Wired vs WiFi on same laptop

Question

While pretty experienced with most aspects of the laptops I work on, wireless is my weakest link, since I have been only wired for years.  I have found if I fool around with wireless long enough I can usually make it work, but when I am done, I am not sure which thing I did made it work.  My basic question is do I have to disable all or some of the wired network adapters in my Inspiron 8200 in order to make WiFi work either internally or via USB even though the wired ones are not in use?  That seemed to be the case the last time I fooled around with wireless.

Jerry Park · Answer

Though I normally turn off devices which are not in use, you shouldn't have to. Even if both wired and wireless connections are connected at the same time, there should be no problems. Message Edited by Jerry Park on 04-18-2005 01:30 PM

Rijko · Answer

hi funtoupgrade,

i agree that if you do not use your wired NIC i would turn it off. But you should not have to, it poses no security risk if not connected. Some firewalls react really strange to a nic that is not always available so that may be a reason to leave it enabled.

The worst that could happen is is the wired nic and the wireless one both get an ip address in the same range ( like 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.1.2 ) - that will mess up the routing tables, and help you into lots of problems.

Hope this helps.

funtoupgrade · Answer

I'm not worried about security issues at the moment since I never leave any WIFI connected very long and am using MAC addresses filters when I do. It just seems to me that to make the WiFi adapter work on any of my laptops or desktops I have had to turn off the wired ports to make it work. What you folks seem to be telling me is that is not necessary. When ever I try to use WiFi I do remove the cable but still seem to find I have to disable the wired port to make things work smoothly. I know I will eventually figure this all out, but was just trying to get a head start.

NemesisDB · Answer

on an unrelated note, when you say you never leave wifi connected for long, do you still have your access point turned on?  if you do, then your network is still very vulnerable -- especially if mac filtering is your only defense (as it is very easy to spoof)

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

Wired vs WiFi on same laptop

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