haplopeart Posted January 4, 2006 Posted January 4, 2006 Ok, So I bought my board for other reasons, now that I have the system up and fairly stable (observations on that coming in a later post) I am looking at the dual NICs and wondering why? They are differnet makers with different drivers so you can't take advantage of bonding to raise available bandwidth. If configured on the same subnet windows will always prefer one NIC over the other for routing traffic basically making the other unused. On different subnets I suppose that they might get some use from having different routes and gateways. But who really segments a home lan like that? So I ask has anyone found a use for two NICS? Am I missing something, or is just what I think a big marketing gimmick? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
skuzzy Posted January 4, 2006 Posted January 4, 2006 almost every motherboard these days comes with 2 ethernet ports...i still have not found a use for the other one of them Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dieselstation Posted January 4, 2006 Posted January 4, 2006 1 is for normal. 1 is for gigabit lan. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
skuzzy Posted January 4, 2006 Posted January 4, 2006 are they not both gigabit LAN? Im sure mine are... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rewen Posted January 4, 2006 Posted January 4, 2006 they are both gigabit and there are lots of potential uses. You can connect to 2 different networks with them. One can be for internet, and the other for a secured home network. You don't have to worry about someone getting onto your home network through your internet connection that way. I doubt anyone would actually have a setup like that. One nice use for it is if you're on a router that doesn't have enough free ethernet ports. You can hook up a pc into your open port and bridge the 2 lan connections. I've actually had a chain of 3 PCs coming from a single ethernet port on a router. Of course this isn't a great idea because as soon as you reboot or shutdown, everyone below you on the chain loses connectivity. Not to mention you're all sharing the same bandwidth from the router. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
blinky Posted January 4, 2006 Posted January 4, 2006 Both Gigabit. They are handy if you want to build a gateway / firewall box. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pecan Posted January 4, 2006 Posted January 4, 2006 Interesting post. I only use the one, but I guess two is always better than one. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangoO Posted January 4, 2006 Posted January 4, 2006 Can be nice to have an ADSL connection via a 100mb ADSL router, and a direct 1gb connection to your NAS server. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jumpman Posted January 5, 2006 Posted January 5, 2006 i use them like this: 1 port for ADSL modem...and the other one to connect to my brother's rig. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cali Posted January 13, 2006 Posted January 13, 2006 I always thought you could connect both to a gigabit switch and bridge the two lan connections. Wouldnt you be connected at 2 Gbps to the local network lol? Would only really increase transfers on your home network because your cable/dsl modem is a bottle neck usually around 1.5 - 3 Mbps. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
naddie Posted January 13, 2006 Posted January 13, 2006 incorrect - bridging it will not increase bandwidth. You will need 2 NICs that support bonding, and even then they would have to be the same make/model (or at least the same make anyways, depending on how the manufacturer designed their products). Intel and 3Coms are big on this. And usually they are on the more expensive server-level NICs (costs around 50-100 bucks each). The bridging in XP Home/Pro allows for 2 dissimilar networks to communicate. So that means sharing an internet connection, or bridging two local subnets together so that the two different networks can communicate with each other. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
the_vandyl Posted January 13, 2006 Posted January 13, 2006 absolutely great for transferring files from an old PC to another without using a router Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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