Wi-Fi Network Settings

Router Static IP Address Setup

Now that you have some IP addresses available, you'll need to manually assign them to devices that need static addresses. What you need to do is to provide the network adapter of your device with a unique IP address, the network Subnet Mask, the Gateway address and a DNS server address. Based on the above example, you could use any address between 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.100.1 for the IP address and 192.168.1.254 for the Subnet Mask. The Gateway and DNS address is the same as the router's IP address; which is 192.168.10.1.

Just be sure to keep a list of the static IP addresses you've assigned already so that you don't reuse them again by mistake. The process for assigning a static IP address to a network adapter will vary based on the device you're trying to configure, so check your documentation.

Activating Your Wi-Fi Router

With your network now properly configured you can move on to setting up your wireless network. This is actually very simple and should only take you a couple of minutes. When you do this, make sure you use a computer that is connected to the network via an Ethernet cable. If you try to configure Wi-Fi over wireless, you'll lose the connection to the management console whenever changes to the configuration are applied.

Windows PCs also allow you to share data among network users. There are a few different ways to accomplish this, but the simplest by far would be to use a Homegroup. The Homegroup is quick and easy to set up and allows you to share data with all or some network users. It can even be password protected.

As any IT professional will tell you, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are dozens of additional features within your router that would help to make your network more secure and perform better. These include Quality of Service, better known as QoS, for prioritizing network traffic, and Universal Plug-n-Play, which allows devices like media servers to communicate easily with other PCs on the network. There's also port forwarding, dynamic DNS, remote management, and so much more. For a rundown of advanced abilities you might actually care about, read 7 Router Features You Should Be Using for Better Wi-Fi. Once you're up and running, test your internet speed below.