KinZee

Ok, well ,y mobo has 2 integrated RJ45 LAN ports, and I have been running only one Cat5 cable ever since I built my PC, but last night, I got the gumption to try and connect a second cable, and see if it would increase performance any... Hooked it up, and configured it on a static IP/gateway/etc. yadda-yadda... I can see that both of my ports are indeed sending and receiving packets OK. I was happy. My web browsing seemed to pick up a bit because I can (theoretically) send twice the requests. I know that I am still limited by my bandwidth.

I have heard rumors of the purpose of dual Ethernet is so one port contro\ls upstream, and the other controls downstream info. My question is... Is that true? Are there any programs or tweaks to get more performance from dual ethernet ports?

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Gremlin

Thats probably one of the best questions I have seen posted here!! If anyone has information please to post

brandon6199

I would also like to know the answer to this

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Gremlin

Ok thinking into this a bit... I do not think you can have 1 port for up and 1 for down.. reason being.. they are diffrent MAC address.. and diffrent IP address.. Therytically of couse.. you could probably assign programs to specific ports.. IE.. Browser to port 1 and game to port 2??

boydyboyd

i can't say for sure but i believe this is possible in Firefox using the about:config section. By knowing the mac address of your ethernet ports.

have you tried bridging them together into a 2gb/s pipe? CTRL-Click them both in the control pannel and right click to - Bridge connections. Then windows creates a network bridge between the two.

and yes, one does do upstream and the other does downstream.

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slngsht

YES I am interested in this as well, but have never thought to ask. Good question!

I have used both rj45 ports though, but one was for internet sharing with another pc I had right beside this one.

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Gremlin

Hmmm thanks for the info Boy.. I may have to give this a shot hehe

Is there any documented information anywhere describing the pros and cons to this?

boydyboyd

Advantages

* Self configuring
* Primitive bridges are often inexpensive
* Reduce size of collision domain by microsegmentation in non switched networks
* Transparent to protocols above the MAC layer
* Allows the introduction of management - performance information and access control
* LANs interconnected are separate and physical constraints such as number of stations, repeaters and segment length don't apply

Disadvantages

* Does not limit the scope of broadcasts
* Does not scale to extremely large networks
* Buffering introduces store and forward delays - on average traffic destined for bridge will be related to the number of stations on the rest of the LAN
* Bridging of different MAC protocols introduces errors
* Because bridges do more than repeaters by viewing MAC addresses, the extra processing makes them slower than repeaters

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Manyak

The answer to your question is a bit complicated.

MOST of the time what you are asking for is impossible. Well, not technically impossible, just unsupported by your network cards.

However, certain motherboards (like the 790i) and virtually all network cards with dual lan connectors (such as this one) can do it. The feature you are looking for is called "Load Balancing". And it does not use one port for upstream and one for downstream....that would be stupid because all cards today are full duplex capable, meaning they can fully utilize the upload and download bandwidth simultaneously. It uses both ports for both directions of transfer.


You can even get network cards with 4 connections, but I can't imagine what you'd need a 4 gigabit connection in your house for.

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XFreeRollerX

im so subscribing to this - I have dual LAN cables as well!

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