Purpose of two ethernet ports?

[lucienknows]

First of all, I'd like to apologize for this noobie question, but I just don't understand the purpose of having two ethernet ports on a motherboard.

Is it possible to utilize two ethernet ports to increase your bandwidth or something?

Thanks in advance for explaining to this poor hapless noob.

 

[airhd823]

Maybe a 1000Mbps or a 100Mbps??

 

[lucienknows]

For instance, take this mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188013
Has two ethernet ports, and from what I can tell both are capable of up to 1000mbps, so what's the point?

 

[Atlantean]

So you can connect one to the internet, and set up a separate lan connection I would think.

 

[airhd823]

Maybe

 

[MiniDoom]

Load balancing and fault tolerance if you team the two NICs together.

 

[airhd823]

Ohh

 

[AMCRambler]

Originally posted by: rdubbz420
Load balancing and fault tolerance if you team the two NICs together.

Yup. Adapter teaming. rdubbz wins.

 

[win32asmguy]

Hmm, someone with a motherboard like that might want to dedicate the secondary port to traffic that would otherwise slow his connection down. He could for instance run a file service off of that second port and provided that he has enough hdd bandwidth, wouldn't even notice it was going if he were playing an online game.

 

[ribbon13]

You can use the PC as a firewall/router/bridge/server/etc...

Cable modem -> old Athlon PC with two NICs running linux doing firewall/bittorrent duties -> other NIC to rest of the LAN

 

[airhd823]

Thats cool

 

[lucienknows]

Thanks for the replies everyone - now I just need to know how you "team" the two adapters together.

Edit: Also, I currently live in an apartment complex where I have two distinct cable connections available to me. One is provided by the apartment and the other is one I pay for personally because the apartment one gets slow at times. Would it be possible to utilize both connections somehow using two adapters?

 

[ribbon13]

easiest way to do that is a Dual WAN router.

if you did manage to find a way to use a pc to do that, you'd need a third NIC, and that computer shouldn't be your primary workstation.

http://www.networkworld.com/reviews/2004/0913rev.html

 

[lucienknows]

Just out of curiosity, why do you say it shouldn't be your primary workstation? And why 3 nics instead of 2?

 

[ribbon13]

Cable modem 1, cable modem 2, and then downlink to the rest of the LAN thus the CPU is always boing to be under load: Load balancing the two WAN connections, firewall, VPN, torrent, etc. and then controlling 3 NICs

 

[fartbag]

1. multi-homed machines hosting multiple websites
2. clustering heartbeat
3. using a machine as a router/firewall external internal addresses
4. separate network for doing machine backups

 

[Skotty]

I can't imagine more than 1 in 1000 people finding it useful. I would guess using a PC as a router and/or firewall would be the most common use. Linux geeks like to do that. However, with firewall and router capabilities built directly into DSL and cable modems these days, and aftermarket firewall/routers being relatively inexpensive, that's hardly worth it either.

Load balancing and/or fault tolerance seem rather pointless unless it's a mission critical server environment.

Honestly, the main reason I think they put an extra ethernet port on some of the high end consumer boards is just for marketing coolness factor and not because it's actually useful somehow, which it rarely ever is.

 

[Oyeve]

Connect your PS2 to the second port. Thats What I do. Share the first connection to the second.

 

[JonnyBlaze]

I don't like having my pc behind a router so I use one nic to connected to the cable modem and the other goes to the router.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze
I don't like having my pc behind a router so I use one nic to connected to the cable modem and the other goes to the router.

I'm tired so maybe I'm missing something...but why would you connect the router at all if you connect your PC directly to the modem

 

[crimson117]

Originally posted by: lucienknows
For instance, take this mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188013
Has two ethernet ports, and from what I can tell both are capable of up to 1000mbps, so what's the point?

On that particular board, it's an easy way to drive the price up. Although no one will really use it, the can claim it's more elite because it has two ethernet ports.

(SOME user will, but like someone said it's 1 in 1000)

 

[Raduque]

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze
I don't like having my pc behind a router so I use one nic to connected to the cable modem and the other goes to the router.

I'm tired so maybe I'm missing something...but why would you connect the router at all if you connect your PC directly to the modem

Because the computer only has 1 extra nic, not 4

 

[Leros]

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze
I don't like having my pc behind a router so I use one nic to connected to the cable modem and the other goes to the router.

I'm tired so maybe I'm missing something...but why would you connect the router at all if you connect your PC directly to the modem

LAN?

 

[RaiderJ]

Originally posted by: Oyeve
Connect your PS2 to the second port. Thats What I do. Share the first connection to the second.

Or X-Box/360. Works great, just use a crossover cable.

 

[xtknight]

Hook it up to the LAN, while transferring settings from old PC via crossover.