Why would Windows use slower network interface despite route metrics?
- by tim11g
On my previous notebook, the Dell/Broadcom wireless adapter had an option to automatically disable wireless when a wired network is connected, so I never dealt with multiple active interfaces. My current system has an Intel wireless adapter, and they apparently haven't figured out how to turn it off when there is a wired connection. Unless I explicitly remember to disable wireless when docked, the connection is active.
That shouldn't be a problem (in theory), since the route metric will cause traffic to go over the fastest network (as indicated by the lowest metric in the routing table).
Apparently not - I'm running a backup and seeing the throughput at 25Mbps or so (which is consistent with 802.11g) when a perfectly good Gigabit Ethernet interface is also connected.
IPv4 Route Table
===========================================================================
Active Routes:
Network Destination Netmask Gateway Interface Metric
0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.254 192.168.1.104 10
0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.254 192.168.1.109 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
Windows has correctly identified the Ethernet interface (.104) and assigned it the lower (preferred) metric. So the Ethernet interface should be used exclusively, right?
Why is the Ethernet connection not being used? What other factors are involved? (This is with Windows 7 if it makes a difference)
