PC Keyboard

I used to use an ex-NT4.0 steel-cased Compaq keyboard that weighed a lot and didn't have a Windows key. It used to puzzle the 'BT' people who phoned me to help sort out a virus problem I apparently had... not that it would have helped them anyway, on a Linux machine.

Just a quick word that I don't think has been mentioned so far: many modern computers have a USB port marked for keyboard, and the BIOS is best behaved if it is used accordingly. Possibly this is the port where the BIOS expects to see a keyboard during BIOS setup. While an OS is running, any USB port is OK, of course.

I didn't know that, thank you :-)

Will get the magnifying glass out tomorrow and have a look!

Lack of WinKey was why my Model Ms are now gathering dust.

I don't use the numpad much, so bought a TKL one to save space, no fancy LED lighting, with most you can choose clicky or silent switches, or ANSI/ISO enter key orientation.

I've been fairly happy with my Cherry MX3000 USB.. Cheap it aint...

Fixed IP addresses are used and set at the PC and not the router. The only time a router needs to know an IP address is when you use port forwarding.

I think it would help if you explained the issue? You said you swapped PCs? What was ignoring your fixed IP address and how was that set?

I found some hen's teeth :-)

Looks nice, not too different from the Mattias in price, is it clear of key bounce?

The router maintains a list of addresses ( there were dozens there) even though it hadn't supplied them, I don't know why.

Before the swap I had:

Gigabyte Z790 JGMAIN 192.168.1.3 Asus Z170-K JGSERVER 192.168.1.6

After the swap:

Gigabyte Z790 JGSERVER 192.168.1.6 Asus Z170-K JGMAIN 192.168.1.3

The router though has the old addresses cached so using RDP to JGMAIN sent me to JGSERVER and vice versa.

This is not unusual. If the devices have pre-existing DHCP leases the leases will get reissued with the same IP addresses when the router reboots, even if the mapping table config has changed. It's only when the leases expire will they be issued with new IP addresses.

The solution is to turn off both servers and router at the same time, so that no current leases exist. Then bring everything back again, at which point you'll only use the updated mapping table.

Theo

That didn't work. The router wasn't supplying the addresses (they were fixed) but had them in some sort of cache which persisted between boots. No idea why, I have asked in the Plusnet forum but no answer yet.

Press the key once and it sends a random number of presses to the PC :-)

Usually only one extra but enough to screw up entering a password.

It will look up the appropriate entry for the incoming source address in its NAT table, which is extremely ephemeral and not manually configured. It will then use its ARP table, or make an ARP request, to find the internal machine.

What Fredxx means is that the only IP addresses that need to be deliberately configured in the router by a human are connected with port forwarding, 'DMZ' and similar, when DHCP can also be forced to give the specified addresses to particular computers.

But the typical domestic router needs no manual configuration in most cases, and a fixed IP address can be configured on the client machine. It's just usually a better idea to use a DHCP reservation.

No sign of that after a year or so.

Its a decent keyboard. The legends are still on the keys, too. I think I paid about £85 - its already outlasted the normal lifespan of several cheapos.

Would have been better with two colour moulded caps. The legends are dim now

Exactly. It has a cache of IP to MAC address mappaings.

FSVO 'better' ...

Just checked and my current USB keyboard is from my Fujitsu Siemens PC bought somewhere before the turn of the century and long gone.

Any recently purchased keyboards will be Logitech wireless keyboards, often associate with a wireless mouse.

So not much help, I'm afraid.

Cheers

Dave R

Specifically a Durgod Taurus K320

Other layouts and colours available

That looks well worth the money., Double shot keycaps and cherry switches mmm...

You just need to flush incorrect entries out of the router's dns host table, they were placed there by previous DHCP requests which you have disabled for the PCs in question.

Then you need to adjust the size of the DHCP pool, so that your chosen 'static' hard assigned IP addresses are never issued in future by DHCP.

Alternatively, you can reserve these addresses in your router as infinite leases for the PCs, enable DHCP on the PC interfaces and live in peace....

BTW Make sure you save the router config in NVRAM, so it don't disappear on the next power cut....

Has anyone ever written a decent dummies guide to ISP routers and wifi? Sounds like it could be a best seller?

Trouble is every damned router has a different menu structure and different capabilities

Saying things lik 'limit the DHCP pool and assign servers permanent IP addresses out of that range, or assign them permanent DHCP entries in the table is easy to *say*.

But a long way from a menu by menu 'push this button' guide.

I have used the setup I do with IP addresses below x.x.x.100 assigned manually and above that by DHCP since the 1990's but this is the first modem/router I have had that retains its cache through a re-boot.