Multiple connections in windows 7

[jroncalli]

Just had a question about regarding multiple connections. I have one of the new gigabyte motherboards with the dual nics. I have 2 separate 16/2 cable connection coming into my home from the same isp, same level of service, one is going through a router and one is straight from modem. I have connected each to one of the nic ports on my motherboard and am using Windows 7. Network and sharing center is showing both connected, both working, albeit with different ip's. If I right click on either nic card's properties they both show that they have alot of us/ds traffic so apparently there doing something.

So my question(s)
Is there any benefit to having 2 seperate broadband connections going into one computer.
Which connection is the computer using, as i mentioned above there both showing alot of traffic both upstream and downstream.

Will windows, windows 7 in my case do somethings using one connection and use the other one for other traffic?

Thanks for the help.

Also if I purchase a dual wan router and ran both connections into it first, could I get a doubling of bandwith/speed. I tried the bridge connection feature in windows, and while it did bridge the 2 nics, I got no speed increase.

 

[JackMDS]

Welcome to AnandTech forums.

Through a router you get a private IP.

Directly to a modem you get an external IP since you sit directly o the Internet.

Two connections can Not be used at the same time on one computer.

You can get a second computer and connect each one to its own Internet and then Bridge them for LAN traffic.

Or you can do this, http://www.ezlan.net/loadbalance.html

 

[jroncalli]

So my question then is what is happening in windows 7 that shoes both nics connected, both with ips. The small graphical diagram at the top where it would normally show your computer --- your router -- the the internet show "multiple networks" in place of where it would normally show my router.

Under active networks it shows my original home network through my router and below that it shows a second network both connected.

Just really wondering what windows is doing with the 2 connections that it is seeing with traffic being generated on both connections. Thanks Again.

 

[jroncalli]

does anyone have any other information on this subject?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Sniff'em. See what traffic is going out the NICs.

I really hope Win7 isn't chattier than Vista...

 

[JackMDS]

TCPView for Windows v2.54- http://technet.microsoft.com/e...nternals/bb897437.aspx

 

[jroncalli]

im wondering if win7 would possible use each card independently for network traffic. maybe while transferring all of the different pieces that make up a web page for instance. I guess I could probably setup an ftp server and designate one of the connections for a specific card. Would just be nice if Windows 7 would see 2 different connections and make some use of them.