Can I use an ethernet connection for transferring between PCs, and wireless for everything else?

May 8, 2004 6:44 AM

After trying hard to solve this problem, I gave up, and went out and bought another wireless adaptor for my 2nd PC. I now have both PCs connected to the wireless router, but transfer speeds between the two are a lot slower. Is it possible for me to use an ethernet connection for transferring stuff between these two PCs, and the separate wireless connections for everything else?
posted by Orange Goblin to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

I can't view the original problem (confounded WebSense blocks MeTa -- says it's a gaming site!), but you should be able to use a crossover cable to connect between the two PCs directly if they each have a NIC with an ethernet port. You can just set it up like a second network and share away between the two.
posted by Oops at 8:14 AM on May 8, 2004

Response by poster: Here's a link to the thread in AskMe. I have the 2 PCs connected via crossover cable, but when I transfer files it automatically uses the slower wireless connection.
posted by Orange Goblin at 9:02 AM on May 8, 2004

My low-tech way of getting around that issue is to disable the wireless connection when I have a bunch of stuff to move between machines via the cable.
posted by birdherder at 9:05 AM on May 8, 2004

Give the crossover cable interfaces static IP addresses in a different network block... if your wireless network uses the 192.168.1.* block, give one of the computers 10.0.0.1 and the other computer 10.0.0.2 with netmask 255.0.0.0. Then, refer to the computers by IP address when transferring files (e.g. type \\10.0.0.1 into the address bar for windows file sharing).
posted by mote at 9:50 AM on May 8, 2004

Oh, and leave the gateway address blank for the Ethernet adapter, and don't worry about DNS for it.

[If you're running an operating system that lets you
explicitly specify your own routes (I doubt Windows does, but I could be wrong) you could add a route for that single IP address out through the 10.* Ethernet interface, and then you wouldn't have to worry about using explicit IP addresses because it would "know better".]
posted by mote at 9:54 AM on May 8, 2004

Response by poster: Nice one mote. I knew it shouldn't be too hard. Cheers.
posted by Orange Goblin at 9:56 AM on May 8, 2004

mote, just a note, the NT-based WIndows (at least) have a version of 'route' which should let you specify static routes. This is probably because the Windows TCP/IP stack is taken from BSD, so you can use rudimentary versions of ping, traceroute, route, arp, and other networking tools from the DOS prompt in Win2K/XP.

Not sure why I know this, thought, since my OS of choice is just about anything that isn't Windows...
posted by cyrusdogstar at 11:58 AM on May 8, 2004