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2 NICs. 2 Internet Connections. Want to force WINXP to use ONE connection.

S

Shinj1EVA

Senior member
Yea basically in the title. I guess you could call me a newbie at this or whatever, but seriously i need help.

Here's the setup. Basically, I have one machine with two NICs running windows XP. I have 2 IPs (one for each of the NICs) and both can go online.

Ok. here's my question. Is there anyway I can force Windows XP to communicate through one particular NIC for the internet and the other for my LAN. I want both NICs to have the ABILITY to go onto the internet, but only want one to acutally be utilized for that purpose. The problem i'm having is that windows XP keeps using only ONE nic for both LAN and internet communications. Any help would be great. Thanks guys.
 
Actually, your default route setting should be enough. If NIC1 is the "Local" NIC, and NIC2 is the "Internet" NIC, and they are attached to two different devices (switches/hubs/routers), the local traffic is going to go out the NIC directly attached to the local network, and everything else (not using a local address) will go out the designated default route.

Each of the NICs should be on a different LAN (hence the two hubs/switches/routers).

SO, NIC 1 goes to a switch with all the other local stuff on it, NIC 2 goes directly to your cable/DSL modem/router. Set NIC2 to have a default route (Default Gateway), NIC 1 doesn't need one since all the other machines are "directly attached" through the local LAN.

Good Luck

Scott
 
Ditto Scottmac.

Silly question, but why do you want both connections to be able to connect to the internet? How is your lan wired?
 
Set the LAN side up with a static IP. That will keep it from finding Internet on that card.

There should be a big sticky at the top of the networking forum that says: just bite the bullet and buy a router. It solves so many problems. Windows doesn't like having 2 nics installed. Although it is supposed to work and may for you, you may also find you are much more stable with a router and only 1 nic installed.
 
Why would you have two NICs connected to the same router and want internet access from both but only LAN access from one?

You can't do this with Windows, it won't let you use the NICs this way. Either both NICs are on the same subnet with the router or only one is, and then it chooses the routes unless you update the route table manually. There is also something called VLSM (variable length subnet masking), but I don't know if your router would be confused or if other confusion would be created.
A single Ethernet port NIC can have multiple protocols, but not multiple IP addresses.
 
Thanks guys. I guess i was being stupid. It's probably cuz i set DNS IPs in the configuration for the 192's that's why i couldn't get online before. At any rate, I have two computers and more IPs than i can use. That's why the other two nics were able to connect to the internet. I changed them to 192 IPs now. Thanks for all your help.
 


<< Windows doesn't like having 2 nics installed. Although it is supposed to work and may for you, you may also find you are much more stable with a router and only 1 nic installed. >>


That's a bit of a sweeping statement. Windows 2K/XP is extremely stable with more than 1 NIC, and both OSes have some extremely useful features to allow you to take advantage of a multihomed PC.



<< Why would you have two NICs connected to the same router and want internet access from both but only LAN access from one? >>


There's no router involved - He's using a hub.



<< A single Ethernet port NIC can have multiple protocols, but not multiple IP addresses. >>


The Windows 2K/XP implementation of the TCP/IP stack allows up to ten IP addresses per interface.



<< Thanks guys. I guess i was being stupid. It's probably cuz i set DNS IPs in the configuration for the 192's that's why i couldn't get online before. At any rate, I have two computers and more IPs than i can use. That's why the other two nics were able to connect to the internet. I changed them to 192 IPs now. Thanks for all your help. >>


Life tends to work better if the local network is manually configured, unless the local network is physically isolated from the connection to the ISP. Well done on working it out 🙂
 


<< Thanks guys. I guess i was being stupid. It's probably cuz i set DNS IPs in the configuration for the 192's that's why i couldn't get online before. . . >>

You're not being stupid, just learning. We all start somewhere.

Anyhow, you didn't describe why you want to do this or what you are trying to achieve by this setup. Maybe there is something else you can tell us about what you need to do.
 
Ah he is kinda new and has something most of us aren't used to... free multiple ip addresses. My brother is on RoadRunner in Kansas City and he gets 5 free ip addresses. I was telling him how to setup a 4 computer network and couldn't believe it when he just plugged into a switch and they were all on the internet with their own ip addresses. Unuaual perk.

But you still don't need multiple nics in your machines. You just need to unbind file and print sharing from the internet and unbind tcp/ip from your local lan.

Read here and here..

You will have a lot fewer problems with only one nic installed.
 
Cox High(Low) Speed Internet has had a bug for a while where you can grab more than 1 IP off their DHCP servers, I know a guy who took down 15 IPs and used them for over a week until they stopped working.

The morons working at cox need to be working on home networks, MAYBE they could handle them
 
When we setup another network in a different location, still on RR, we couldn't seem to pull a third ip. My bro called RR. I told him not to hehe. But he did anyway and got them to admit that users can have up to 5 ip's and that will continue until they have a shortage. They said something was up with his account and that dhcp server, reset it and told him to try again in 5 minutes. He did and it worked. I know however this is not the case in other areas.
 
Hrm.. i think you guys are sorta misunderstanding me heh. I had two NICs because i wanted one to be on LAN and one to be on WAN. I don't need a router because I can get however many IP addresses my university has free 😀. I was curious about one thing... How do you assign more than one IP to a NIC? That's kind of interesting hehe. I was just slightly irritated that WinXP kept using one of my NICs for both the internet and the LAN. I was hoping it would use one NIC to access the internet and one to access the LAN. If someone could explain how to get more than one IP onto a network card that'd be awesome 🙂 Thanks again guys.
 
You can't assign more than one ip to a nic.

The problem is we don't understand what you are trying to do. The best option is one nic and protecting yourself as I described above.

2 nics is also an option but you will have to setup one statically. Read the links. They will explain networking basics. Then come back if you have specific questions.
 
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