Several issues with two network cards

[Hamnrye]

I just finished a clean install of W7 RC from W7 7000 Beta. I have two network cards (not wireless) on two different routers. On XP PRO and W7 Beta I was able to set up one connection as Home with Local and Internet and the other as Home or Work but without the Gateway configured to insure the first card is used for the internet while the other is just access to the other network for gaming and file access.

I use static IP addresses so I can use DYNDNS service to get access remotely. W7 RC has one network set to Home but as soon as I remove the gateway on the 2nd network (I want local access only) it goes to Public/Unidentified and won't allow any changes.

This then keeps me from accessing the other computers on the second home network. I've tried Bridging but I couldn't figure out how to create a static IP on the bridge to allow remote access. Plus it seemed others couldn't access my computer. It worked as described on the Beta but I noticed the Local and Local and Internet doesn't even show up.

If someone has a better idea to try I'd be grateful. I need two networks because my three teenagers eat up a lot of bandwidth. So I have two cards and two routers, one is on a 192.168.1.1 ip and the other 192.168.0.1.

Is there a way to force W7 to make a connection a default like wireless? It seems to default to the internet connection my teenages are using no matter what I do.

 

[Digger]

are these two routers connected in any way? I would enter the gateway settings on each adapter for its desired connected router, even tho you dont want internet, not entering the gateway will or will not permit by itself, atleast it should ... it shouldnt let you have connection at all without the gateway, unless dhcp. Also enter the DNS server as the same as the router gateway.

then you can step towards a possible bridge...

 

[Hamnrye]

The only connection between the two routers would be in theory my computer. It's two completely separate networks with 2 DSL lines, each has their own router. My kids are on the one network and the other is used by me. I need to have an active connection to both networks for gaming with them, file sharing, etc but I want to force W7 to use my router/network as the internet connection. In XP Pro I just remove the gateway in the network settings for the connection to the kids network and it leaves me with the local connection on their network and a internet and local on mine. This also worked on the W7 Beta but it has been defaulting to their network and shutting off internet on mine. I need to reverse that. I'll try your DNS suggestion and also maybe if remove the second network card, get everything set and working and then add in the second card it might establish a priority the way I need it. I was hoping there was a registry edit that might do that. I did try going to the advanced adaptor settings and making sure my network was listed first but that doesn't seem to make a difference. I had it working for awhile but their network was forced to be public with no way to change and on a reboot it switched back.

 

[ccatlett1984]

it would be a better solution to plug your two home routers together, windows client operating systems are not the best at handling dual network connections to disparite networks. else you are going to have to add routes manually so it can tell which connection to use.

 

[Hamnrye]

Interesting idea, one I've never tried. I'll see if I can google that solution. Thanks

 

[Brokklu]

Hi everyone,

I'm having an almost similar problem and after having looked around the forum still cannot find a viable solution to my problem.

I have a simple setup of 2 nics which I have always worked happily with on XP, however I seem to be lost when trying the same setup on win7.

Nic#1 - is used for the internet (broadband ADSL) connection
Nic#2 - is used to connect to another PC(winXP) which I use for LAN gaming & File Sharing

Now I've managed to get everything to work but the LAN(Nic#2 Adapter) says it's connected to an unidentified network and there's no way to change it. So the system automatically classifies it as a public network.

So what's my problem? I'm having to drop the firewall on my public network to play LAN games which leaves my system open to attack unless I disable the ADSL beforehand. Why can't I just set my LAN connection to private network? and why is it locked on unidentified?

What I've tried so far:
1. Setup a new connection or network...nothing happens even after 5 mins waiting
2. Giving my LAN connection a gateway which doesn't make sense to me but seems to be trying to make the connection look for a network only temporarily before it quits and returns to unidentified.

If anyone needeth any further details feel free to ask.

 

[mtakala82]

I have a very similar issue; in Xp I had something like this; I used the Elisa network as the home network, only to access the other computers on the lan, and then on the other NIC I had direct internet access via static IP settings.

I couldn't figure out a way to do this in Win7.

Ethernet adapter Elisa:



Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek RTL8168/8111 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-xxxxxxxxxxx

Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.20

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1



Ethernet adapter Toasnet:



Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/1000 PT Desktop Adapter

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-xxxxxxx

Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : censored here

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.252.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 94.237.68.1

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 94.237.0.26

94.237.0.27

NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Disabled

 

[AKinferno]

Would like to bump this. Mine is slightly more complicated, but same basic premise. I can't drill holes in house due to military housing regs, so I HAVE to use wireless. I have a DGL-4500 as my main router, connected to the internet, on 192.168.0 subnet. All my computers are connected to it wirelessly. Then I have a DGL-4100 which I am basically trying to use as a switch to connect my computers in one room over gigabit ethernet for file sharing purposes, it's on 192.168.1 subnet, wireless diabled, LAN ports only. The only computer with a problem is the one running Windows 7 (I have one running Ubuntu and a couple laptops on Vista).

In the Network and Sharing Center, they appear as Network and Network 2. Network shows "Access type: Internet" and I can ping or log into to either router (they have a HTML interface, which means I am passing port 80 requests to the router and back, just not past it. The visual map shows (MyPC=====Multiple Networks==X==Internet). Windows troubleshooter doesn't find any problems, it states there is no connectivity, which is false, cause my other PCs can access the internet. When I disable Network 2, it disappears and magically, Network is accessing the internet. I say magically, because nothing changes except my ability to go beyond the router.

This was supposed to be the easy solution to my problem of connecting two routers. I have been messing with this setup for 2 days. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Or any other way of connecting these routers to allow me to get internet access to all my computers, and allow them to transfer files over Cat 5.

 

[yachtie]

Hey i think i am having a similar problem with my windows 7, on other forums i have been told that windows 7 does not function so well with 2 network cards. I find that hard to believe. But i am stuggling to get them both to work.

Any help

I have just bought a Packard Bell iMedia computer with windows 7 home premium on it. The desktop comes with a built in Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet card
I am trying to recreate the network system i had before with my old XP PC.
I bought an additional network card (Realtek PCIe GBE Family controller)

I recieve my internet through the Realtek card and share it. This card is set up to automatically assign a IP to itself from the external gateway which is connected to my boat. The internet works and everything is fine on this computer.

I now want to distribute that internet to multiple computers connected to a hub which is connected to my built in Broadcom network card. I do this by setting this network card as a gateway (192.168.0.1 , 255.255.255.0). I was hoping that this computer would then assign ip addresses to all connected computer(they would all be set on automatic ip assign) and share the internet amongst them. Once set up windows 7 just says that the network i am trying to make through the broadcom is unidentified and does not even receive the internet from the other network card.

Can anyone tell me why this method is wrong or are there some simple things that i could left out of could be messing with my network.

thanks

 

[tferrer]

Hi,

This is an old post but I decided to answer the solution because I was having the same issue and when I google the issue this page came up as the 1st result.

to start I think this happen in any recent version of Windows, so it is not a Windows 7 specific issue. The problem is that both NICs gateway (router) have the same Metric, metric is what make the routing & path decision for the traffic. Mine had 276 for both and therefor your traffic may end up going to the non-internet gateway. To see the metric go to : start/run and type cmd <enter>, in the command prompt type: route print <enter> and look for your two gateway IPs, normally this will be in the top of the list, at the right corner the metrics is shown. Since you want your internet traffic to go out via one gateway only then you need to change the metric of the non-internet gateway(router) to a higher number.

FIX: go to Network Connections (control panel/Network and Internet/Network Connections) and select the no-internet NIC, right click, Properties / double click on "Internet Protocol Version 4" (and/or 6 if needed), click Advanced, remove the "automatic metric" checkmark, and in the "interface metric" field type a higher metric ex. 300., click ok in all the properties windows until you are out and Walla! you fixed the issue. now all your internet traffic will go out via the Nic that is attached to the internet gateway/router.

I hope this help.


Tomas Ferrer
IT Consultant
CCNA Voice, CCNA, i-Net+, Network+, A+ certified