Just out of curiosity ...

Hey guys,

So i'm just trying to understand the principles behind what i encountered today, and perhaps you guys can shed some light. I'm fairly experienced with computers, yet i'm lacking in the "networking department" if you know what i mean. I am reading up on this, so what happened recently, caught my attention.

Anyway, I have port forwarded my router to accept incoming connections or whatever, and it's been working fine. Then last night i was cleaning my computer and i disconnected all the cables including the Ethernet cable from my router. Then today, when i put everything back together and attempted to use the port, it said "Port is not forwarded properly: unable to accept incoming connections."

After, opening and closing like 15,000 ports a million times over the problem still didnt go away. Then i remember that there are 2 Ethernet ports behind my computer; i look over and see that i was plugged into the one i never use. I change the places of the plug and now it works fine.

So my question is, can someone please explain why that solved the problem? Im trying to wrap my head around this. the plugs are connected to the same motherboard, so whats the difference? The IP's are the same arnt they?

Please anyone?

Thanks,

Clydefrog