I don't know, but since my last post, I went ahead and ran another cable, and I don't see any difference in performance one way or the other. As expected, when the internet connection busy, the activity light on the back I/P blinks for the Marvel Yukon, but remains steadily lit on the nForce, indicated that it is connected but idle. The question remains as to whether this will solve the intermittency. I will have to observe it for some time.
Nice a topic I have a ton of experience with.
(NIC = Network Interface Card a.k.a Network Card)
Ok here is how it works.
1) You can team the network cards so that one is output and the other is input.
2) You can team the network cards so that they both share the load in both directions as in creating a team that is NIC #1 is 1GB and NIC #2 is 1GB equaling 2GB total. Typically this is done by creating a virtual card with the MAC address of one of the NICs or by making up a MAC address.
3) You can team the network cards so that they provide failover one card is running and the other is waiting. They share a virtual MAC address so if one fails there is NO data lost because when the switch over happens the other NIC has the same MAC and IP.
4) You can team the network cards so that work with load dynamics where you can say this is a application server so I want 60% output and only 40% input, but if the requests become extreme so that the 60% is not good enough it will automatically adjust to 70%/30% or maybe 80%/20% however you have to be careful to not go overboard and make it something like 90%/10% where the 10% request are not enough to fill a 90% output.
5) OR; you can do no teaming and have both NICs plugged into the same switch. With DHCP or static addresses it does not matter. This will give you some fail over however it is not perfect.
First off there are other teaming methods but I want to keep it a bit brief. Option #5 works like this. Say you have DHCP turned on and you are on the same switch.
NIC #1 gets an IP address of:
172.16.0.1
255.255.0.0
172.16.254.1
NIC #2 gets and IP address of:
172.16.0.7
255.255.0.0
172.16.254.1
What can and will happen is that your computer will make a request for data on the internet on NIC #1 via the 172.16.0.1 and the data will come back on the 172.16.0.7 card. Why? Because they both have the same Gateway. This is ok because your machine will get the data and use it regardless where it came from. However say your computer requests data on NIC #2 and NIC #2 stops working or goes intermittent and the data comes back to NIC #2, NIC #1 has no idea what happened and cannot fix it so you still get an intermittent issue. But since TCP/IP is designed to reroute data for just such an issue the request will get re-submitted and you may not notice it because NIC #1 can take over while NIC #2 is down. All you might notice is a very slight lag.
So in your case having 2 NICs plugged in will not hurt a thing and in some cases may make your connection more reliable. You will not get a performance gain because the cards are not teamed as options #1 thru #4 would help in some manner.
I hope that helps -WS
It is obvious that you known more than the usual poster on this subject, and I think that you answered my original question, plus many more. What is lacking so that I can fully absorb it is a reference to how to team the "cards" (quotes because I don't have cards, just onboard controllers). Is there a tutorial or guide that would go into all of these options in depth?
Teaming for Windows 7 requires software. If your NIC vendor supports Teaming they will provide software to do that. Check your vendors web site for Teaming Software. What can be difficult is that many vendors will only allow teaming like NICs or only their products.
If you want to do a test you can download HP's teaming software and give it a try. It works will all HP NIC's and Broadcom (because HP NICs are Broadcom). I would create a good restore point or do a backup of your machine first. This is for Windows Server 2008 R2 which is the same base code as Windows 7. Typically if it runs on Windows 7 it runs on Windows Server 2008 R2 or vice versa.
Let me know if it works. -WS
HP ProLiant DL380 G6 Server series- HP Network Configuration Utility for Windows Server 2008 R2 - HP Business Support Center
Edit: Forgot to answer part of your question. I don't have a link to a web site or a how to site on Teaming on hand. If I get a chance I will see what I can find.
I seriously doubt that your link would work on my rig, because the two controller are not alike (nForce 10/100/1000 & Marvel Yukon 88E8053 PCIe Gigabit). Maybe that is why Asus choose them...to prevent teaming.
On the original problem of your Nvidia network adaptor DC'ing you randomly. I read a long time ago to disable "Flow Control" in the adaptor configuration.
Also if you have the Nvidia Network Manager installed. Uninstall it as it is usless and as been found to cause more problems.
By the way i'm running an Asus Nforce board and i've never actually had any of these problems but i am always up to date with Bios and driver's. I am currently using the Nforce 15.51_win7_64bit drivers.
Hope you get it finally sorted :)
I don't know that it has a thing to do with it, but since enabling the nForce controller and connecting the cable, Browsing with Opera has sped up considerably. When I first got a cable connection, my browser would often hit ~75KB/s, but at some point, that dropped down to ~15-20KB/s. Now, not only am I reaching the original speeds, it is going over 100KB/s, with one spike to amost 300KB/s. Downloading files hasn't slowed or sped up either way (400KB/s).
I was only using the Marvel Yukon controller, but now when going to Network Connections in XP MCE, the LAN Connection shows that it is using the nForce controller. I've been trying to recheck the controller that the primary is using, but can't seem to find it.
Like I said, this performance change may just be a coincidental fluke, but it has held up for over 24 hours.
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