Rookie questions

[hula8585]

Hi,

Its been a couple of years since I put a rig together, so i did my homework and ended up with this (see my sig).

Any way pretty happy so far. Wish I had a $ for every time i rebooted before I got it up and running. :nod: Well its up, Its stable and Im happy but I have a couple of questions. Probably rookie rookie questions.

 

1) whats up with the 2 lan ports and drivers and stuff. Every one here knows the directions suck and this was a hold up for me. Could someone explain this for me? ( Not the directions sucking... lol) Witch port to use, what driver wtf? Why Would I want 2. Can I use them at the same time. Is one better than the other?

 

Well thats my first one, Ill keep adding them as they come up.

 

Fyi I been playing planetside and bf2. No problems what-so-ever. OOOOH what a differance over my old rig . I love my frame rates.

 

This site is great and I never would have made it this far with this board without you guys. THANKS !

[Sorrento]

Physically, the LAN port on top is the one with the nVidia controller... while the one in the bottom is the Marvell controller one. I use the first one, but both are ok: both are gigabit.

 

Drivers for the nVidia one are installed when you install the chipset (mobo) drivers, the Marvel ones are on the DFI CD.

[Guest Computaholic]

Has anyone ever really compared them? I'd like to know if one uses less system resources than the other? We know that they are both Gigabit, so as far as speed is concerned your ISP is the main bottleneck. (IE: Cable, DSL, Etc.) But is one of them more of a Processor Hog than the other? Or does using the Marvell LAN free up the nForce4 chipset to do other things more efficiently? (IE: SATA) Personally i've never been to a LanParty, (No pun intended) maybe that is when would you use them both?

[Sorrento]

I believe the nVidia controller one is better since its native of the southbridge nForce4 chipset, I think; not sure but I see no nVidia LAN chip when there is a Marvell one.