In article s4UVc.88412$Lj.60524@fed1read03, "Kevin Brault"
wrote:
Hi everyone,
I have added a Firewire card to two computers (both Windows XP Pro). The
computers are connected via 10/100 Ethernet thru a router (DHC server) which
is also the Internet gateway and, now, with a direct Firewire connection.
Computer A has a static IP on the Ethernet. Computer B has a dynamic IP on
the Ethernet.
FYI:
Computer A will not find the internet if the Firewire connection is
enabled (even if I set the Firewire default gateway to empty) unless the
connections are bridged.
Computer B will find the internet whether or not the connections are
bridged.
Bridging the connections is fine for my purposes.
My real problem is that no matter what I try Task Manager never shows a
network utilization of greater than 40Mbps with the Firewire connection
running. Without the Firewire connection (100Bbps) the network utilization
is about the same. So I would conclude that the Firewire has not added any
bandwidth.
I noticed in the Windows Help "Network bridges with wireless or IEEE-1394
connections support traffic using Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) only".
Windows Update has installed IPv6. I do not know if the Windows Help was
just not updated or if the is my problem.
Thank you in advance for your help.
Kevin
That's an interesting situation, Kevin. I've never heard of adding a
network bridge to fix a problem. Usually, deleting a network bridge
fixes a problem.
I don't know whether IPv6 is relevant to the problem. I'll answer
based on what I know about IPv4.
Enabling the Firewire connection without a default gateway should have
no effect on Internet access unless the Ethernet and Firewire adapters
have IP addresses in the same subnet. They need to be in different
subnets. What does the route table on Computer A show when Ethernet
and Firewire are both enabled without a network bridge?
On multi-homed computers, it can be hard to control which network
connection will be used to communicate. NetBIOS name resolution
resolves a computer name to a single IP address. If that IP address
belongs to the Ethernet connection, it will use that connection, even
if the Firewire connection has a lower metric.
Do you know for sure which network connection is being used when you
check Task Manager? To find out, right-click both network connections
and click Status to see the number of bytes or packets being
transferred.
I have three computers that are connected just like yours. Here's how
I control which connection they use when transferring files between
them:
1. Assign 192.168.x.x IP addresses to the Ethernet connections (done
by broadband router's DHCP server).
2. Manually assign 10.x.x.x IP address to the Firewire connections.
3. To force a file transfer to use Firewire, refer to the other
computer using its 10.x.x.x IP address, not its computer name.
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Networking)
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