Trouble with Home Network

[#1]

Hi guys, was wondering if anyone could offer some advice on some problems i have been having, although they dont cause any disruption its good to know, so first one is.
I have my xbox set to DMZ mode, the problem i ahve with this is that i my PC wont pick it up in DMZ mode and i cant stream my media across via media centre extender, anyone offer a work around on this please?
second one is that when ever i restart my PC it seems to grab a new IP new adress rather than starting at 192.168.1.1, it grabs random ones, which i do not understand, so i changed the TCP setting on the PC yet it just grabbed 192.168.1.4 rather than 1, yet i still have an active connection between both.  Could this be down to the new TCP iV6 i see in Vista, not familiar with it yet.
Router - BT Voyager 2700 HGV
Thanks in advance
Chris

[#2]

You may find that many routers only start to recycle IPs when they need to.
ie if on Monday you boot the PC and it gets 1.1, Tuesday it may get 1.2, Wednesday 1.3, etc. Eventually it gets to the end of the dhcp pool and starts back at the first non-assigned IP in the range again.
I don't use the Voyager, but there's likely a setting in there to reserve a specific IP for use by a device with a specific MAC, so you can fix the IP on a given device.

[#3]

Sorted the IP problem, cleared the local network list.  The router was automaticaly resrving addresses as they were connected.  although it will not pick up the computer name automaticaly, not a problem though, think i may have the dmz problem sorted though, i think i need to bridge the network to allow broadband IP addresses to be used on the network.  Will keep trying.

[#4]

DMZ zone send all ports to the Xbox that start from outside the network. To use this the XBox should have a fixed IP.
You dont need have it in a dmz zone you just need to forward ports that it needs as this is much safer and then lets you forward any ports to the other pc.
In all cases its better to set each pc with its own fixed IP on the network then you dont get any problems with DHCP and you know the ip that each pc is using

[#5]

Quote

In all cases its better to set each PC with its own fixed IP on the network then you don't get any problems with DHCP and you know the ip that each PC is using

My feelings exactly  I know this because I just finished redoing my network which involves a PC, laptop,PS3 and a voip adaptor for broad phone and setting each to take a static i.p solved all my problems.
Without trying to hijack this post as its still on topic I haven't worked out whether or not to switch off DHCP relay on my router.
Once everything is taking a static i.p and DHCP cancelled on each device should I disable it on the router?

[#6]

Its up to you really I leave it on and then if I need to test a new pc or anyone bring a laptop they can connect using the dhcp.
If you turn it off and want to connect another pc temporary you would have to enter all the details
It doesnt do any harm it could be argued that its a slight security risk if you have wireless. 

[#7]

I've never quite seen the perceived "security risk" of dhcp. If someone has taken the trouble to get past the wireless encryption, they're not going to be too flummoxed by a need to find an IP - trying 192.168.0.x and gateway of 192.168.0.1 is likely to bear fruit in a lot of instances.
I tend to put hardware such as printers/NAS, etc on fixed IPs then leave all PCs/laptops, etc on dhcp. I can then move their IPs around from the router side without having to adjust each pc individually.

[#8]

I tried that with my iPixma, but it wouldn't have it. The only way I could get it to consistently work was to fix the ip at the printer end.

[#9]

Interesting  The assigning i.p's to Mac addresses sounded a good idea but I don't think my wag354g router supports it 
I found the address list but no way of editing it.
Never mind I think I'm about as safe as I can get, I cancelled DHCP as if I need to add hardware manually later I can.
I also only allowed the mac of my hardwired desktop to access the router and cancelled any access from the wan except the macs of my lappy and PS3.
Out of curiosity if you don't set static i.i.p's and ports are forwarded surely the port forwarding will stop working ?
I guess my routers just a cheapy, being able to make one port forward rule for different i.p's would be handy as well as the assign to mac feature.