Wired or Wireless

[Aloo]

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening whichever it may be folks..

I have a laptop, i can connect to either a wired or a wireless connection.
By default i use the wireless on the laptop.
However, i do find that wired connections are better.

If my wireless is switched on, and i decide to plug in my ethernet cable from my router, does my OS automatically switch to the wired connection rather than the wireless?

Would there be any hardware/software conflicts if i decided to use both connections to my router?

My router - Motorola WR085G - b/g networks supported
My OS is Windows 7 32-bit

Thanks, any feedback is better than no feedback.
:thumb:

[coiler]

wired is always preferable to wireless :)

I would have thought as soon as you plug in the cable you will see a new connection detected at the bottom right of the screen. In control panel network connections it should show both the wireless and wired connections, here you should be able to set one as the default.

[Aloo]

If windows accepts both connections, will i be issued with 2 IP addresses?

P.s. i totally agree with a wired connection!

[michaelkenward]

I do what you say. My Samsung laptop switches effortlessly between LAN and wireless.

If that is what the Motorola modem is a wireless modem router, then you can look at how it allocates IP addresses 'on the fly' and perhaps even control it. (I can do this in my Netgear routers.)

Then again why do you need to know about the IP address? You may just be making things more complicated for yourself.

Stuff the theory. Do some experiments. Plug in the LAN. If things work OK and you experience the expected improvement in performance, bingo!

Worry about conflicts when they happen. You'll have a pretty good ideas what causes them.

[sfxdude]

Your 2 network cards (in this case the wireless and the wired) will receive a different IP address from the DHCP server on the router. It is up to the OS how it handles this, from my experience with win7 it will use the wired connection or whichever is faster.

[Aloo]

I will take your comments into consideration, thanks for your feedback.

[brjames]

Go for a Gig wired network mate - it's the way forth

[node]

I've run both before and it seems to default to the wired. Not sure about two IPs though.

[Aaron]

Windows will be fine with 2 ip addresses, and it will use both connections. I connect to 2 networks at once sometimes, and one has to be wireless, the other wired and they both run seamlessly.. If they both connect to the same place, Windows will choose to use the faster connection :)

So (in theory) it will choose 100mb ethernet over 54mb wireless, and 54mb wireless over 10mb ethernet..

[InvaderGIR]

W7 wired is preferred over WiFi from my experience...which can be an **** when you're trying to set stuff up on a wired connection that isn't on the web and need the web from the WiFi.

The router will give as many addresses as are asked for, (within reason, you only have 254 available).

Any PC with more than one connection will be fine with multiple IP addresses, don't worry about that.

[Burn-IT]

Using both is OK.
It WILL give you 2 IP Addresses.
Windows will actually use both connections to make things faster.
Vista and Windows 7 only show one icon on the task bar and it will be labelled as the wireless one.
Obviously a wired connection is faster AND more secure.
If your laptop has a physical switch, or you are using the supplied control software, you can turn the wireless off temporarily whilst cable connected.

[Aloo]

Thanks for your responses chaps, much appreciated, this has always been a grey area for me. I guess it makes sense when an ethernet can reach 100mb compared to the wireless at 54mb. :cool:

I will stick to a wired connection where possible for now, and wireless when needed.

:thumb:

[DiGiTek Systems]

dont forget for web browsing network speed is pretty irrelevant. your ISP line may be around 5-8Mb and so whether its a 54Mb wireless or 100Mb wired it makes no difference.

transferring large file/folders will show the true speed increase/decrease between wired and wireless

[Aaron]

I think its right that standard def movies can stream over wireless, but I had to use the wired connection on my PS3 and also on a laptop to stream HD movies from my main computer. There's just no way it would do it over wireless! I'd always go wired where possible.

[BeeP]

I'd go wired where possible but I hear good things about 'N' series wireless streaming. I know it can do 720p & some say it handles 1080p well too, can't say for sure on 1080 though.

[Mighty_Red]

Wired is best, though obviously when you want to walk around then wireless has to be used.
I've never played with the settings in terms or having both connections up, not sure how windows handles it. Solaris or Linux handles multiple network connections much better (for obvious reasons)

[arknor]

on my laptop sometimes windows doesnt default to wired when i plug in in and other times it does.

only takes 2 seconds to disable wireless when you dont need it anyway.

i'd stick with wired unless your moving around

[Tinkernology]

It was wired was for me till bt sent me a home hub then tinkered with wireless as only two wired connections unless you count usb links. It took some getting used to enough to get to like wireless but it seems stable enough and adequate now but wired for my own pc still :thumb: