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OK, WiFi for grins

SK6

Turbo Monkey
Jul 10, 2001
7,586
0
Shut up and ride...
I have an older PCMCIA card for my old laptop. The question is, is there a way I could use it with my notebook at home as an addition to the built in Wifi?

I've never tried the bridged networking, and wondered if it is even worth playing with.
 

BadDNA

hophead
Mar 31, 2006
4,257
231
Living the dream.
You could probably cobble it together using Windows Internet Connection Sharing. Never done that myself but I bet it would work (for some value of work >0).
 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,092
1,132
NC
I think what he means is he wants to have two wireless cards in his notebook to get twice the transfer rates.

Never done it, myself. I'm not sure Windows will even let you manage two wireless cards simultaneously.
 

$tinkle

Expert on blowing
Feb 12, 2003
14,591
6
I think what he means is he wants to have two wireless cards in his notebook to get twice the transfer rates.

Never done it, myself. I'm not sure Windows will even let you manage two wireless cards simultaneously.
:stupid:

while windows may recognize both devices, i don't believe they're simultaneously useful. that is, you can't use both an ethernet & wireless connection. for instance, if you were a router, you're expected to route packets to 2 mac addresses, but at the machine level, how would you then re-assemble the packets for, say, the browser?
 

$tinkle

Expert on blowing
Feb 12, 2003
14,591
6
Good point, so, how about running a small VM to process the packets, and bridging that way?
if you're making a run at your PhD, go for it; otherwise, i'd suggest something more practical.

this is just for kicks, right?
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
You can use multiple network cards (wired or not) - each will get different IP address. Its old hat for ethernet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_aggregation

There are some forms of link aggregation for wifi but mostly home brew or high-end commercial at this point. Consumer 802.11n products will soon be offering dual radio Wifi link aggregation on the hardware side - 2.4 + 5 GHz:

http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=1&pid=548

If you really want to get the job done, the Slurpr:

http://geektechnique.org/projectlab/781/slurpr-the-mother-of-all-wardrive-boxes
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
:stupid:

while windows may recognize both devices, i don't believe they're simultaneously useful. that is, you can't use both an ethernet & wireless connection. for instance, if you were a router, you're expected to route packets to 2 mac addresses, but at the machine level, how would you then re-assemble the packets for, say, the browser?
Wired + wireless works fine in Windows to the same network. It bothers me to needless grab two IPs for one machine though so I usually shut off the Wifi.

I don't know how it figures out which route is best but it works fine. Maybe some sort of load balancing - round robin?
 

$tinkle

Expert on blowing
Feb 12, 2003
14,591
6
Wired + wireless works fine in Windows to the same network. It bothers me to needless grab two IPs for one machine though so I usually shut off the Wifi.

I don't know how it figures out which route is best but it works fine. Maybe some sort of load balancing - round robin?
ok, i can see where outlook may use wired for polling, & firefox would use wireless for requests, but i can't see how i would request a page & get the packets split through both devices.

not saying it can't happen by default. i think it would it take a failover, which would be rare in a dedicated connection. i believe a multi-path consideration happens upstream exclusively, right? otherwise, what's the use of "last known good path"?

hmmm...
 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,092
1,132
NC
If multiple paths are used upstream, multiple paths are returned downstream :)

You're right, though. If one request is made upstream it's going to be returned through the same interface downstream. So it's not proper load balancing, though from a user's perspective it will perform an inefficient "load balancing" in that if one NIC is busy it will go out the other NIC... or perhaps it is simple round-robin, I'm not sure, but in any case it won't be any kind of real balance.

The Server versions of Windows support true load balancing across NICs. And Intel has software if you own their Pro series of NICs to accomplish the same thing.

Some routers will handle downstream load balancing in that they understand multiple NICs associated with one connection and will switch packets appropriately. But I don't know of any consumer routers that do that.
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
The Server versions of Windows support true load balancing across NICs. And Intel has software if you own their Pro series of NICs to accomplish the same thing.
Third party is usually better, often support more configurations than window server does out of the box but most people are just using simple teaming setups so it doesn't matter.
 

$tinkle

Expert on blowing
Feb 12, 2003
14,591
6
ok, i just took a dump, & got to thinking: if a page request is associated to exactly one IP, it will be routed back as such, and therefore the whole page comes through the same pipe. so if there's a way to assign one IP to two devices, the switching (by MAC address) can happen.

but that would be fraught with all kinds of ugly collisions.
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
Some routers will handle downstream load balancing in that they understand multiple NICs associated with one connection and will switch packets appropriately. But I don't know of any consumer routers that do that.
On the hardware side for consumers with dual band radio you can probably really get almost 300 Mbps around rather than 300 Mbps claimed but 100 Mbps in ideal conditions. The single radio DI655 can handle about 250 Mbps of routed traffic, so once they have a decent dual band setup they only need a little more processing power to handle it. Too bad "Internet broadband" sucks in the US.
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
otoh, 802.11n (MMO) could do SK6's experiment, right? just a "slight" upgrade necessary
No that router isn't very good. Even the better 802.11n draft routers don't pull anywhere near that for total routing performance - they top off around 250 Mbps:

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/component/option,com_chart/Itemid,189/

I have this one, it does about what they measured (90 Mbps over wifi) through one floor but I have an aftermarket external dlink antenna for best positioning on my PCI adapter:

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30087/96/1/6/

I use 1.10 firmware and this RAlink chipset card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833180052

With OEM drivers:

http://www.ralinktech.com/ralink/Home/Support/Windows.html

And this antenna:

http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=545
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
ok, i just took a dump, & got to thinking: if a page request is associated to exactly one IP, it will be routed back as such, and therefore the whole page comes through the same pipe. so if there's a way to assign one IP to two devices, the switching (by MAC address) can happen.
3com and Intel NICs can do this via their third party software - you can team two LAN adapters to increase your bandwidth and/or redundancy on one IP. I am sure it has been done homebrew with wifi on Linux, check google. You have more link aggregation flexibility in Linux than you do in Windows.
 

SK6

Turbo Monkey
Jul 10, 2001
7,586
0
Shut up and ride...
LOL!!!! Well, it's one of those things, the card is just sitting there...and I looked over at it, then I got to thinkin'....

Of course all of this thinking was done after wishing I could get out to ride....OMG I want to get out to ride!!!!!!

So, without getting into details, 7-7:30ish (right after work), I get to thinkin'....

:p