Ethernet and Wireless connections ?

[aychamo]

Hey guys

My computer currently has a wireless network card, and it has an ethernet card. I have the wireless card "disabled" right now in my hardware manager (WinXP), and the wired ethernet is active.

What happens if they are both enabled at the same time? How does the computer pick which one to use to access the internet?

 

[syano]

If one NIC has a public address and the other a private address and the destination address is on the internet then it will use the NIC with the public address. If the destination address is on the LAN then it will use the NIC with the private address.

If both NICs have private addresses but only one has a default gateway specified and the destination is on the internet then it will use the NIC with a default gateway specified….

If both NICs are private and both have a default gateway specified I will use whatever NIC is the primary NIC bound to TCP/IP. The bindings tab in Win NT is pretty straight forward. They took it out in Windows XP (or at least I don’t recall seeing it anywhere)… I suppose you could find it in the registry or with third party software.

HTH,

 

[aychamo]

Hey man!

Both cards are setup for DHCP via my router. So they both have the private addresses. Additionaly, they both are bound to TCP/IP in the network config (Its on a WinME machine (muhaha)).

What gateway could I install onto the ethernet-card's setting to make it try to use that one first? I'd rather the compute ruse the hardwired internet card first, and if it can't find a connection there then use the wireless.

 

[syano]

Hmm.. .if the 10/100BaseT NIC is physically attached to the wireless router and both the wireless and 10/100BaseT NIC currently have the same default gateway then you could simply remove the wireless gateway and if the 10/100BaseT NIC failed then it would use the wireless NIC for LAN connections but you would have no WAN connection (if the 1st NIC failed) until you assigned the wireless NIC a default gateway….

I think what you are looking for is a way to “team” your NICs for adapter failover reasons. I have done this many times using hardware based solutions on servers… here is a link that talks about the process http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/networking/teaming.html#how however, I have no idea how or if WinME can do it with hardware not designed to team the NICs… There may be a way to do it, but I am not familiar with any.

 

[Anttech]

Can you not create some floating static routes?

Also if they are both bound to TCP/IP then ME will pick the one at the top of the list, if this link is down it then proceeds to the next in line. however there is no real reason to do this, In a Redundant network you would terminate the different NIC's to different switches, because if you don't you do not have proper redundancy