2 Ethernet into 1 card

opstrat · 9 Jan 2011 at 21:54

hey all,

tonight one of my mates gave me this problem. at work the internet is wired into the network card from the router, but he has a massive printer/plotter kind of thing that is connected by an Ethernet cable also into the card, will a y splitter work for this? is there actually 2 rj45 to 1 rj45 adapter available or will he have to use a network switch?

cheers

J.B · 9 Jan 2011 at 22:01

I dont think this would work as the card wouldnt be able to interpret 2 inputs.

I think he'd need to buy a switch.

ms2010 · 9 Jan 2011 at 22:29

Was actually surprised to find that there is such a thing as an RJ45 Y splitter
Google - RJ45 Y splitter

However it appears these are designed to split the pairs of wires in a single cable to allow 2 different sets of data to be transmitted down a single cable (basically to save the cost of running a 2nd cable) and are used in pair's , 1st at the one end to give the 2 input ports and the 2nd at the other end for the 2 output ports. Intended more for a building enviroment where the cables are from a patch panel to wall socket's, rather than a home router to pc direct patch cable

As the previous poster has said , trying to connect 2 cables (and 2 sets of network data) into one NIC isn't going to work, but depending how that printer/plotter can be configured a switch may be a solution.

Another idea might be to install a 2nd NIC , so there's one from the printer/plotter and another for the network/internet

MikeHiow · 9 Jan 2011 at 22:37

As others have stated. Either another NIC, a switch or just run the printer to the router.

Regarding the RJ45 splitter above, as long as you are only using (or need) 100Mbit, you could effectively use a pair of these to run the printer back to the router (Assuming it has spare ports) along the same cable that you receive the internet connection on.

James_200sx · 10 Jan 2011 at 21:14

get a switch and connect cable from router into switch.

PC into switch.

Plotter into switch.

OR

plug plotter into router if it has a spare port.

Skidilliplop · 10 Jan 2011 at 23:01

Get a switch. You get the option of going gigabit then too, which might be beneficial if he's sending large jobs to the plotter. (e.g 50MB CAD Plan)

Does he definitely have a router? if he's just got a modem with 1 port on it then a switch won't work because it doesn't support address translation, which a router does.