Why do MOBOs come with 2 lan ports? what is the purpose of having 2?

NIC ports are cheap???

You can use your PC as a pass through for another PC to connect to the internet.

So is it like a mini router?

In Windows XP in networking you can right click on and select Bridge Connections and it works that way...

You also want to have a crossover......

You could use DualNet from nVidia.... <--does it work? Never really got into the tech...

What is Dualnet? how do you use it/where do you get it?

It's for when you're transporting your rig between lans, so you don't have to unplug your cable from your PC, you just plug the other end to the second port


But if your lazy and lan alot you could use one port for home usage and never have to fiddle with the settings and use the other port for lans.

Quote: Originally Posted by Dualnet whitesheet NVIDIA DualNet technology integrates dual Gigabit Ethernet MACs that, by design, eliminate network bottlenecks and improve overall system efficiency and performance, resulting in the industryÂ’s fastest Gigabit Ethernet. These two Gigabit Ethernet ports can be used individually, combined, or configured in a number of ways depending on the needs of the user. A number of motherboards have offered dual-Gigabit Ethernet ports, however, all of these offerings do so using two different chips. The NVIDIA nForce MCP is the first integrated motherboard solution to offer dual-Gigabit Ethernet using the same physical chip (Figure 1). DualNet is more than just the combination of two gigabit ports in hardware. DualNet allows a PC to serve as a home gateway and it provides advanced networking features including teaming, load balancing, fail-over, and TCP/IP acceleration.

This is a technical brief on it.

More here

Yea the dual nets with nvidia you can do teaming using 2 connectors as 1. But there isnt really a benefit to it unless have multiple computers using it.

Others use it for connecting 2 pcs.

Quote: Originally Posted by Cpt.Planet Yea the dual nets with nvidia you can do teaming using 2 connectors as 1. But there isnt really a benefit to it unless have multiple computers using it. Others use it for connecting 2 pcs.

I use my second port for my netdisk....

but a nice gigabit p2p inbetween a bunch of LAN box's, wouldn't that be nice...

You can use one port for internet and the other for a secure network. Keeping them separate is safer.

Quote: Originally Posted by Seyeklopz You can use one port for internet and the other for a secure network. Keeping them separate is safer.

Ok I'm new to the whole networking game, can someone explain how to do that? I've got a network with my wireless router (I use my older PCs as wireless media boxes, since I rip all my dvds onto my main box) Right now I go modem->wireless router->pc
should I be going modem->main rig->wireless router->other pcs?

Quote: Originally Posted by capt_cope Ok I'm new to the whole networking game, can someone explain how to do that? I've got a network with my wireless router (I use my older PCs as wireless media boxes, since I rip all my dvds onto my main box) Right now I go modem->wireless router->pc should I be going modem->main rig->wireless router->other pcs?

If you have dual gigabit ports, why not, if not, you'll probally loose speed, although M$ isn't known for making anything faster.....

I didn't see this mentioned yet about the dual RJ-45 ports.
My Striker Extreme's manual mentions the ability to us one for incoming and one for outgoing so if you have crazy fast internet you can speed up and get more stability by such a procedure. I'm thinking this is only useful if you have some sort of T connection. I think it was mentioned but I wasn't sure if that was the exact same purpose.

Quote: Originally Posted by Spatha I didn't see this mentioned yet about the dual RJ-45 ports. My Striker Extreme's manual mentions the ability to us one for incoming and one for outgoing so if you have crazy fast internet you can speed up and get more stability by such a procedure. I'm thinking this is only useful if you have some sort of T connection.

Not really, its actually faster for the slower stuff, DSL isn't going to speed up ridiculously fast, but a cable modem might. Although it's mostly internal speeds you'll run into. Unless you have two cable internet modems and run both in sync on DualNet...

It could also be useful if you wanted to set up a Beowolf Cluster
Beowulf (computing) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia