Wired NIC interferes with wireless NIC

[msorens]

On my old laptop (Toshiba Satellite A15 circa 2004) I have a plugin wireless NIC and a built-in wired NIC both set with static IPs.

Question 1:
From another machine I am able to ping the wired NIC but not the wireless NIC. The "fix", such as it is, is to unplug the wired NIC and then I am able to ping the wireless NIC. Why does the presence of a wired NIC connection block the wireless NIC connection?

Question 2:
From another machine I am able to open Windows Explorer to browse files on my laptop by IP address (i.e. \\192.168.2.105\myfiles) or by machine name (i.e. \\my-toshiba\myfiles). If I then unplug the wired connection (whereupon wireless ping now works), I am able to browse by IP address (i.e. \\192.168.2.105\myfiles) but *not* by machine name (i.e. \\my-toshiba\myfiles). Why does the wireless connection not resolve the hostname?

[Greenstead]

I would like to help you solve this. There are problems (bugs?) when you employ multilple NICs (called multi-homing). Why do you want to use multiple NICs?

You don't say what version(s) of windows you are using?

[msorens]

I am using WinXP Home SP2.

I have searched the web off and on for quite some time to understand the
ramifications of employing multiple NICs. I wondered if that would provide more bandwidth or if it would cause problems; your reply is the first I have seen in writing that it is the latter. (Any article references you might have on that topic would be of interest.)

As to why I want to use multi-homing: when my laptop is at my desk, I plug in to the wired network for higher bandwidth and greater security. But for moving around I need wireless. If, as you say, there are problems, then it sounds like the best practice is to disable/enable wireless as needed. While I can grudgingly adopt the practice, it goes against the grain that computers are supposed to make things easier, no :-)

As to my second question, I believe I did not wait long enough. I tried it after the wired NIC had been unplugged for more than a day, and I could then access the wireless NIC by name.

[cszeto]

http://forums.practicallynetworked.com/showthread.php?t=6661