Can i change a PC's IP address?

Hi. i just bought a laptop off ebay.... im always wondering about ppl's past internet expieriences and wondered if there is a way that i can change the IP address of a computer or of there is a way to permantly delete all the crap that thye might have surfed of had on my computer.



any ideas or solutions onto how to change IP address or completly clear the entire pc?



thanksCan i change a PC's IP address?
There would be no need to. The IP address that is important is the IP of their modem which the service provider provides. Most home networks assign the same set of IPs to the home computers.Can i change a PC's IP address?
Computers don't have a permanent IP address. You can statically assign an IP, but it is not permanent. Most of the time, DHCP is used and the computer requests an IP address.
The Ip address is set by your ISP so you can't change it. The best way to clean out an old computer is to buy a disk of the operating system then reformatting the computer. That will clean up all the old files and give you a completely fresh start
The computer is not going to have the same IP address as the previous owner. It will pick up a new IP from your service provider or from your router if you are using one.



Since you did not supply any details as to what type of laptop it is or operating system I'm going to assume it is running Windows (because I dont know much about Macs) and say that you can open Internet Explorer, go to Tools, Internet Options, and clear the history, empty temporary internet files and cookies.



EDIT:



Also.. to those that are giving ';Thumbs Down'; to the answers... please grow up, i didnt give your answers a thumbs down for you to be retaliating.
Yes you can change the IP address of any computer. However, this does not remove anything they might have been done in the past. Completely unrelated.



What you should do is REFORMAT the hard drive and REINSTALL Windows (or whatever operating system you are running) using the System recovery disks that were included with the computer. This is the only way to verify that whatever the previous user did will not harm you in any way.