Routing problem with two network cards

I've got an old Compaq Armada E500 notebook which has an internal network card, I want to network it when it is away from my desk. It is running Windows 98SE (not powerful enough for anything more modern)

I have a Belkin Wireless ADSL modem/router.

When the notebook is connected to the router by cable everything works correctly, I can access other PCs and the internet no problem.

When I try and use the Wireless LAN Card (Safecom 802.11g based on Texas Instruments chip set) it can see the network but will not use it. No ping on the router, "xxx is not accessible" on accessing other PC's, timeout on internet access.

If I go into My Computer and disable the internal network card everything works fine.

If the network cable and the wireless card are both in then everything works fine but the traffic seems to be just on the cable.

I've tried setting the internal IP addresses of the network cards to different numbers and this will sometimes allow access to other PCs but will not allow access to the internet ever

I suspect that when both cards are enabled the system is still trying to route everything through the cable network even when no cable is connected.

I don't particularly want to keep having to disable the internal NIC as this means it is not useable by other members of the family.

Any ideas?

-- Pete diving 'at' melbourne 'dot' me 'dot' uk

Reply to
Pete Melbourne
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Yup. That's what you told it to do.

Yup. If you don't want it to use one or the other, that choice has to be disabled. Otherwise, you have two routes leading to the same place, and the operating system ignores the second one - EVEN IF THE CHOSEN ONE DOESN'T WORK AT THE MOMENT.

[compton ~]$ grep window .newsrc | grep tcp comp.os.ms-windows.networking.tcp-ip [compton ~]$

Fundamental networking question - nothing to do with wireless. You'd also find this by searching for this problem at

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Old guy

Reply to
Moe Trin

When you're using the wireless card, do you have the built in ethernet card on the Armada laptop disconnected? Two simultaneous connections to the internet through to paths will be a problem for Windoze 98SE.

Yep. I can see where this is going.

Yep. Open an MSDOS window and run: ipconfig You'll see two sets (or more) of ethernet adapters including the wired and wireless connections. Note the gateway address. That's the default route. Windoze will select *ONE* of the interfaces for the default route where it sends all packets destined for the internet.

Now, you don't need to accept the DHCP delivered gateway addresses as your default route. You can manually configure the desired default route in the network control panel. However, that's a pain as W98SE wants to reboot every time you make the change.

A good alternative for such systems is Netswitcher:

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$14. I use Netswitcher to rapidly reconfigure my network connections when I drop into my various customers, each of which has a radically different configuration. It will also work to switch the default router (gateway) on the fly.

Please note that W2K and XP do a much better job of switching default routes when one or the other interface is disabled. Of course, Unix does it with a simple "ifconfig" incantation.

How different? The DHCP server in your router(s) will deliver the IP addresses and default gateway.

Well, Win98SE does not monitor the lan cable connection. W2K and XP do monitor if something is plugged in and automatically disable the interface if it's unplugged.

Use Netswitcher to do the enable/disable thing, with different configurations for whatever each member of the family finds useful.

Yes. Why do you want BOTH wired and wireless connections at the same time? One or the other should be sufficient. Simplify the laptop and eliminate one of the interfaces.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

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