2 ethernet-port on a motherboars huh ?
- Thread starter knowlesy
- Start date
If you have two ethernet ports your pc can act as a switch, saving you from buying extra equipment. It also doubles your lan bandwidth. I find the feature very useful when adding extra devices in a room.
Last edited:
Soldato
- Joined
- 17 Aug 2003
- Posts
- 20,160
- Location
- Woburn Sand Dunes
complete waste of time from what i can see. iever never had a use for it.
Some of the more expensive printers and such can connect to the network via ethernet, and things like NAS devices also use ethernet. This means that on a 2 port motherboard, you can have 1 cable going to a router or modem, and use the other port for connecting extra devices, such as printers or NAS boxes.
Of course a switch can do the same thing, but with a 2 port motherboard you can set it up so all device traffic to the internet goes though that pc, so you can set up firewalls and such on it.
Personaly i also use the 2nd port to directly connect my laptop to my PC. Its faster then using wireless, and connecting it to the switch isnt a viable option for me.
Of course a switch can do the same thing, but with a 2 port motherboard you can set it up so all device traffic to the internet goes though that pc, so you can set up firewalls and such on it.
Personaly i also use the 2nd port to directly connect my laptop to my PC. Its faster then using wireless, and connecting it to the switch isnt a viable option for me.
Soldato
- Joined
- 13 Sep 2003
- Posts
- 8,557
- Location
- Glocestershire
It's very common (and useful) on servers, someone obviously though servers are uber, so we can make our desktops uber by having two network ports.
I've noticed it tends to be on the more expensive/better featured boards (the same ones that might have extra SATA, or even wireless networking), I guess it's a feature they can add for very little but can make a big different in some peoples decisions on what to buy.
People with home networks can use them to share a connection easily, they might be very handy for some workstations etc and it gives a level of redundency - very occassionally you'll find something that just doesn't like one brand of nic or nic driver (IIRC a particular Marvel chipset* had problems with WoW, another type had troubles with some UO servers** and those are two examples I know of from personal experience).
It's also as already mentioned, very handy for connecting other bits of kit to locally, without sharing it over the main network (or without running another cable).
*It was used in the WRT54GS V1 or 2, and required a firmware update to solve it (it basically stopped WoW from working after a minute, but without dropping the connection).
**I think it was a Marvel Yukon gigabit chipset, when used with a certain driver would have the same affect on some of the UO servers (took me days of fiddling to sort that out - eventually by trying other machines on my network on all the UO servers and finding out that it was only one machine on the servers located in one of the then 4 server locations).
People with home networks can use them to share a connection easily, they might be very handy for some workstations etc and it gives a level of redundency - very occassionally you'll find something that just doesn't like one brand of nic or nic driver (IIRC a particular Marvel chipset* had problems with WoW, another type had troubles with some UO servers** and those are two examples I know of from personal experience).
It's also as already mentioned, very handy for connecting other bits of kit to locally, without sharing it over the main network (or without running another cable).
*It was used in the WRT54GS V1 or 2, and required a firmware update to solve it (it basically stopped WoW from working after a minute, but without dropping the connection).
**I think it was a Marvel Yukon gigabit chipset, when used with a certain driver would have the same affect on some of the UO servers (took me days of fiddling to sort that out - eventually by trying other machines on my network on all the UO servers and finding out that it was only one machine on the servers located in one of the then 4 server locations).
I find it very useful at work, we have an external broadband connection to our office as well as the schools internet connection which goes through various firewalls etc so it comes in handy for that purpose
Its also handy for people who have more than one PC but not a switch, for example my missus dad is currently looking to connect 2 PCs together but only has a single port modem
Its also handy for people who have more than one PC but not a switch, for example my missus dad is currently looking to connect 2 PCs together but only has a single port modem