The short answer is: If you have that many computers using this device simultaneously you should probably be using some beefier hardware .

The router will only allow you to use at most a class C network (256 addresses).  192.168.1.0 is generally reserved as the "network name". 192.168.1.1 is reserved for the gateway IP address.  192.168.1.255 is the broadcast address.  This leaves you you with 253 IP addresses to lease via DHCP.

I'm guessing you won't ever have 253 computers on the network simultaneously, so this shouldn't be an issue.  It is far more likely that you might have 253 different computers over a period of time.  This is where your DHCP lease time will come into play.  When a computer is leased an IP address by a DHCP server, it is leased that IP for a certain amount of time.  This is called your DHCP lease time, and can be configured in the web interface.  Hence, as computers leave the network, the leases for their IP addresses will expire.  When a lease expires, that IP address returns to the DHCP pool and can be leased to a different computer.

When you start running out of addresses, your subnet is said to be oversubscribed. If your DHCP lease is very high, lowering it might fix the problem (2 hours should be reasonable if you're in an environment where many people come and go). Otherwise, you'll need to redesign your network.

-- Greg

I work in an open office environment and we have both a wired and a wireless network. Our servers are located off the premises and we connect through rdp. We have two printers on site who are plugged into our router (until recently an SMC device, but as this died the other day I bought a wrt160n to replace it). The printers serve both the LAN and the off-site servers and have static IP addresses (192.168.2.239 and 243, and they are for some reason set in stone...).

Basic setup of the wrt160n router was a breeze, and we had our WLAN up in no time. However we were uable to print, as the printers were outside the IP range given by the router. When I tried to change the gateway IP to 192.168.2.1 all the backed up print jobs printed, but the WLAN lost connectivity to the internet. I was also unable to log on to the router admin interface to reset the IP to 1.1.

Any good tips on how I may have the best of both worlds - both a WLAN with connectivity and be able to print?

Best regards

Sturlalv