Windows 7 wired or wireless network perferred?

[pmennen]

The output of the "print route" command on my Win7x64 system is shown below.
The wireless adapter has been assigned to 198.168.2.72 by the router and the Gigabit wired connection has been manually assigned the static address 198.168.2.8

The strange thing is that the gateway metric which I believe is used to decide which connection to use is 25 for the wireless connection (i.e. fast) and 276 (i.e. slow) for the gigabit wired connection. But I expected this to be the other way around. Why does it think the wireless connection is faster? Does this mean that network traffic is generally routed thru the wireless adapter? Is there a way for me to tell which adapter is being used to route traffic?

Should I believe its reported speed, or should I force the metrics so that the wired connection is used by default. If so, what commands are used to force this priority, and do these commands need to be repeated after every boot, or are the permanent?

Thanks
~Paul


***********************************

Interface List
13...5c d9 98 a2 fa 25 ......D-Link DWA-556 Xtreme N PCIe Desktop Adapter
12...f4 6d 04 49 b7 c9 ......Intel(R) 82579V Gigabit Network Connection
1...........................Software Loopback Interface 1
18...00 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 Microsoft ISATAP Adapter
16...00 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface
17...00 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #2
===========================================================================

IPv4 Route Table
===========================================================================
Active Routes:
Network Destination Netmask Gateway Interface Metric
0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.2.1 192.168.2.8 276
0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.2.1 192.168.2.72 25
127.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 On-link 127.0.0.1 306
127.0.0.1 255.255.255.255 On-link 127.0.0.1 306
127.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 On-link 127.0.0.1 306
192.168.2.0 255.255.255.0 On-link 192.168.2.8 276
192.168.2.0 255.255.255.0 On-link 192.168.2.72 281
192.168.2.8 255.255.255.255 On-link 192.168.2.8 276
192.168.2.72 255.255.255.255 On-link 192.168.2.72 281
192.168.2.255 255.255.255.255 On-link 192.168.2.8 276
192.168.2.255 255.255.255.255 On-link 192.168.2.72 281
224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 On-link 127.0.0.1 306
224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 On-link 192.168.2.8 276
224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 On-link 192.168.2.72 281
255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 On-link 127.0.0.1 306
255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 On-link 192.168.2.8 276
255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 On-link 192.168.2.72 281
===========================================================================
Persistent Routes:
Network Address Netmask Gateway Address Metric
0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.2.1 Default
===========================================================================

 

[Mike]

This metric is notoriously annoying and unreliable. I have had the same problem similar times. The best way is to manually route traffic using multiple gateways. However, here we go:

Is there a way for me to tell which adapter is being used to route traffic?

Start -> Search -> Resource Monitor should give you a good idea of what is going on.

The metric can be a mystery to us all. While it is supposed to work efficiently, I have seen it behave strangely. It is not reliable and I will refer this post to CCNA Randy Baker (Trouble) to see if he has any input for you.

 

[Trouble]

Feel free to ignore anything in the Route Table that has an On-Link designation under the Gateway column. Don't have any idea why they are even there but if you look at their associated values regarding address and mask you'll see that they are local and are not routed at all so why (since Vista) that value is showing up, I can't really say. Your concern should be the "Default Route" which will generally appear as all zeros as values for both destination and mask.
And if you want one network adapter to have priority over another on a Windows machine just move it to the top of the adapter and bindings list and reboot the machine.
Click start and type ncpa.cpl into the search box and hit enter
On the tool bar select Advanced and then advanced settings (if the tool bar is not present just hit the Alt key on your keyboard)
In the Connections: list select the adapter that you wish to have priority and use the up arrow button to the right of the box to move it to the top.
OK your way back out of there and reboot your computer.
That should do it.
Regards
Randy

 

[pmennen]

Ok, thanks very much for your suggestions. I had worked around the problem when I started to use NetSetMan to manage my two commonly used network configurations which made it easy to simply disable the wireless adapter in my usual home network configuration. (It is re-enabled in my less commonly used configurations). Perhaps there is some disadvantage to this, although the wireless connection is so much slower than the wired I'm not sure what that would be. At any rate, I may try your suggestion to see what it does.

~Paul

 

[Trouble]

Ok, thanks very much for your suggestions. I had worked around the problem when I started to use NetSetMan to manage my two commonly used network configurations which made it easy to simply disable the wireless adapter in my usual home network configuration. (It is re-enabled in my less commonly used configurations). Perhaps there is some disadvantage to this, although the wireless connection is so much slower than the wired I'm not sure what that would be. At any rate, I may try your suggestion to see what it does.

~Paul

Microsoft does not recommend having multiple adapters configured to use the same network (collision domain/gateway) as it can often create more overhead.
SOURCE: Default Gateway Configuration for Multihomed Computers
Additional reading
Expected Behavior of Multiple Adapters on Same Network
Configuring multiple gateways on a network
While some of those references may be dated, nothing has really changed in respect to the information they contain.
I often recommend that folks take the time to disable any and all network adapters that they are not using just for that reason and it also helps to simplify the diagnostic process.
If you use the method I described above and then employ a program like Microsoft Network Monitor and do a brief capture you will notice that all traffic except maybe an occasional network broadcast, will be associated with the adapter you placed at the top of the adapter bindings list.
Regards
Randy