Plugged my computer into router twice...

[PerfeK]

I have dual gigabit ethernet on my motherboard so I decided to connect my computer into my DI-604 router twice for redundancy. I have been having "cable disconnected" problems lately and I figured that this might help a bit. Little did I know, my router is smart enough to use the two connections simultaneously. I saturated my 3 megabit connection and watched the situation unfold.

http://img135.exs.cx/img135/9112/510200525613pm6bh.gif

My taskbar confirms it:

http://img135.exs.cx/img135/4149/510200525737pm0cw.gif


I also decided to mod my router with some extreme cooling. It went from hot-hot-hot to "cool to the touch". I'm loving myself right now.

Here's a pic of the router:

http://img135.exs.cx/img135/5532/heatrouter002large0dw.jpg

 

[spidey07]

odd indeed.

post 'route print' and ipconfig/all

 

[PerfeK]

huh?

 

[PerfeK]

I found that info. I hope it's safe to post it:

Route Print Result:

http://img94.exs.cx/img94/9193/510200531953pm6om.gif

ipconfig/all Result:

http://img94.exs.cx/img94/6859/510200532015pm7dt.gif

 

[lansalot]

DNS server = "127.0.0.1"? Hmmmmmkayyyy...

Hope you don't think your first picture is of you saturating your connection. Frankly, if this is working at all, then it's probably working in a more ineffecient manner than just having one interface connected properly.

Post some pix of you knocking the crap out of the connection. Till then, I'll hold my admiration if you don't mind...

edit: oh yeah - where do you get this "3mbit connection" that you're saturating from? And how do you think that is good use of two 1gbit interfaces? Your picture clearly shows both idling at just a few % usage...

 

[PerfeK]

About my weird DNS server, I am using treewalk because of verizon's recent DNS problems. I act as my own DNS server I suppose.

I'm talking about saturating my internet connection, not the LAN connection. My "3 mbit" connection is my internet connection which actually maxes out at 2.7 Mbps. Excuse my french but what the F are you talking about? It's just a regular old 3000/768 verizon dsl connection. 3% of a 100mbit connection is 3mbit. What is weird about the reading?

I'm the only computer connected to the router, which is only 10/100, so I can't use 100%.

 

[nweaver]

yeah...so you think your 100 megabit connection can't saturate your 3 mb pipe?

 

[PerfeK]

Originally posted by: nweaver
yeah...so you think your 100 megabit connection can't saturate your 3 mb pipe?

I never said that. Saturating my internet connection has nothing to do with this. It does that with a single connection. That's not the issue. I'm just surprised that I can get it to use both ports at once. My connection often cuts off, forcing me to unplug and switch ports, and this should alleviate that.

 

[lansalot]

Then you have other problems that plugging both cables in is masking. But as long as you're happy, feel free to persevere in the perverse

 

[PerfeK]

Originally posted by: lansalot
Then you have other problems that plugging both cables in is masking.

For example?

 

[spidey07]

do you have a network bridge installed on your machine?

I'm thinking you may have a loop and you're just seeing the same traffic circling over and over.

Plugging two cards into a router/switch does nothing for performance and in many ways can make it slower.

I'm really not trying to rain on your parade, just trying to help.

 

[PerfeK]

Nope, I don't have a bridge.

It can't be the same traffic. The numbers add up.

I know it doesn't help performance. I'm doing it for redundancy.

 

[spidey07]

I understand but it doesn't quite work that way.

losing an adapter or cable will break any connections and you could wind up with unusual results. What you have is a "network no-no"

 

[Garion]

A few notes..

What's happening is that you're getting two DHCP addresses assigned to your PC - One per interface. Each interface is also getting a default gateway of your router.

Windows has a feature that, when there are two equal-cost routes to the same packet it will round-robin load balance between them. So, if you have one route to your router via NIC #1 and another to NIC #2 you're going to spread the load even across them.

This works in a situation where all your traffic goes to the Internet because your router does NAT and translates both internal IP's to a single Internet-facing address. It does NOT work well on the LAN - Most local network connected PC's will get confused if they see half the conversation fron one IP and the other half from the other. It probably also wouldn't work with a smarter router - It would see the multiple internal IP's for the same TCP session and whack it as some kind of odd attack.

So, you do get some redundancy from this, but not as much as you might expect. If one NIC goes down or one port goes away the other will take over, but you might get some odd timeouts when it does happen.

Unfortunate D-Link routers are known for losing network connectivity. I've got a DI-624 and it happens sporattically to me, too. What I've found is that if you watch the router the whole thing reboots itself. Not just a port problem, but the whole thing power-cycling itself. You won't be able to do anything to get around that problem.

So, what you're seeing is what I'd expect and it's quite logical. I'm just not sure if it's going to work the way you quite expect it to.

- G

 

[PerfeK]

Originally posted by: Garion
A few notes..

What's happening is that you're getting two DHCP addresses assigned to your PC - One per interface. Each interface is also getting a default gateway of your router.

Windows has a feature that, when there are two equal-cost routes to the same packet it will round-robin load balance between them. So, if you have one route to your router via NIC #1 and another to NIC #2 you're going to spread the load even across them.

This works in a situation where all your traffic goes to the Internet because your router does NAT and translates both internal IP's to a single Internet-facing address. It does NOT work well on the LAN - Most local network connected PC's will get confused if they see half the conversation fron one IP and the other half from the other. It probably also wouldn't work with a smarter router - It would see the multiple internal IP's for the same TCP session and whack it as some kind of odd attack.

So, you do get some redundancy from this, but not as much as you might expect. If one NIC goes down or one port goes away the other will take over, but you might get some odd timeouts when it does happen.

Unfortunate D-Link routers are known for losing network connectivity. I've got a DI-624 and it happens sporattically to me, too. What I've found is that if you watch the router the whole thing reboots itself. Not just a port problem, but the whole thing power-cycling itself. You won't be able to do anything to get around that problem.

So, what you're seeing is what I'd expect and it's quite logical. I'm just not sure if it's going to work the way you quite expect it to.

- G

This actually makes sense. I never noticed it resetting though. I'll have to pay attention to it next time. That's probably the issue and you're right, it won't help if that's the case.

There are no other computers on the LAN, so I don't have to worry for now. Thanks for the great reply.