assign itself a random IP address in this subnet. The intention is that you can join up two or more random devices with no need to configure anything and they will be able to talk to each other. But probably not to any other devices.

It will be fixed if you turn off the PS3, make sure it has a good connection to the router, and turn it on again.

What this is telling you is that the electric socket networking is not working. Or, possibly that the ethernet cable is bad.