@KrisG 

Hi KrisG,

I'm surprised. I thought you can run a DHCP server on any device you want, router or not, especially in a mono LAN environment. Because to be fair our box is not routing much, usually we have 1 network at home, and it is just taking packets to host which are not in this network and send them to our ISP...roughly.... it is not like there were a million routes on it. So i can imagine the DHCP server running on the DECO, shut the DHCP on the box, and then any device connecting to DECO could have the DHCP reservation. For the wired devices, the DHCP should be configured to point to the DECO instead of the box when not configured in fix IP.

Yes, you can run a DHCP service on any device which is accessible to ALL the other devices on the LAN.  You can even run multiple DHCP services as long as you know how to set them so they each manage different address ranges.  Even though most router devices include a DHCP service (as well as a lot of other functions), generally you can turn off the built-in DHCP service. Many "gateway" devices which include Wifi are multi-purpose devices (having routing, DHCP service, firewall, Wifi, etc) -- but they almost always have a means to turn off each of those services individually.

So, if you are using your Deco's in Access-Point mode, you must also have a separate device(s) providing routing services and DHCP services ... but those services can be on one device (as they usually are for home networks).

@Dan_C. 

this is why i would be happy to have dhcp on the deco with acces point, so the box would have just a small range to have the deco themselves. and the deco would manage the range for devices in the house. then any box change would not impact anything, especially the dhcp reservations...

currently if i change my box, i will have to redo all dhcp reservations for devices with static IP... and unfortunately i'm gonna change soon my box...