Multiple network connections (Vista vs. XP)

[Snowknight26]

I've been having some problems lately with multiple network connections under Vista (apparently a similar PC running XP shows no troubles) for some time now. To start off, heres a little picture:

Connections that are always present/never removed are represented by solid lines, connections that are either added or removed are represented by dashed lines. These dashed lines are also direct connections. They're on a different subnet so only those two connections (computers) are 'visible'.

Assume that all 3 computers have at least 2 ethernet ports.

With all that out of the way, lets cut right to the chase. I wanted to be able to connect PC1 to Server via a gigabit connection because it was a pain copying files to and from both computers via the 100Mbit way. To fix that, I added a gigabit line between PC1 and Server, which is where the problems arose.

When the 1Gbit connection between PC1 (Vista) and Server is active, most, if not all applications want to use that connection (even though they can't because its Local only), when they should be using the 100Mbit connection to the router (which is Local and Internet). However, when the 1Gbit connection between PC2 (XP) and Server is active, only local connections to Server go through it while all other connections use the 100Mbit connection, which leads me to believe that theres some change between Vista and XP.

Is there any way to make all local connections to Server from PC1 go through the 1Gbit line and all other connectionsuse the 100Mbit connection, like the PC2 <--> Server connection?

Basically I want all connections to \\Server go through the 1Gbit connection while all others like \\PC2 and WAN traffic go through the 100Mbit connection.

 

[hoffstetter]

get a gigabit switch and stop screwing around with multiple connections. Your time is worth money and your wasting it

 

[DeaconFrost]

The phrase "mountain out of a molehill" comes to mind. As mentioned above, if you really feel there's a huge difference between 1000 Mbit and 100 Mbit, go get a cheap gigabit switch and connect all PCs to it. Then all internal traffic flows through the switch, while only external traffic goes through the router.

 

[As I Lay Dying]

some times the simplest solution is the best solution.

 

[Snowknight26]

I was hoping that I could somehow achieve the same results without spending any money.

And yes, With the 100Mbit connection, transfers max out at around 9.5MB/s where as with the gigabit one, it tops around 30MB/s (hard drive w/r speed).

 

[DeaconFrost]

If saving a couple of minutes is that important to you, I wouldn't think $22 is too much to spend.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156210

 

[Easykill1978]

simple, dont place a gateway ip on the gigabit port, assign ips manually to each card. dont forget to set your dns to the routers ip address.. ok? then you will be good to go.. see when you go www.google.com, it fetches a dns result and goes to that ip.. (as you know the net works entirely by ip.. name gets converted to ip)

dont forget to ensure that internet sharing is disabled on the server...

create a premanent route in your vista routing table to point to router.

to add route to vista machine, press the windows logo and type CMD, right click and run as administrator.

ie

route add -p (ip address) mask 255.255.255.255 (router ip address)

so my local ip is for eg 192.168.0.101 and the router is 192.168.0.100 then

route add -p 192.168.0.100 mask 255.255.255.255 192.168.0.100

 

[Snowknight26]

Thanks the the info. Seems that I had a gateway set, so removing the IP worked like a charm, and it looks like I didn't even have to change the routing table.

Which brings me to another thing. What exactly does adding another route accomplish, in my case specifically?

Edit: Just a small problem now. \\Server resolves to the IP of the 100Mbit connection, not the IP of the gigabit connection (though tracert Server shows the IP being the gigabit one).

 

[extide]

yeah dont set a gateway for your pc -> server links and all should be good.
access the server by ip not name to force it to use the specific connection you want
adding routes would allow you to do custom routing stuff, which really doesnt apply here

BTW, Changing the metrics changes the default nic that windows uses when it determines two network cards can access a destination (they both have gateways and/or have direct routes to the destination). Lower metric is higher priority. But, if you get rid of the gateway on the pc -> server links then each set of traffic will really only have one path. Check out my post back here

All of this applies to at least Win2k thru Win7