Norm,
I do agree with Carl. I also think you are not quite understanding how the networking here works. As you have seen, you can't have two of the same IPs on the same network, but you also can't have the same computer on the same subnet running with two IPs. The computer's card is either set to DHCP or not. You can change that. Just go in, as you say, and make it anything. It doesn't have to be x.2 or x.3. It isn't stuck in its memory. You could make it 0.100 if you wanted. Then you would have a main computer with a name and an IP address.
The clients aren't going to just "find" that computer. I think that is where you are going wrong. It isn't as though if you set the IP address wrong, they won't find it. You browse or use UNC to find the computer yourself. Since the folder will be shared, you will be able to open each AC on each client, and it will not "find" the new computer. You will then browse to it. If you go to the AC folder on the main computer and look for AmazingCharts.xml, then change it to .txt, you will see the port number and the path for AC. It will default to the name, but you could insert the IP.
A lot of computers will default to the hard wired over the wireless. But, I would disable it in device manager or in the network settings.
Remember, though, this change will not likely increase your speeds a lot. You are still going to run mostly at the network card speeds of the other computers or wireless speed, etc. You will have five computers vying for one network cards' bandwidth. And, given the computer is not a server, it won't be optimized for databases.
I think you will find you will have issues all the time until you bite the bullet and invest some money in a more enterprise setup. All wired. Higher end cards. Better router and switch, etc.
Good luck.
