How to switch between WLAN network and LAN network ?

[Martin Caldwell]

My laptop has a Centrino CPU with a built-in WLAN. On the other hand my laptop is connected
to a (wired) LAN as well. Through both of them I can connect the Internet.

However I would prefer to connect the Internet through LAN (because) this way it is faster.
How do I detect which network is used by default by WinXP when I type an URL
into the browser?

How do I tell WinXP to switch to LAN if WLAN is the current preference?

Martin

 

[Chuck]

My laptop has a Centrino CPU with a built-in WLAN. On the other hand my laptop is connected
to a (wired) LAN as well. Through both of them I can connect the Internet.

However I would prefer to connect the Internet through LAN (because) this way it is faster.
How do I detect which network is used by default by WinXP when I type an URL
into the browser?

How do I tell WinXP to switch to LAN if WLAN is the current preference?

Martin

Martin,

With Windows XP, the Automatic Metric feature should already prefer the Ethernet
connection, when both Ethernet and WiFi connections are available. Automatic
Metric should select the connection with the best quality, at any time.
<http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/have-laptop-will-travel.html#Dual>
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/have-laptop-will-travel.html#Dual

 

[Guest]

While it is true that the Automatic Metric feature should do this for you, my
experience is that it does not. After SP2 a connection between 80Mb and
200Mb receives a score of 20 (most likely your LAN connection). A connection
between 20Mb and 80Mb receives a score of 25 (most likely your WLAN
connection). The lower score should be where the network traffic goes.
However, in my experience this is not what happens. Pre-SP2 you had the same
metric for 20Mb to 200Mb. I think this is what is still happening.

You can change the Automatic Metric to a manual metric where you know the
LAN will have the lower score, hence be the preferred connection:
1. From Control Panel choose Network Connections
2. Right click on your Local Area Connection and choose properties.
3. Scroll down the the Internet Protocal (TCP/IP) protocol and click
properties
4. Click the Advanced button at the bottom
5. At the bottom of the new window, uncheck "Automatic Metric" and enter a
low number (10) for Interface Metric and click OK on the open windows.

Do the same for the Wireless Network Connection but choose a higher number
for the Interface Metric. You are now forcing your machine to prefer the LAN

 

[Chuck]

While it is true that the Automatic Metric feature should do this for you, my
experience is that it does not. After SP2 a connection between 80Mb and
200Mb receives a score of 20 (most likely your LAN connection). A connection
between 20Mb and 80Mb receives a score of 25 (most likely your WLAN
connection). The lower score should be where the network traffic goes.
However, in my experience this is not what happens. Pre-SP2 you had the same
metric for 20Mb to 200Mb. I think this is what is still happening.

You can change the Automatic Metric to a manual metric where you know the
LAN will have the lower score, hence be the preferred connection:
1. From Control Panel choose Network Connections
2. Right click on your Local Area Connection and choose properties.
3. Scroll down the the Internet Protocal (TCP/IP) protocol and click
properties
4. Click the Advanced button at the bottom
5. At the bottom of the new window, uncheck "Automatic Metric" and enter a
low number (10) for Interface Metric and click OK on the open windows.

Do the same for the Wireless Network Connection but choose a higher number
for the Interface Metric. You are now forcing your machine to prefer the LAN

Maybe it doesn't work for you. It works quite well for me.

I have a laptop with Intel 2200BG / Realtek RTL8139 Fast Ethernet, connecting to
a Linksys WTR54GS. I setup PingPlotter on the laptop, and can tell by the ping
latency whether I am connected by Ethernet or WiFi. If I plug in the Ethernet
connection, I can see my ping latency drop dramatically. If I disconnect the
Ethernet, I can see the ping latency go up again. Most of the time, I can
connect / disconnect the Ethernet cable without seeing any disturbance in the
network, for instance, with streaming audio running.

And yes, you can tune the metrics as you like. But if Ethernet is available,
and given that Ethernet gives a dedicated and stable 100M channel, as opposed to
shared and unstable 54M WiFi, why would you?