Configure 2 NICs on Vista Laptop with a router

Most likely not going to be able to do it with your current equipment. Both connection are to the same router. The router would have to have a feature that allowed you to have 2 networks in the same device.

I suspect you have other network stuff or you would have used the simple solution to attach the media box to the PC via ethernet cable.

The cheapest option to do it the way you propose is to buy another wireless router and insert it between the media player and your current router using it as a router. This will create a second subnet but still leave your media player access to your main network. You could then use both wireless cards to the different routers. Be sure to put the radio on different channels and make sure you do not set the default route on the media player connected nic on your PC

Thank you John-b691 for replying.

I would not call myself an expert but I have connected the devices by using router as just a switch as well as a router. Former worked fine until I got an ADSL connection and started using the later configuration.

I am able to connect both NICS to router and access router config page as well a Media folders but though internet works for few minutes, it gets kicked off.

Following is my router's manual (model WL-552)
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual...


Following is my current config

Laptop - W/L NIC1 - 3Com Router - Internet
Laptop - W/L NIC2 USB - 3Com Router - Ethernet - Media Player

I have Thinkvantage Access Connections installed, created 2 profiles in 2 subnets and connected them simultaneously.

Do let me know your opinion

Hard to say I don't see this feature in your manual. Things like DD-WRT and some routers do have the ability to run multiple vlans. The solution is the same as if you had 2 routers. You create 2 subnets and assign a SSID to each. You then place the media player interface into the same vlan as one of the SSID. On your PC you would associate to each much like you would with 2 routers and you still must not have a default gateway on the SSID that goes to the media player.

I really have no clue how you would have gotten it to work if both nics were in the same subnet or on the same SSID.

I had both NICs in different subnets with same SSID.

Let me ask you this question. If we configure separate VLAN for each network (configure 192.168.1.x for NIC1 and 192.168.2.x for NIC2) why it should not work?

May if we can route both traffic using router wont it work?

Though I had configured VLAN, it was trial and error method. Also I am not sure if my settings were appropriate. I also did not know ow to set static route (if there is one   )

I am not sure how the router would ever figure out which subnet to use if you used the same SSID. I guess if you worked at it hard enough you could overlay both subnets on the same network.

In any case you are not accomplishing your goal of separating the traffic to increase capacity. On your PC you are to a point but on the router you are still sharing the same radio channel. I would even suspect the 2 nic cards in your PC on the same channel would interfere with each other alot. The radio bandwidth is the common bottleneck in most designs.

You need to find a way to get 2 radios on both ends of the connection. If you dig though the details you will find routers that actually have 2 radios one on 2.4g and another on 5g but many lie and use a "virtual" radio concept and attempt to switch the radio back and forth between 2.4 and 5 with limited success. If you are going to buy a second router you are best off going with a simple one and just run your current and the new one to accomplish the goal.