Will 2 Nic cards on a Windows XP machine..... 1

[lpsitman]

I was wondering if having 2 network cards on a Windows XP pc will double the bandwidth of my internet connection at home? I thought I read in PC World that this may be possible. If it is, can someone point me to the directions for enabling this once they are installed?
Thanks

 

[kmcferrin]

No, it won't.

Having two NICs will give you two connections to your network switch/router, but it has absolutely nothing to do with your Internet connection. In reality, the speed of your Internet connection (usually 1-5 Mbps for DSL/cable) is going to be far, far less than the capabilities of even a single NIC (usually 100 or 1000 Mbps).

 

[lpsitman]

Oh..So in reality, the network card I have already is capable of much more than my cable company will give me via my cable modem?
I appreciate the tip!
Thanks

 

[ArizonaGeek]

Actually you COULD do it but it wouldn't be cheap and really would be just going overboard. But you would have to have two incoming cable lines, if your cable company would even allow it. So two modems and two bills for it. There is some tweaking that would have to be done but it is possible. Just not reasonable, although my cable provider offers 12mb download and 1mb upload, doubling that, so 24mb down and 2 up would be pretty nice for $80 a month. Now how can I talk my wife into that?

Cheers

The answer is always "PEBKAC!

 

[ArizonaGeek]

Actually now that I think about it you'd have to use a professional firewall/router to achieve that. Or something like Smoothwall as a router/firewall. Although you might be able to do it with XP, knowing Microsoft, it probably wouldn't be easy.

Cheers

The answer is always "PEBKAC!

 

[MaxEd]

Just get a 1 T1, problem is solved!

-Laughter works miracles.

 

[kmcferrin]

A T1 is actually slower than most cable modem connections, and many DSL connections. The main reason that people still use them is that it's a guaranteed 1.54 Mbps 24/7 point to point. Cable and DSL have faster peak speeds, but you have to go through the Internet to use them.

Back to the question at hand, even if you had two cable modems with two separate cable lines and two separate monthly bills, you probably wouldn't see an improvement with load balancing across NICs or with a load-balancing router. Why? Because cable modems share bandwidth amongst users on the neighborhood network, and both of your connections would be hooked up to the same neighborhood.

OK, so why not go with cable and DSL? OK, let's say you have a 1.5 Mbps cable line and a 1.5 Mbps DSL line, and let's assume that you have them load balanced somehow. You would have a total of 3.0 Mbps of aggregate bandwidth, but you would never be able to use more than 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth for a single download. Why? Well, the load balancing mechanism can distribute outbound traffic between both circuits without any problems, but the return traffic (the downloads) would always come back in on the circuit where the outbound traffic originated. So if the FTP request goes out your cable line, the FTP data comes back down the cable line, and that line is limited to 1.5 Mbps (in this example). You could download two different files at 1.5 Mbps (theoretical of course) at the same time, but you would never go over 1.5 Mbps.

You're better off just paying for a faster connection.

 

[lpsitman]

I think you all have answered my question.
Thanks!

 

[ArizonaGeek]

The main reason that people still use them is that it's a guaranteed 1.54 Mbps 24/7 point to point.

Actually I don't think it's all about speed more so I think it's about IP addresses and the speed. With a T1 you can get essentially however many external IP addys your provider can give.

In thinking about what you said, I would have to agree. Paying for a faster connection is MUCH MUCH easier way to go.

The company I work for just put in 11 T1's with a full Class C IP scheme and we spent the better part of 3 months setting them for load balancing and fail over plus I don't even know all the thousands of dollars in equipment we had to purchase. New routers, two firewalls (NEVER buy a firewall from Symantec! GRRrrr!!)... new layer 3 switches etc.

Increasing your bandwidth, so much easier.

Cheers
Rob

The answer is always "PEBKAC!

 

[kmcferrin]

That's a lot of Internet-routable addresses. I'm assuming that you're in the hosting business?

T1's are a funny thing. If you look around there are faster and more cost-effective solutions. Not just the old T3, but there are also gigabit Metro Ethernet connections available in most cities these days. When I last shopped around, the T1s were costing $250-$300 a month. We could get a gigabit for a couple thousand a month. So sure, it was more than a dozen T1s but it was much, much faster.

The addressing thing is moot, really. Your ISP can give you however many IP addresses they want to. I've used business class DSL connections where they give you a /28 or /29 subnet of IPs (usually a /29), but there's no reason why they couldn't dole out something larger. All they're doing is breaking a /24 down into thirty-two /29 subnets.

 

[MaxEd]

I just learned about T1's and why they cost so much. You don't have to reboot the modem that the computer/server that it's attached to. I guess that saves some down time if you use remote desktop

-Laughter works miracles.

 

[kmcferrin]

Huh?

 

[gbaughma]

MaxEd:

I have 4 T1's here at work, and the routers need to be rebooted every so often. Or the T1 just slips framing, and needs to be restarted.

Having a T1 doesn't *guarantee* that you get 1.54 up and down either... if it's frame relay, you're lucky if they guarantee you 384K....



Just my 2¢
-ARRGH! All my clothes are wrinkled! Oh, the irony!

--Greg

http://parallel.tzo.com

 

[MaxEd]

gbauhma,

It all depends your SLA and who you go with. I'm sure there are certain companies that'll make you reboot less than others.

-Laughter works miracles.