I bought a new Nightwawk switch, but it doesn't seem to work out of the box, neither with my Macbook nor with my Windows PC. I reset it to factory settings which didn't solve the problem.
The switch always assigns my computer the IP address 169.254.20.230, regardless whether DHCP is enabled on the switch or I set it to the static IP address 192.168.178.239, because my Fritz!Box Router is on 192.168.178.1.
Any ideas what I might be missing here? Usually, switches are supposed to work out of the box 🤔
These types of switches don't assign IP addresses. The DHCP setting on the switch controls how the switch obtains an IP address for itself. Your Fritz!Box router is still responsible for assigning IP addresses to devices in your network, including computers/devices connected to the switch.
169.254.20.230 is a self-assigned address. Many O/Ses, like Windows and MacOS, will self-assign an IP address when DHCP fails. Are the link lights illuminated on the switch for the ports connected to the router and computer? If not, then you may have one or more bad cables. At least check that they are fully inserted into the jacks at both ends of the cable. Try different ports on the switch on the off-chance that one of the ports is bad.
