Couple of Gigabit Questions

K, I just ordered 2 Intel Pro/1000 MT nics, and I've got onboard nics on both of my machines. My router is only 100 base (and from the gigabit switch prices I've seen lately, not going that route too soonly), so if I plug the onboard nics on both machines into the router (for internet), and run a crossover cable between the machines connecting the gigabit adapters (which will lead into my next question too...), will the computers default to use the 'quickest path' (ie the gigabit cards) to transfer data between the two machines?

Also, next question, do gigabit cards use the same crossover pattern as before? From what I've read they use all 4 pairs now. And I'm guessing the nic's don't autosense yet like the hubs are...although that'd be nice! At least I haven't read of them doing so yet. Thanks

To answer your first question, sorta. If you set up a Network bridge in WindowsXP you can do it. It will use technically "the path of least resistance" but you're going to be better off using the gigabit connection by itself, as its going to be much more stable than a network bridge.

Question 2, I have no idea.

Well, tested it last night when I got home, and for question 1, it used a little bit of both cards when the were both hooked up. According to XP's networking tab in task manager, the 100 base card going through the router was being used up about 20-50 percent most of the time, while the gigabit card was using 0-3 percent. Then I tried just disconnecting the 100base to see what kind of speeds I got with the gigabit, and it was around 20meg/s...I think I was being limited by the hard drive in my second machine...Sisoft Sandra's hard drive bench shows it making about 18meg/s.

As for question 2, use a straight through cable between 2 gigabit cards. If you use a crossover cable, it will drop down to 100base speeds.

marphyre said:

As for question 2, use a straight through cable between 2 gigabit cards. If you use a crossover cable, it will drop down to 100base speeds.

Click to expand...

That makes sense as Gigabit utilizes all 4 pairs in Cat5 wiring. I think part of the Gigabit spec called for auto-negotiation of send/receive pairs so a crossover cable would probably confuse the cards and force it to drop back to 100Mbit.