How do I change my IP Address on my computer?

Assuming you are using DHCP, your computer will be assigned an IP address from a pool of addresses. Generally, if you request a new address before the lease time is up, you will get the same address back.

So you will have to login to your router (most of them have a web interface, look at the manual) and change the IP that is assigned to your computer's. The most common way to do that is to assign your computer a specific IP address based on the MAC address of its network card.

The details of how to do this are specific to the router you have.

Edit:

Most routers do network address translation ("NAT"), specifically one-to-many NAT. The machines on the internal network usually have 192.168.xxx.yyy addresses. But from the outside it looks like all the traffic is comming from one IP address (not in 192.168/16, because that range cannot be routed on the internet).

So it is not possible to directly expose your computer to the outside world (which in general is a good thing!).

But if you know which port(s) your gaming service/program uses, you might try to use port forwarding, so that every packet for the gaming port that arrives at the external interface of the router is sent to your PC. You can then point the other gamers to use the externally visible IP address on your router.

The only downside is that in this scenario it is difficult to have more than one gaming "server" on your internal network exposed to the internet. But virtual hosting combined with port forwarding could do the trick.

You should read the documentation that comes with your game thoroughly. Most home PC's are behind routers these days. So the games should know how to cope with that.

Roland Smith

Posted 2013-11-23T21:52:50.547

Reputation: 1 712

Now that we know what his problem actually is, we know this won't solve it. – David Schwartz – 2013-11-23T22:48:00.597

@DavidSchwartz: We (or at least I :-) still don't know exactly what the problem is. But I suspect it has something to do with using the laptop as a kind of server for a game, so having it reachable from the internet. So I added a piece about port forwarding. But I guess that the real answer to Tony's question can be found in the game's documentation, given that home routers a ubiquitous. – Roland Smith – 2013-11-24T00:08:17.670

Or he can look it up on Portforward.com. It has the biggest colection of routers with specific instruction how to forward ports for 100's of games on those routers (with images).

– Rik – 2013-11-24T00:36:18.467

@Rik That's probably the best answer to the question that wasn't asked but should have been. :-) – Roland Smith – 2013-11-24T10:53:58.423

http://superuser.com/a/312803/179299 – Lorenzo Von Matterhorn – 2013-11-23T21:58:03.283

Why do you want to change it? What is the problem? – Roland Smith – 2013-11-23T22:05:31.670

@RolandSmith This is for gaming reasons. Do you know how to change it though? – puretppc – 2013-11-23T22:08:20.997

ipconfig /release and then ipconfig /renew in Command Prompt, but it depends on the Lease Time of your DHCP server in the router, you could get the same IP back. – Alex – 2013-11-23T22:11:55.173

When you say "my IP address", what do you mean? People don't have IP addresses, and it's not clear whether you mean the laptop's IP address, the router's LAN IP address, the router's WAN IP address, or something else entirely. – David Schwartz – 2013-11-23T22:23:34.283

@DavidSchwartz I actually mean my laptop IP address not he router's IP. Sorry if I'm a little bit 'noobish' at this. – puretppc – 2013-11-23T22:32:10.940

@Tony You understand that will not be visible from outside your own network, right? To the outside world, your IP address will appear to be the same. (Since they can't see into your LAN.) – David Schwartz – 2013-11-23T22:35:04.750

@DavidSchwartz Oh really? So it really doesn't seem changed when others see it :/ But when I reset my router, it seemed to work I think – puretppc – 2013-11-23T22:37:50.550

@Tony Likely because that changed the router's WAN IP address. People outside your LAN cannot see into it. Changing your LAN IP addresses won't change anything visible from outside your LAN. (This is a classic XY problem. You asked how to do something you thought would solve your problem rather than telling us what your problem actually is and asking how to solve it.)

– David Schwartz – 2013-11-23T22:46:47.373

How do I change my IP Address on my computer?

Answers