we are running around a dozen win7 pro PC's, all have statically assigned IPs. Three new PCs (within the last month) are picking up a dhcp address when booted and intermitantly during the day and then dropping it as they have static addresses assigned. The NIC drivers have been updated to the most recent and have tried disabling ipv6. Any thoughts???

Not making any sense here...did you assign the static at the PC or via the router?? if you do at the PC level then I do not think that you would getting any DHCP IP's, if assigned by router then you need to look at the router.

exactly, it doesn't make any sense. The static IP is assigned at the PC. These are on a business network with DHCP server. But they still pickup a temp DHCP at boot and then drop it right away before logon. Once logged on the static address is used.

It makes perfect sense they are trying to boot from the network so they are broadcasting for and adress at the Preboot eXecution Environment, Solution-Remove the Network Card from the BIOS boot order or disable it it the bios.....

Now that makes more sense, but when boting up you should see that happening, well I guess if you have "fast boot" enabled in the BOIS you may not see that.

PxE shouldnt be a factor since that option wouldnt execute unless a bootable OS was not found on the system. This should be easy to determine. Look at the DHCP lease that is assigned. What is the host name? If it shows the computer's name, that is tied to Windows, not PxE.Visit: anITKB.com, an IT Knowledge Base.