Does An Ethernet (Cable) Connection ‘Override’ A Wifi Connection If Both Connections Are Active.

[Mobi]

I have an ADSL Internet connection (3BB) and my lap top is connected by cable from the router as well as picking up the signal via the wifi port.

I am using the cable connection as I have been informed that this will provide a faster internet speed than using wifi.

But on my lap top, the wifi is shown as ‘active’ or ‘on’ in the task bar and if I look at the ‘network connections’ in the control panel, both the LAN

connection and the wifi connection are shown as active and running.

My question is will the wifi connection override the LAN connection, thus reducing the speed of the LAN connection? Or is it the other way around – or neither.

If I disable the wifi, the task bar shows the Lan icon as active, so I can do this, but it is a bit of a pest if I want to move the lap top to another

location and just use wifi.

It’s not a major issue, but I just wondered if any computer experts out there would know the answer to this as it is bugging me.

Thanks

[JSixpack]

I suspect the LAN overrides (suspect because I always turn off my wifi if I have a direct connect--saves battery, trivial to turn on as needed) but suggest you merely do a speedtest w/ the wifi off and on.

[Chicog]

Just use Fn+F2 (or whatever your particular laptop's key is) to toggle Wifi on and off as you need it.

[JetsetBkk]

I suspect the LAN overrides (suspect because I always turn off my wifi if I have a direct connect--saves battery, trivial to turn on as needed) but suggest you merely do a speedtest w/ the wifi off and on.

+1. I do the same.

[ETatBKK]

assumed you are in Windows PC. goto Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network Connections, you could find both your Ethernet adaptor and your WiFi adaptor, double click and you will find the speed and activities of each adaptor - bytes sent & received.

in Windows 7 or later, the OS chooses the higher speed connection by itself. yes, in this case, your OS is powering up two network adaptors, consumes power faster. switch on / off the WiFi as needed, will keep longer battery runtime.

[MichaelJohn]

Ethernet (1Gb typically) is faster than WiFi (108Mb) - some Ethernet is slower than 1Gb and some advanced WiFi can be faster than 10bMbps...... but normally Ethernet is faster.

It's better to turn the WiFi off as there will be a conflict.

[Mobi]

Doing a speed test sounded like a good idea but the results were inconclusive. I did three repeat tests with wifi only, Ethernet only and then with both on. (9 tests in all) and d/l speeds were broadly in the 15 mbps range, uploads all around 1.01 mbps. No discernible trend.

Then I looked at the speeds of the adaptors as suggested by ETatBKK.

Ethernet adaptor shows a speed of 100 mbps and the wifi adaptor 150 mbps.

He is quite correct, the Ethernet adaptor definitely overrides the wifi adaptor as when I enable the Ethernet connection the wifi adaptor ceases to send and receive bytes.

But I am puzzled by the higher speed of the wifi adaptor (150mbps vs 100mbps) Does this mean that the wifi connection is faster, contrary to accepted wisdom?

(or at least on my laptop, (Acer 5755G)

Edited March 18, 2013 by Mobi

[Satcommlee]

Doing a speed test sounded like a good idea but the results were inconclusive. I did three repeat tests with wifi only, Ethernet only and then with both on. (9 tests in all) and d/l speeds were broadly in the 15 mbps range, uploads all around 1.01 mbps. No discernible trend.

Then I looked at the speeds of the adaptors as suggested by ETatBKK.

Ethernet adaptor shows a speed of 100 mbps and the wifi adaptor 150 mbps.

He is quite correct, the Ethernet adaptor definitely overrides the wifi adaptor as when I enable the Ethernet connection the wifi adaptor ceases to send and receive bytes.

But I am puzzled by the higher speed of the wifi adaptor (150mbps vs 100mbps) Does this mean that the wifi connection is faster, contrary to accepted wisdom?

(or at least on my laptop, (Acer 5755G)

No it is not faster as far as internet is concerned..

You will still find the Ethernet to be slightly faster due to it having less errors in transmission..

The speed 100 Mbps is just the line speed for the Ethernet, and the 150 Mbps being indicative of a good signal on wifi is the the theoretical maximum..

The Ethernet is 100Mbps/100 Mbps (Full Duplex Up/down) whereas the wifi is 150 Mbps (Half Duplex shared between up/down), given the nature of 150 Mbps WiFi-N and what they don't tell you on the box your real-world maximum is only 80 Mbps.

But what is important is the connection your ISP provides and making that as clean as possible (ie: avoiding WiFi)

[ETatBKK]

No it is not faster as far as internet is concerned..

You will still find the Ethernet to be slightly faster due to it having less errors in transmission..

The speed 100 Mbps is just the line speed for the Ethernet, and the 150 Mbps being indicative of a good signal on wifi is the the theoretical maximum..

The Ethernet is 100Mbps/100 Mbps (Full Duplex Up/down) whereas the wifi is 150 Mbps (Half Duplex shared between up/down), given the nature of 150 Mbps WiFi-N and what they don't tell you on the box your real-world maximum is only 80 Mbps.

But what is important is the connection your ISP provides and making that as clean as possible (ie: avoiding WiFi)

correct, data travel in both directions. and possibly WiFi's intermittent error check also slow down the speed a bit than the Ethernet connection.

speed preference still on Ethernet, and convenience on WiFi, when both available.

[Para]

In my experience a valid LAN connection will take over from a WiFi link.

[topt]

In my experience a valid LAN connection will take over from a WiFi link.

That is what I would have expected however if I have wi fi on and then add the Ethernet lan connection in the office my connection stays with wi fi - using Win 7.

If I want to go to the Ethernet connection to transfer large files from the server I have to switch off the wi fi.- as I have a button on the front of the laptop I do it that way as it is quicker.

As this seems to be the opposite of what everybody else is saying can anybody say why or suggest a setting I can change?

[Para]

Dont make a lot of sense to me let me jump on MS Technet and see if I can find out why......

[briley]

Just a comment about using XP

If a file transfer starts on the WiFi it will not be taken over when a LAN connection is made.

If you have WiFi and Lan connection and the transfer is on the WiFi and you turn it off the transfer fails. And vice-versa.

Darned annoying as I often start a big transfer on WiFi and see the time it will take, plug in the LAN cable but then have to restart the transfer.

[Zolt]

Just a comment about using XP

If a file transfer starts on the WiFi it will not be taken over when a LAN connection is made.

If you have WiFi and Lan connection and the transfer is on the WiFi and you turn it off the transfer fails. And vice-versa.

Darned annoying as I often start a big transfer on WiFi and see the time it will take, plug in the LAN cable but then have to restart the transfer.

I'm fairly sure this is true on Win 7 too.

[manarak]

Finally an answer for the OP:

Windows only supports one active gateway, i.e. the uplink to the WAN.

So windows will automatically choose one gateway according to priorities set in the system.

By default, ethernet has a higher priority than WIFI, so when both ethernet and WIFI are available, windows will choose the ethernet gateway.

In the above, I suppose that the gateways for ethernet and wifi are configured differently.

BUT: if the same gateway is configured for both wifi and ethernet, both connections can be active at the same time if a bit of IP routing tuning is done.

Edited March 21, 2013 by manarak

[frankold]

Open a cmd prompt and type

Route print

This will show you the windows routing table. I think when a new connection is made it gives itself priority and sets itself as the systems default gateway. You can make either of them the persistent gateway if you wish by adding a persistent gateway line to the routing table for that device.

[2008bangkok]

You can set the binding order which way you want, if you open up Network and Sharing Centre from Contol panel and then click Change Adapter settings and then from the Menu bar click Advanced>Advanced Settings and then in the Adapters and Bindings you can move which ever adapter you want to the top and it will use that one first.