I need some tips for my office LAN.
My network include 14 PCs and using star topology.
What should i do to maintain my LAN to be in good shape?
Do i need to assign IPs manually?
I share my internet connection in my network.
Let me know anything i should do for my network to be better.
I may need some detail tips.
Thanks for any advice.

is your network switched or hub based?

Which LAN technology is it that you are using? I assume its ethernet but you may be using token ring.

One thing to note that if all machines are used at the same time on a regular basis in a shared media environment such as your office LAN, and using Ethernet, the chances of collisions occurring are certainly greater, if you find this a problem, then you may also notice that your LAN is not as efficient as it could be...this can be solved with Segmentation (ie adding an extra switch to increase the number of collision domains and hence reduce the chances of a collision occuring in the first place)

Obviously 14 machines isnt very much so I don't see this being a particularly noticible problem.

Assigning IP addresses manually is probably something that you will find useful. With it only being a small network this will not take too long, and you can assign each machine its own IP address and configure the default gateway so that all machines can get on the net correctly, assuming that your internet connection is static (ie the ip address is always the same)

If ive been a bit too technical here (obviously I dont know how much your knowledge of networking goes) just ask!

Hope this helps a bit!