I have heard about being able to use two nics and being able to double the speed that you are connecting. Has anyone done this and if so how would one hook this up?

Nope, never heard of that. It doesn't seem to make any logical sense to me.

I've heard of this in reference to using a dial up modem, but never network cards. I have heard of equipping SERVERS with multiple NICs to speed network traffic, but not client PCs.

I have seen this done with modems and I have heard of this being done with network cards but never knew how to do it. I had a professor in college and tell me that it was able to be done but never told me how.

This will really only be of benefit if you have _two_ DSL/cable/whatever modems, each hooked up to a separate line...

With, for example, one DSL modem, you are getting (theoretically) 1.5-3.0 mbps, while a newer NIC can do (theoretically) 100mbps...

They make routers with dual WAN ports which support load balancing and fail over, etc. they aren't too expensive ($150 ish) but like someone mentioned, they require two internet services.

If you are looking to increase your LAN speed you could upgrade all machines to Gigabit networking for not too much. You need a Gigabit switch, and a gigabit Nic card for each machine. This should give you 10x the speed (in theory). You will not surf faster. No matter how many nic cards or what type of nic cards you attach to your machine you are not going to get anything more out of that one modem.

If you have windows XP, it is quite simple to run two different network interface cards together. Just install both the cards and then go to the Connect To or Network Connections folder (the name depends on your system settings). Make sure both cards are plugged in to the network and running, or at least enabled. Highlight them both, right click one of them, and click "Bridge Network Conenctions." It will take a second to reconfigure, but then you should have something called "Network Bridge 1" which you can configure the IP settings and stuff on, and there should be the two connections being used underneath that.

This won't really give you double the speed, but it will allow you to have more bandwidth available if you have more than one connection or stream running ata a time. If you are only going to have one software connection running (like a single file transfer) then it won't do any good, because bridging network connections still only lets a connection run through one interface. Only if you plan on having multiple software connections at once will this be useful.

I have bridged my wrieless and my wired connections but it was so that I could have my xbox on the net without having to run a cable to the room from the router, so I am using the two connections at the same time when the xbox is not on the net. I was wondering sometimes when I look at the connection on the bridge it says that I am connected at 2.xGbs now I know that I am not connected that fast (but don't we all wish) but how is XP getting the numbers to say that I am connected at the speed. Also now when I have my laptop on the network (both wired and wireless) I get the error that there is an ip address conflict. So then I check the connections on the systems and in the router's dhcp table and it shows that no two systems have the same ip. The error is not a constant problem and in fact it does not pose as a problem because I can still get on the net and surf in fact it has stated more then twice that there is an ip address conflict as I have been writing this reply. Is this because my system is trying to use one ip address for both the wireless and the wired connections at the same time? If so how can this be remidied or can it. I know that when my xbox is on the network it is not a problem is it because the computer is trying to get more then one ip and the router is seeing the system twice and then just giving it the same ip twice. I wonder because when you try to see the addresses you can only see the one that is for the bridge and not the ones for the wired and the wireless. This is not a problem so much as it is an irritation(hope that is spelled correct) to me.

Sorry, But you say both the Wired and Wireless are connected to the network at the same time and you bridged them? That doesn't sound right. If you are bridging, usually the point is to connect 2 separate networks. Now you could consider the Xbox one network and your router with everything else the other network. I'm not sure what you are describing, but the way I picture it, Xbox is wired to the laptop, the laptop is wireless to the router. Are you switching the cables to then be wired to the router when you don't use the xbox? If you are, I suggest you turn off the wireless.

What I did is bridged the network connections so that I could use my laptop as a wireless hub/switch for my xbox so the xbox is connected to the laptop with a cat 5 cable and a switch and then the laptop is connected to the router wirelessly. Now I just tried to connect the wired connection to the router and then also with the wireless running. This worked for a little while but I got an error on the two other systems in the house and mine that there is an ip address conflict with another system. Now when the laptop is not connected to the router with a cat5 cable it is OK.

Delete the bridge, then try the Cat 5. That should work too. It sounds exactly like a conflict caused by the bridge being used on the 'same' network.

If I understand you correctly what you are telling me is that the router sees the two nics as the same when they are bridged. So the router gives both of the nics the same ip which causes the conflict. That is how I am understanding you is that correct? Thank you for the help phr0ze and everyone else that has relied.

Actually I don't know how the router is handling the situation. Its just not supposed to be used in that fashion. The router may be trying to give the device the same IP address or the bridge may be passing all traffic that 'hits' one of the connections back out the other causing the router or other devices to 'hear themselves/reflection/echo'. Without testing on that particular router I just don't know. These SOHO routers don't always follow all the rules. Who knows, a firmware update may handle the situation better or differently.

On servers its dead easy and it can be done on a workstation, but its pretty pointless.
Just surf over to HP and grab their "TEAMING" software.

If you want ultimate LAN speed then your best off going for GIGabit networking, now that costs real money!!

At the end of the day your network with only go as fast as the SLOWEST component. So if you have 100 Meg LAN and 2 meg WAN then that is your max net speed.

Hope this helps

When I started this tread I didn't think that it would go on for as long as it has so this is a surprise to me. Now I'm not to worried about how fast the network is I have just heard of having the cards combined together but never tried until I used my laptop as a wireless hub for my xbox. Again thanks for all the sugestions and tips. Is gigabit network hardware still that much more then 10/100? I have not checked it in maybe a year, I thought it would have gone down sense then.

I have gigabit networking and I don't think it's that much. The 8 port switches sell for $120ish and the cards sell for $40. Most of my computers came with the gigabit port built in. It is very fast though. I can move files across the network faster than I can copy files from one folder to another on the same drive.

That's not a bad price for the hardware. Also if you say that it is that fast then I need to look into that as soon as I get the spare money to blow on it.

Yeah, I bought the linksys SD2008 switch. I got it from dell since they had one of the better prices for it. It also had a more professional look with a metal case. I don't know what I paid for it but it was about a year ago I think so the price then wouldn't be relavent. It is a little noisy though, my first piece of network Equipment with a fan in it. I'm very SOHO here but I'm in the process of getting some Cisco switches and routers. Good luck with whatever you end up getting.