A company-owned Windows 11 laptop suddenly lost internet access at the user's home. Wi‑Fi connected but received an unidentified network and a 169.254.x.x APIPA address. Wired Ethernet behaved the same way, while other devices on the home network continued working normally.
I tried releasing and renewing the lease, flushing DNS, resetting Winsock and TCP/IP, using Windows' full network reset, rebooting the laptop and router, and uninstalling and reinstalling the network adapters with the latest manufacturer drivers. None of that restored DHCP.
As a temporary workaround, manually assigning an IP address allowed both Ethernet and Wi‑Fi to work and let me connect remotely. What else should I check to find out why this machine cannot obtain a DHCP lease automatically?
3 Answers
Check the router’s DHCP scope and lease table, but don’t assume the router is the problem just because the issue happens at home. Look for an accidental static reservation, duplicate MAC address, exhausted address pool, or an address conflict. A conflicting static device inside the DHCP range can produce strange results, although the fact that other devices are fine makes a laptop-side issue more likely.
Since both Wi‑Fi and Ethernet fail on the same computer while other devices work, I’d focus on Windows rather than the router. Check that the DHCP Client service is running and set to Automatic, and verify the adapter is configured to obtain both its IP address and DNS automatically. Also inspect the Windows event logs around DHCP and networking for lease or service errors.
Test the laptop on a completely different network, such as a phone hotspot or another office connection. If it also receives a 169.254 address there, look for VPN clients, endpoint security, packet-filtering software, or virtual network adapters interfering with DHCP. Temporarily disabling or removing those components can help isolate the cause.
I’ll verify the DHCP Client service and the adapter’s automatic addressing settings first. The fact that both interfaces behave identically does point toward something at the OS level.