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Network Device Priority

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by linuxman3

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I have two ethernet controllers installed where i work. One is a wireless NIC, the other is a wired NIC. The wireless NIC carries the internet connection. The wired NIC connects to a data server. This is just how it works out for us right now. My boss just installed XP sp2. Now the wired NIC, when it is enabled, is what my computer searches for to get to the internet. When i disable it, it searches for the internet connection through the wireless NIC, which is where the connection should be coming from.

I need both of these network connections enabled, but i want the internet to connect from the wireless card. Service Pack 2 (friggin windows) doesn't want me to do it. Is there a way to set the device priority some how, so that i can have both cards enabled, and have internet run from the wireless card, like how it used to be?

5 replies

by razz2

Are both nics on the same subnet?

What are the ip settings including gateway on each?

Try this:

From the network properties choose the Advanced menu.

Choose Advanced Settings.

Under connections just move the items to the proper order.

Good Luck,

razz

by wlbowers

Sounds like you need to do a bridge.

Open Help and Support and type bridge in the search field.

Read up and follow the directions.

Lee

by darrynmarr1979

maybe a stupid answer this, but have u tried setting up home and small office networking? when u do this it tried to select your internet connection, either thru a gateway, root hub etc, when it tells you its picked Local Area Network (then the name) you select the NIC that u connect thru to the internet, stupid really but sp2 does tend to do strange things to multiple NIC systems

by fitz

I was having a very similar problem trying to use XP sp2 to setup Internet connection sharing. My Win XP machine has a wireless adapter and a wired NIC. The wireless adapter serves as the internet connection through a wireless router two floors away. The wireless adapter uses its own SW to manage the wireless connection and DHCP through Win XP to configure IP/subnet mask/DNS. I wanted to use the wired NIC and ICS to share the connection to another computer in the same room without a wireless adapter. Every time I Enabled the wired adapter, I could no longer access the internet over the wireless.

For my problem, it was important to understand that Windows XP SP2 does something very specific for ICS: It assigns the static IP of 192.168.0.1 to the card that will share to other computers, and on that card it serves DHCP.

My first step was to setup the wireless router / wireless adapter in a scheme (subnet might be a more appropriate term) that wouldn't use 192.168.0.1. I don't know if this was necessary, but since XP SP2 is notorious for screwing up routes in systems with more than one NIC, it seems logical. The wireless router now uses the IP 192.168.1.1 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. (Obviously if the mask was 255.255.0.0, these would still be in the same subnet.) The router starts assigning IPs at 192.168.1.100, so my wireless card usually has that or 192.168.1.101 for an IP.

Next, I wanted to make sure that my PC's default gateway and DNS were configured by the wireless DHCP. (I suspect this is why many people report losing internet connectivity when enabling a 2nd NIC.) While the wired NIC was still Disabled, I changed it's TCP/IP settings to:
IP Address=10.168.0.1 (XP will change it from this)
Subnet Mask=255.255.255.0
Default Gateway=
Use this DNS:

At this point I was able to Enable the wired NIC and keep my internet connectivity for the first time.

I connected the wired NIC to the "Internet" port on the wired router in my computer room. I didn't have a cross over cable or hub sitting around, so I decided to use one of the wired routers that was handy. For my own sanity I configured the wired router to use and serve addresses in 10.192.0.x

Finally, I right-clicked my wireless adapter (yes, the wireLESS one) in 'Network Connections', went to Properties, then to the 'Advanced' Tab. I put check marks in both check boxes on this page and hit OK. At this point Windows XP alerted me that it was going to configure ICS to use 192.168.0.1 and that I needed to configure my other computers to get their settings automatically (as best I recall) and I hit OK.

About 10 seconds later my 2 hour ordeal ended with success.

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