Static IP Addresses

[#1]

Hello All,
Sorry I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to forums - So please forgive me if this is a duplicate topic or has been posted in the wrong place.
I am building a couple of home servers for testing & learning purposes and I require them to both have a static IP address.
- The problem I am experiencing is every time I change a machine to have a a static IP I lose internet connectivity - Once I change the device back to DHCP/Auto obtain everything is all fine.
I don't require these servers/static IP's to be accessed externally - I just want these two servers to have static IP Addresses for internal/LAN use but also require them to have Internet Connectivity.
- I have contacted PlusNet support but they referred me here...
Please Help - My MCSA & MCSE qualifications rely on it ha!
P.S - These are the settings I entered into my NIC adapter for a static IP:-
IP: 192.168.1.50
Subnet Mask: 255:255:255:0
Default Gateway: 192.168.1.254
Thanks!
Chris

[#2]

Hi Chris - Welcome to the PN Forum 
Are you also specifying a DNS server when you setup the IP address on the PC?  I'm assuming not...  Try adding a DNS server address of 8.8.8.8 (This is the Google DNS) in your config. 

[#3]

On your router, also see if you can change your allocated DHCP pool to say 192.168.1.1 - 192.168.1.100 then you can use 192.168.1.101 onwards for static IP addresses.
IP = 192.168.1.101 (for example)
Gateway = your router IP (normally 192.168.1.254)
Subnet = 255.255.255.0
DNS = 8.8.8.8 and 208.67.222.222 (Google DNS and OpenDNS)