100+100=200 ?????

**Ty909** · January 10th, 2006, 05:17 PM

I have winxp installed with 2 wired network cards. Is it possible to combine the two to add the speed to 200 mbits? they each run independently with their own ips at the moment.

Thanks....

**houseisland** · January 10th, 2006, 06:19 PM

Multihoming is a standard way of resolving bottlenecks on servers where the server's NIC is near or at the limit of its throughput capabilities.

Never done it on a workstation.

But from the horse's mouth:

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d...c_tcp_qevr.asp

**confus-ed** · January 11th, 2006, 06:58 AM

Originally Posted by houseisland

Multihoming is a standard way of resolving bottlenecks on servers where the server's NIC is near or at the limit of its throughput capabilities...

Yeah .. but .. somebody forgot to say that windows can only handle a single TCP/IP connection at once, so you can't do what you want inside a pc (100mb/s + another 100mb/s connection is still two seperate 100Mb/s connections) - you need a device to combine the streams first..

What you actually wanted is called multiplexing - & there's not much available in terms of a 'home device' to do this, though you can find things that will, but usually you need a huge intake of breath & to sit down just before they tell you the price !

**Ty909** · January 11th, 2006, 09:05 AM

So I guess two NIC's mostly work as a failsafe or for bridging purposes. Its not a necessity for me, I was just experimenting and wondered if it could be done. I would also assume that this is a big deal for ISPs in providing bandwidth. Thanks.

**confus-ed** · January 11th, 2006, 09:14 AM

Originally Posted by Ty909

So I guess two NIC's mostly work as a failsafe or for bridging purposes. .

That's what multihoming is generally used for, or for load balancing in/between subnets ..

If your question was originally about just a local network, then the answer would be to use gigabit cards & better cabling, if your situation was concerning ISP connections coming in, the answer would be to just get a better connection rather than try & combine several, & yeah the only folks really interested in this are often ISP's, though some big businesses will inevitably have similar issues..

**Gabriel** · January 12th, 2006, 05:51 AM

Originally Posted by Ty909

I have winxp installed with 2 wired network cards. Is it possible to combine the two to add the speed to 200 mbits? they each run independently with their own ips at the moment.

Thanks....

If you are into speed why not Use Gigabit Ethernet (There are copper (802.3ab) as well as optical (802.3z) sollution)
One other thing (on the Physical layer - usually on switches) there is a thing called "TRUNK" - I have used it to inter-connect switches (3com...) - the switch "knows" that those two connection are actually one and transmit data using both connection to gain more speed.

Good Day,
Gabriel

**confus-ed** · January 12th, 2006, 06:45 AM

Originally Posted by Gabriel

..One other thing (on the Physical layer - usually on switches) there is a thing called "TRUNK" - I have used it to inter-connect switches (3com...) - the switch "knows" that those two connection are actually one and transmit data using both connection to gain more speed..

Can't use 'trunk' with a windoze device or not with TCP/IP you can't

& if you want to get really confus-ed about why (as its all to do with the deep dark secrets of the OSI model) then read this( which is about 'lan switching' in the context of vlan's - but the general ideas, if you can get your head around them, are the same

)