Load Balancing

Hey guys. i've had 2 internet service providers for some time, and i just got another NIC installed in my pc. so i decided to look up load balancing. i found what i was looking for: https://www.sevenforums.com/network-s...tml#post248374

i followed the instructions in that post in order to enable load balancing. and i think it worked but i'm unsure on how to test it. i know one thing though. before following that post only one of my NIC's would be connected to the internet while the other would not. now they both connect to the internet at the same time. i read in that post that windows 7 supposedly has load balancing capabilities when you enable those 2 registery settings.

my question is: how can i test this out?

EDIT: if it helps, my onboard NIC is a realtek 8168 and my new pci card is an 8139. very similiar. but the first one is a gigabit and the second one is a regular 10/100

Run an online speedtest. If the bandwidth is the sum of both, you know you're good. Make sure your connection(s) is/are otherwise not being used while doing so.
Speedtest.net - The Global Broadband Speed Test

arcalk said:

Hey guys. i've had 2 internet service providers for some time, and i just got another NIC installed in my pc. so i decided to look up load balancing. i found what i was looking for: https://www.sevenforums.com/network-s...tml#post248374

i followed the instructions in that post in order to enable load balancing. and i think it worked but i'm unsure on how to test it. i know one thing though. before following that post only one of my NIC's would be connected to the internet while the other would not. now they both connect to the internet at the same time. i read in that post that windows 7 supposedly has load balancing capabilities when you enable those 2 registery settings.

my question is: how can i test this out?

EDIT: if it helps, my onboard NIC is a realtek 8168 and my new pci card is an 8139. very similiar. but the first one is a gigabit and the second one is a regular 10/100

Perhaps Zigzag was trolling with those registry values?

Short version: it won't work. "RandomAdapter" and "SingleResponse" have nothing to do with what you're attempting.


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Longer (irrelevant) version: Those registry values control "server" behaviour not "client". More specifically, they control how the machine in question responds to NetBT name lookups. Imagine a scenario where a "server" has 3 network interfaces all on the same segment. If each of those interfaces is reachable by clients, then a typical NetBT broadcast sequence will look like this:

1. Client broadcasts query which says "will the server whose name is XYZ please respond to this broadcast with your IP address so that I can initiate a (unicast) session".
2. Server receives the broadcast on all 3 of its interfaces, because they're all on the same segment.
3. Server sends a separate response for each interface, each with an interface-specific IP address.
4. Because of certain timing factors, clients will always tend to favour the same server IP for their sessions.

Adding "RandomAdapter" and "SingleResponse" makes the server respond only once - with a randomly chosen IP corresponding to one of its interfaces. In theory, each time a client initiates a NetBT session to that server, it will use a different target interface, hence the "load balancing" implication.

However, since your machine is in this instance not acting as a server for NetBT sessions, none of this makes any difference whatsoever :)