2 or More LAN Ports on Motherboards - Umm?

C

CedarScott

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 6, 2007
Messages
222
Hey all,

I'm having trouble understanding why todays motherboards come with 2 or more LAN ports on them?

An example is the newer ASUS P5Q motherboard lineup. The P5Q Premium comes with 4 gigabit LAN ports and several offer 2 ports as seen here.

I'm trying to wrap my head around this one. Do people make their PCs act like a cheap HUB solution to give internet to other PCs?

Perhaps this is useful in LAN parties? Or is it marketing FUD? Heh

Anyone using 2 or more on their boards care to shed some light?

P.S. Sorry if this has been asked, search is disabled still...
 
Lanparties is a good reason. At most lanparties there is some type of filesharing going on. With 2 lan ports, you can be connected to the lan/internet on one port and the filesharing network on another port. The main reason is basically what I mentioned, it is to allow you to be on multiple networks at once. Also you can bridge the network connection to another port, if you dont have a hub/switch nearby and need to connect a nearby computer/video game console to the network/internet.
 
I have one connected to my 100mbit WRT54G for intarwebnets connectivity and to the rest of my network, and I have the other connected to my Vista Media Center box, at 1gbit. Since I do all of my file backups (docs, pics, music) to the media center, having the 1Gbps crossover is ideal. I suppose I could go buy a gig router, but my WRT54G runs DD-WRT flawlessly, and the media center is the only machine I can physically connect to at 1gig.

Four does seem excessive. I didn't have a use for my 2nd one until I re-arranged some stuff with my cabling and media center. I can't imagine what I might do with two more NICs. I guess I could team two of them, use one of backups, and the 4th for remote management? That's a feature I'd like to see on my motherboard: integrated lights out :)
 
Interesting. It's good to see some are using the features of 2 LAN ports. I bet 90%+ of these boards never see the second port used. Heh.
 
right now im using 2 lan ports (one board on pci card) one is connected to my switch and hoe network, one to my personal download server.
im sue i could find use for a 3rd port. but 4......
 
They're only around to keep the networking forums alive. People come up with all sorts of crazy schemes for using them that we get to argue about and make fun of.
 
Well the Asus site itself gives you a couple reasons for having it:

Teaming function - by grouping four network connections together as one single connection, the bandwidth is four times faster up to 4Gb
Redundant function - when one link fails, the other three links will continue working to keep network connected
To be a home gateway and game server at the same time!
Click to expand...
 
I have two NICs on my motherboard. The one I dont use is disabled. I would agree most people do not use two and four, that just a little overboard.
 
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