Mac Forum / General / Portable Macs / September 2007

I had a problem which is now solved, by it is still baffling, I want to know
what went on, what went wrong and home I might forestall it in future. Basic
details: on a G3 Wallstreet PB with OS 10.2.8 installed, I use a Cisco
Aironet 340 series wireless LAN adaptor. It has performed flawlessly on the
PB and also on a similar Wallstreet with OS9.2.2 installed. From one moment
to the next I could no longer connect to the net. According to the Cisco
utility software I was still getting  a strong signal (as always). I then
went to Network on System Preferences. This has not been changed and was
previously showing that the Wallstreet was configured under TCP/IP to use
DHCP. The IP address was 'self-assigned' And that was the problem: it was
'self-assigning' a completely wrong IP address. I initially cured the
problem by manually assigning the correct IP address and I could get back on
the net. Then just a moment ago, I opened Network to check whether I was
using the rightterminology, I found that it is now once again assigning
itself the correct IP address. Fair enough. But what was going on? Why
should the Wallstreet for now apparent reason suddenly assign itself the
wrong IP address before 24 hours later correcting itself? Is the problem
with the wireless modem/router, a Netgear Rangemax DG834PN? As I say, the
problem has been solved, but I still want to undertsand what happened.
Explanations and suggestions, please. Thanks, PP