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Wireless NIC vs. Ethernet Link or modem

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9 replies

by scottantoszewski

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My laptop has a wireless nic as well as a "regular" nic that uses a cable. When they are both on or plugged in and have IP addresses, how does the computer decide which one to use? This also applies to using the wireless nic and modem at the same time, I cant seem to figure out how it knows which one to use. Thanks for the help.

sa

9 replies

by ghimpe--

It is confused too :D I've seen this scenario manny times, especialy when the network is used to provide internet connection..the computer doesn't know where to look for internet access and just sits doing nothing...

BUT, it is posible to have multiple NIC instaled on a computer (you can bridge them, make the computer a router, etc)

by scottantoszewski

Poster rated this answer.
So thats it? Just make sure the drivers for both are installed and Windows XP just "knows" which one to use when they are both active?

by cg it

note: docked profile used to mean docking the laptop to a docking station on a company network which makes the laptop a quasi desktop while undocked meant away from the company network. you can create the profiles to suit your needs e.g. wireless at work, wired at home. Bridging literally means creating a bridge between networks [Cisco uses this a lot on their campus or regional backbones]

Here's an article http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/network-bridging.html

by sgt_shultz

interesting question.
my guess is when you ask to go to, say, support.microsoft.com, the browser sends request to each dns server in turn to 'resolve' that text name to its unique internet ip address...it tries one potential connection then the next until it gets name resolved. in Mac OSX, there is a list, its fairly clear, and you can change the order. i bet it is changable in windows but off top of head i think might be complex. used to be it was hosts, gateway to dns, lmhosts i do believe was the dns search order...you on xp, yes? i can only think of gateway list in tcpip settings...
that sure is asking the right question, imho.

by sue t

I think I got this infor on Microsoft's site but do the following. Go to network connections (right click network places and click on properties). Advanced menu, advanced settings. In this window you can adjust the order that the connections are accessed. This worked for me so it should work for you. Also I have other computers that use both wireless and wired at the same time because they are connected to presentation players through wireless but use wired to get on the internet. I don't remember doing any thing special to make this work other than upgrading from Windows 98 to Windows XP. Good luck.

by scottantoszewski

Thats it, answer 4 is EXACTLY what I was looking for. It works a lot like NT 4 did, I just could not find the screen. Thanks to all who took time to help.

sa

by scottantoszewski

Thats it, answer 4 is EXACTLY what I was looking for. It works a lot like NT 4 did, I just could not find the screen. Thanks to all who took time to help.

sa

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