is it possible to use two nics to download

[squall_01]

sorry, prefetches

[michaewlewis]

First of all, it is possible. Has anyone ever heard of a T1? A T1 is 24 phone lines bundled together to get higher transfer speeds.
Second, did any of you actually do any research before replying to the question?
Here is some open source software that allows you to put multiple connections together to achieve higher bandwidth. It's been around for quite some time now.
http://www.heroinewarrior.com/firehose.php

[squall_01]

no, we used pure logic here 

[wbrost]

that will only increase the speed of the local link not the external link.

in windows you can "bridge" the connections into a single logical interface. This will not increase the "Internet" speed.

on a layer 3 switch and router you can "trunk" the ports.

Neither of these will increase the internet speed. They will increase the intranet speed however.
 

[michaewlewis]

that will only increase the speed of the local link not the external link.

in windows you can "bridge" the connections into a single logical interface. This will not increase the "Internet" speed.

on a layer 3 switch and router you can "trunk" the ports.

Neither of these will increase the internet speed. They will increase the intranet speed however.

True.... If you really wanted to take advantage of a program like firehose (which I linked earlier) you would need multiple internet connections. Otherwise, there would be no point.

How does bridging or trunking increase network speed though?

[wbrost]

How does bridging or trunking increase network speed though?

on the PC bridging links the two NICs together and forms one with double the original link speed. example would be two 1GB cards working as one to provide 2GB. The same theory applies to Trunking.

[Aegis]

Yeah, like Percy Weasley in "Harry Potter."

I think he means "prefetches."

[squall_01]

what?    Any way he stated that he had two connections.  I thought cause they were seperate that you couldnt tie the two together to get the data packets to come threw both of them.

[BC_Programmer]

an example would be, if you had a gigabit WAN connected to a router and two 100mbps NICs in a PC, using both would be faster.

But, No consumer oriented Internet connection(that I know of) achieves even more then 100mbps.

I was answering the original question:

I was just wondering is it possible to have two seprate nics downloading from the internet on the same computer via a router effectively doubling your speed

If the OP is using a standard DSL or Cable connection, chances are their connection does not exceed the 100mbps throughput that their NIC is capable of- assuming it is "only" 100mbps.

The question is basically asking wether it will be faster. It will not, for any consumer-targeted internet connection, allow for faster speeds. In order for it to do so:

The Internet connection itself must be higher then the total throughput of the NICs.

the Router must support gigabit (otherwise it's WAN interface will only be 100mbps as well, limiting the total traffic to all LAN connections to 100mbps regardless of the actual capabilities of the Internet connection).

both NICs must support simultaneous usage... not so much a problem now since IRQ/DMA contention is now a thing of the past.


However, on the other hand, most PCs now come with an on-board gigabit connection, in which case two gigabit connections will NOT increase the speed of downloads.

[michaewlewis]

I think you've got a bridge confused with something else: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_bridge
Might want to check out trunking, too. Maybe link aggregation?

[talontromper]

what are some of the fore mentioned programs?