Question about multiple network connections

Forgive me if this has been asked, I didn't look very hard. :rolleyes:

I have two computers, of which both have a Wireless G card and a Wired gigabit connection. Currently they are both on a wireless G 10/100 Netgear router and moving large files between the two via wireless is painful at best.

My question is, would it be possible to connect the two computers via a Cat6 crossover cable or a 10/100/1000 switch while, keeping the wireless connection for internet access? I have a sneaking suspicion that I can't, but I'm not that good with networking so I wouldn't know. :rolleyes:

You don't need a gig router to move gig data from one gig to another gig. Just need a gig switch and either gig PCI, gig PCI-E or GIG PCMICA 32-bit card. But remember G is only 30mbps as N would be more like 120mbps.Wireless will be slower to transfer large files. Newer routers have larger memory packet data buffers some have 832kb for gig switch internal inside the router some have less than 96KB. Gig switches have 64, 128, 144 and all the way up to ((4MB for packet buffers (these are 24/48 ports)).

How large of a file your transferring? I do large files over Gig to Gig daily Stream Media over 100mbps daily. One more tip whatever you do don't put 100mbps devices on a gig switch. You can connect the router if it's a 10/100 to the gig switch that's okay. But if you got slower devices don't do it.

I understand the basics of wired and wireless networking and as I said, both computers have a 10/100/1000 gigabit connection available. Unfortunately your explanation has little bearing to the question at hand, which is:

"Can I use my gigabit ethernet connecion for a direct connection between my two computers (either with a standalone gigabit switch or a gigabit crossover cable), while using the wireless connection for internet access?"

As for the amount of data, Moving 5-10GB of data at a time over wireless is painfully slow, at over a few hours depending on network traffic from other computers.

Random thought: even if I were to get a gigabit router or say... a Wireless N (draft 2.o) router, It would be rough pushing that much data onto a hard drive unless it was in a RAID. I mean the WD 640GB black HDD (the destination HDD usually) is pretty quick and all, but it would probably become the bottleneck (if not source drive considering its slower spindle speed).

you can create multiple connections, but only use one at a time (ie the other needs to be closed or disabled).

While they both can be connected at the same time, the first one connected will get the correct 'default route' in the routing table and this dominate the traffic flow.

Windows does not do well attempting to schedule traffic on two active connections;
awe heck, that problem is universal.

two issues are a) how the routing controls outbound flow and b) software that can force the use of one interface (nic) over the other. There is an ATM protocol for that but to date not very prevalent.

Contrary to others, I believe it'll work just fine.

To prevent any issues, leave your wireless DHCP (or however you have it setup now), but I'd assign an IP address manually to the network card that connects to your LAN and leave the 'gateway' entry blank. As long as no gateway is specified, Windows shouldn't look your LAN for Internet access.

If you continue to have trouble, windows also allows you to prioritize your networks. Start > Control Panel > Network Connections and click on the "Advanced" menu and "Advanced Settings".

Windows gives preference to the adapter at the top of the list. If the network request (Internet) is possible on the first adapter (wireless), it will continue to prefer your wireless network for internet access.

all right I'll give it a shot and I'll post how it goes... of course I need to get said crossover cable.

with a command prompt you can see the routing table:
route print

Code:

1) Active Routes:
2) Network Destination        Netmask          Gateway       Interface  Metric[b]
3)           0.0.0.0          0.0.0.0      192.168.0.1     192.168.0.4       20[/b]
4)         127.0.0.0        255.0.0.0        127.0.0.1       127.0.0.1       1
5)       192.168.0.0    255.255.255.0      192.168.0.4     192.168.0.4       20
6)       192.168.0.4  255.255.255.255        127.0.0.1       127.0.0.1       20
7)     192.168.0.255  255.255.255.255      192.168.0.4     192.168.0.4       20
8)         224.0.0.0        240.0.0.0      192.168.0.4     192.168.0.4       20
9)   255.255.255.255  255.255.255.255      192.168.0.4     192.168.0.4       1
10) Default Gateway:       192.168.0.1
===========================================================

Well all know that 127.0.0.1 will never leave our system so lines 4+6 lead to only internal services

with the ip address from ipconfig == 192.168.0.4, lines 5,+7+8+9 are the system itself on the LAN

that leaves ONLY 192.168.0.1 (the gateway address) as a means to leave the box.

add all the NICs you please and you still get only ONE default and all nonspecific outbound traffic will exit your system via the single gateway shown on line (3)

btw: adding a second nic, say on 172.16.1.* will create another route like

Code:

      172.16.1.0    255.255.255.0      172.16.1.0     172.16.1.0       20

which will only send traffic to a specific destination on that subnet 172.16.1.0/24

Fantastic!

I got it to work! To explain "it" I mean "Connect two computers via a gigabit crossover cable while using the wireless connection for internet/game use."

After disabling the wireless connection, manually choosing my private ip's, redoing my network shares, and restarted the computer everything seemed to work. Then when I kicked my wireless on the wireless connection took over. I figured this was because the default gateway for all traffic (assuming all types of traffic is enabled on all connections) as has been explained here.

So I went to Network connections -> advanced menu -> advanced settings, and after thinking about it I disabled the "file and printer sharing for microsoft networks" binding on the wireless network connection.

And now it seems to work just fine. For buying a $8 cable I quadrupled my transfer speed between the two computers.

Unfortunately if you need a computer to have the share available to the rest of the network this solution won't work, since the connection that is available to the network (in this case the wireless) has file and printer sharing disabled, and any new shares will be to the ethernet connection only. This does not stop you from connecting to other user's shares via your wireless connection however.