How does my computer choose LAN or Wirless for internet traffic
 

A relatively simple question I think...

At work, i'm connected to the lan with an ethernet cable. we also have
a wireless router setup on a cable/broadband connection, it's
completely seperate from our internal network (for testing). my
computer connects to it... and it's actually faster than our Lan /T1
line for downloading.

how does my computer decide which internet connection to use for HTTP
traffic (or any traffic for that matter)?

Re: How does my computer choose LAN or Wirless for internet traffic
 

On Feb 26, 11:48*am, RedDwarf <jbranch...@gmail.com> wrote:
> A relatively simple question I think...
>
> At work, i'm connected to the lan with an ethernet cable. we also have
> a wireless router setup on a cable/broadband connection, it's
> completely seperate from our internal network (for testing). my
> computer connects to it... and it's actually faster than our Lan /T1
> line for downloading.
>
> how does my computer decide which internet connection to use for HTTP
> traffic (or any traffic for that matter)?

As far as I know, XP will use the first network access that it finds.
Sometimes it may find the wireless before the LAN connection.

As for the T1/LAN access speed, this might be explained that there is
a server (proxy, firewall, spam filter, virus filter) in between the
T1 and the LAN.

Without more details, we can only guess at why the faster T1 line is
slower for you.

Re: How does my computer choose LAN or Wirless for internet traffic
 

On Feb 26, 2:04*pm, smlunatick <yves...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Feb 26, 11:48*am, RedDwarf <jbranch...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > A relatively simple question I think...
>
> > At work, i'm connected to the lan with an ethernet cable. we also have
> > a wireless router setup on a cable/broadband connection, it's
> > completely seperate from our internal network (for testing). my
> > computer connects to it... and it's actually faster than our Lan /T1
> > line for downloading.
>
> > how does my computer decide which internet connection to use for HTTP
> > traffic (or any traffic for that matter)?
>
> As far as I know, XP will use the first network access that it finds.
> Sometimes it may find the wireless before the LAN connection.
>
> As for the T1/LAN access speed, this might be explained that there is
> a server (proxy, firewall, spam filter, virus filter) in between the
> T1 and the LAN.
>
> Without more details, we can only guess at why the faster T1 line is
> slower for you.

Thanks... yyea, there is all kind of filtering and crap on the T1... I
don't care that it's slower. I jsut wanted to know how windows chose
which connection to use.

Re: How does my computer choose LAN or Wirless for internet traffic
 

Hi
You can decide for Windows by using the Metrics Setting,
http://www.ezlan.net/metrics.html
Jack (MVP-Networking).

"RedDwarf" <jbranchesi@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:49ee36ff-6759-48e2-90c7-39f496512bff@n77g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
>A relatively simple question I think...
>
> At work, i'm connected to the lan with an ethernet cable. we also have
> a wireless router setup on a cable/broadband connection, it's
> completely seperate from our internal network (for testing). my
> computer connects to it... and it's actually faster than our Lan /T1
> line for downloading.
>
> how does my computer decide which internet connection to use for HTTP
> traffic (or any traffic for that matter)?
>

Re: How does my computer choose LAN or Wirless for internet traffic
 

"smlunatick" <yveslec@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:cac360d7-3648-4f4e-b349-80f3e2afee2a@u72g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
>As far as I know, XP will use the first network access that it finds.
>Sometimes it may find the wireless before the LAN connection.

The TCP/IP stack does not "find" a network access, it knows all of the NICs
and the networks that they are connected to....

What happens is the application in question requests a connection to a
remote host with a specific IP address, the TCP/IP stack then queries its
routing table to determine the best "route" off the local host to accomplish
the connection. As stated by another poster, "best" is determined by metric
settings that are assigned by a known algorithm, but can be overridden by
explicit request of the socket requestor.

Phil