[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Question for IT minded persons (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 4/28/2015 3:08:49 PM EDT
| Is it really detrimental to be hard wired into a network and connected via wifi? Any time anything happens with a computer first question from IT is "was your wifi on?" I'm suspecting they are full of shit, as they generally can't figure anything out. |
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Wait... Are you connected to both at the same time?
Depending on why you are doing that and which networks/network both NICs are connected to, it could cause some really weird networking issues on your PC, and even for the rest of the network. As an IT person, if you only have a single network to connect to, do not connect to it using 2 different NICs on the same PC. It will not help you in any way unless you REALLY know what you are doing and you have some access to the core networking equipment to setup things like ether channels and bonding. So to answer question because it is unclear what you are trying to express, the answer is maybe. |
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It doesn't cause problems, unless:
1. Your wireless network isn't engineered correctly for the way you intend to use it AND... 2. Your operating system is preferentially using your wireless interface instead of your wired interface. Barring those first two possibilities, no - it causes no problems. Sometimes, they'll have you disable the wireless interface to simplify troubleshooting. |
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Wait... Are you connected to both at the same time? Depending on why you are doing that and which networks/network both NICs are connected to, it could cause some really weird networking issues on your PC, and even for the rest of the network. As an IT person, if you only have a single network to connect to, do not connect to it using 2 different NICs on the same PC. It will not help you in any way unless you REALLY know what you are doing and you have some access to the core networking equipment to setup things like ether channels and bonding. So to answer question because it is unclear what you are trying to express, the answer is maybe. I agree. A definite maybe. Although since they are asking I'm willing to guess that it's part of a known error. |
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Unless they're bonded together, Windows will only use one anyway. Unless you misconfigure something. I had a user do something like this and flooded the network with ARP requests. Had another idiot who set up a wireless bridge and plugged in his PC and also used the company provided ethernet jack that completely fucked spanning tree. In both cases the production network was shut down for several hours and in the latter case nearly an entire day. Cost the company a LOT of money to figure it out and even more to get caught back up in production. |
| It usually doesnt matter. Your PC will likely connect to whichever Network Adapter is set first. If LAN is on top, it will connect to that one first and vice versa with the wireless. Sometimes your computer will get butt hurt and go a bit crazy and say there are no networks available. If you are on a VPN, sometimes you can get some issues as well. |
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Is it really detrimental to be hard wired into a network and connected via wifi? Any time anything happens with a computer first question from IT is "was your wifi on?" I'm suspecting they are full of shit, as they generally can't figure anything out. It shouldn't cause stability problems, but security OTOH....I just love it when people bridge networks |
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Unless you misconfigure something. I had a user do something like this and flooded the network with ARP requests. Had another idiot who set up a wireless bridge and plugged in his PC and also used the company provided ethernet jack that completely fucked spanning tree. In both cases the production network was shut down for several hours and in the latter case nearly an entire day. Cost the company a LOT of money to figure it out and even more to get caught back up in production. Quoted:
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Unless they're bonded together, Windows will only use one anyway. Unless you misconfigure something. I had a user do something like this and flooded the network with ARP requests. Had another idiot who set up a wireless bridge and plugged in his PC and also used the company provided ethernet jack that completely fucked spanning tree. In both cases the production network was shut down for several hours and in the latter case nearly an entire day. Cost the company a LOT of money to figure it out and even more to get caught back up in production. Huh? STP is designed to (among other things) prevent broadcast storms. It sounds like you didn't have it configured to begin with. 
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It can cause performance issues and networking issues. It can cause your computer to have multiple IP and MAC addresses with different paths on the same network, or cause you to be connected to 2 different networks with different DNS, default gateways, etc...
Wireless is also a security risk. We recommend our notebook users only turn on their wireless when they need to use it. |
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It's generally not a great idea to have both active, it can add a few steps into troubleshooting. There is nothing wrong with both being active... it's just generally not well practiced and end users tend to fuck with everything. Some programs or apps have issues when you have both connected.
I'd stick with wired all the way. |
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Huh? STP is designed to (among other things) prevent broadcast storms. It sounds like you didn't have it configured to begin with. Quoted:
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Unless they're bonded together, Windows will only use one anyway. Unless you misconfigure something. I had a user do something like this and flooded the network with ARP requests. Had another idiot who set up a wireless bridge and plugged in his PC and also used the company provided ethernet jack that completely fucked spanning tree. In both cases the production network was shut down for several hours and in the latter case nearly an entire day. Cost the company a LOT of money to figure it out and even more to get caught back up in production. Huh? STP is designed to (among other things) prevent broadcast storms. It sounds like you didn't have it configured to begin with. Would a Windows machine participate in an STP discovery? |
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Is it really detrimental to be hard wired into a network and connected via wifi? Any time anything happens with a computer first question from IT is "was your wifi on?" I'm suspecting they are full of shit, as they generally can't figure anything out. I had to re-read this 3 times because your avatar kept distracting me |
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I had to re-read this 3 times because your avatar kept distracting me Quoted:
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Is it really detrimental to be hard wired into a network and connected via wifi? Any time anything happens with a computer first question from IT is "was your wifi on?" I'm suspecting they are full of shit, as they generally can't figure anything out. I had to re-read this 3 times because your avatar kept distracting me 
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Is it really detrimental to be hard wired into a network and connected via wifi? Any time anything happens with a computer first question from IT is "was your wifi on?" I'm suspecting they are full of shit, as they generally can't figure anything out. I had to re-read this 3 times because your avatar kept distracting me http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/009/855/35xyux.jpg 
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Huh? STP is designed to (among other things) prevent broadcast storms. It sounds like you didn't have it configured to begin with. Quoted:
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Unless they're bonded together, Windows will only use one anyway. Unless you misconfigure something. I had a user do something like this and flooded the network with ARP requests. Had another idiot who set up a wireless bridge and plugged in his PC and also used the company provided ethernet jack that completely fucked spanning tree. In both cases the production network was shut down for several hours and in the latter case nearly an entire day. Cost the company a LOT of money to figure it out and even more to get caught back up in production. Huh? STP is designed to (among other things) prevent broadcast storms. It sounds like you didn't have it configured to begin with. Funny enough thing is you can break spanning tree if you have 3 nodes and mix in some stupidity. So basically spanning tree is to prevent a network from being plugged into itself or looping infinitely. Well, take a shitty wireless bridge and sprinkle in some retarded NATing and bad port forwarding, and you can get spanning tree to just simply not work at all. The guy was TRYING to get around the websense box. He was fired. |
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This program has been great for tracking down BSOD issues.
http://www.resplendence.com/whocrashed |
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Quoted: It shouldn't cause stability problems, but security OTOH....I just love it when people bridge networks Quoted: Quoted: Is it really detrimental to be hard wired into a network and connected via wifi? Any time anything happens with a computer first question from IT is "was your wifi on?" I'm suspecting they are full of shit, as they generally can't figure anything out. It shouldn't cause stability problems, but security OTOH....I just love it when people bridge networks This. It may be technically feasible but it's going to piss off your IA guys. |
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Would a Windows machine participate in an STP discovery? Quoted:
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Unless they're bonded together, Windows will only use one anyway. Unless you misconfigure something. I had a user do something like this and flooded the network with ARP requests. Had another idiot who set up a wireless bridge and plugged in his PC and also used the company provided ethernet jack that completely fucked spanning tree. In both cases the production network was shut down for several hours and in the latter case nearly an entire day. Cost the company a LOT of money to figure it out and even more to get caught back up in production. Huh? STP is designed to (among other things) prevent broadcast storms. It sounds like you didn't have it configured to begin with. Would a Windows machine participate in an STP discovery? Probably not (I hadn't really thought about it), but I'd imagine the switchport his machine is plugged into would go into a blocking state. Or should. Interesting problem. |
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Unlikely, unless there's something seriously wrong with your wireless chipset driver and they know about it. I'm going with unlikely. Quoted:
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Latest claim was that it was the cause of a blue screen of death. Unlikely, unless there's something seriously wrong with your wireless chipset driver and they know about it. I'm going with unlikely. Pretty much what I expected. It took me a year to convince them that it was possible and I should be able to send a PDF via lotus notes directly from Adobe. Had to find several co workers with the same versions of all software and prove they could do it then googlefu to determine that my comp still had outlook jamming it up before they fixed it. |
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That could be a driver/hardware issue. Unlikely but not impossible. What is the actual error message in the BSoD? Quoted:
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Latest claim was that it was the cause of a blue screen of death. That could be a driver/hardware issue. Unlikely but not impossible. What is the actual error message in the BSoD? Not sure, wasn't mine. |
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Quoted: It doesn't cause problems, unless: 1. Your wireless network isn't engineered correctly for the way you intend to use it AND... 2. Your operating system is preferentially using your wireless interface instead of your wired interface. Barring those first two possibilities, no - it causes no problems. Sometimes, they'll have you disable the wireless interface to simplify troubleshooting. |
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Pretty much what I expected. It took me a year to convince them that it was possible and I should be able to send a PDF via lotus notes directly from Adobe. Had to find several co workers with the same versions of all software and prove they could do it then googlefu to determine that my comp still had outlook jamming it up before they fixed it. Quoted:
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Latest claim was that it was the cause of a blue screen of death. Unlikely, unless there's something seriously wrong with your wireless chipset driver and they know about it. I'm going with unlikely. Pretty much what I expected. It took me a year to convince them that it was possible and I should be able to send a PDF via lotus notes directly from Adobe. Had to find several co workers with the same versions of all software and prove they could do it then googlefu to determine that my comp still had outlook jamming it up before they fixed it. This clusterfuck right here goes way deeper than wireless. 
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Not sure, wasn't mine. Quoted:
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Latest claim was that it was the cause of a blue screen of death. That could be a driver/hardware issue. Unlikely but not impossible. What is the actual error message in the BSoD? Not sure, wasn't mine. That's kind of important. Don't bother to call IT and B%&H if you don't have any information to give them other than "it crashed". |
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Between wired or WiFi, I'd choose wired every time due to latency issues when dealing with wireless connections. |
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That's kind of important. Don't bother to call IT and B%&H if you don't have any information to give them other than "it crashed". Quoted:
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Latest claim was that it was the cause of a blue screen of death. That could be a driver/hardware issue. Unlikely but not impossible. What is the actual error message in the BSoD? Not sure, wasn't mine. That's kind of important. Don't bother to call IT and B%&H if you don't have any information to give them other than "it crashed". Well, the method in which it crashes can sometimes be very telling, however an actual error message can really be helpful. But hell, with a BSoD it could be anything from a high level application layer issue all the way down to the box is dusty and isn't getting properly cooled and is overheating. |
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That's kind of important. Don't bother to call IT and B%&H if you don't have any information to give them other than "it crashed". Quoted:
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Latest claim was that it was the cause of a blue screen of death. That could be a driver/hardware issue. Unlikely but not impossible. What is the actual error message in the BSoD? Not sure, wasn't mine. That's kind of important. Don't bother to call IT and B%&H if you don't have any information to give them other than "it crashed". Oh I'll bitch all I want. The immediate question in response to the blue screen of death was "did you bump it?" That some top notch detective work Lou. Followed with the standard reboot instructions. |
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Quoted: Huh? STP is designed to (among other things) prevent broadcast storms. It sounds like you didn't have it configured to begin with. Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Unless they're bonded together, Windows will only use one anyway. Unless you misconfigure something. I had a user do something like this and flooded the network with ARP requests. Had another idiot who set up a wireless bridge and plugged in his PC and also used the company provided ethernet jack that completely fucked spanning tree. In both cases the production network was shut down for several hours and in the latter case nearly an entire day. Cost the company a LOT of money to figure it out and even more to get caught back up in production. Huh? STP is designed to (among other things) prevent broadcast storms. It sounds like you didn't have it configured to begin with. STP was designed to prevent network loops. Broadcast storm prevention was a nice side effect OP- as long as you don't bridge the connections, you're OK. |
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Is it really detrimental to be hard wired into a network and connected via wifi? Any time anything happens with a computer first question from IT is "was your wifi on?" I'm suspecting they are full of shit, as they generally can't figure anything out. It's not a big deal. Our people with laptops do it a lot and it's never been a serious concern. There are only two things that can go wrong that I can think of offhand: 1) If the programs you have running are running through your wifi connection and then said wifi gets turned off or the WAP is powered down, this will cause your software to lose network connectivity until the connection can be reestablished through the wired connection. This is a minor thing and in most cases does not pose a problem. For most ordinary programs, the switch over might occur without the user even noticing it. 2) If you are running both wifi and wired, and the WAP or a switch is disconnected from the network gateway without being powered off. On a Windows machine, the various network adapters have a priority, basically if multiple network connections are active, one is favored over the others to be used first. If your machine has wifi prioritized over wired, and the wireless access point is, say, unplugged from a switch somewhere, you get in a situation where you are still "connected" wirelessly but have no path for traffic sent to the wireless access point to get out into the rest of the network. This can cause a failure of local network and/or internet connectivity. The same can happen if your machine uses wired before wireless and the switch you are wired into is disconnected from the rest of the network at large without being powered down. Either of these are easily resolved by turning off the NIC that Windows is trying to use and forcing it to use the other connection which may not be having problems. |
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It's not a big deal. Our people with laptops do it a lot and it's never been a serious concern. There are only two things that can go wrong that I can think of offhand: 1) If the programs you have running are running through your wifi connection and then said wifi gets turned off or the WAP is powered down, this will cause your software to lose network connectivity until the connection can be reestablished through the wired connection. This is a minor thing and in most cases does not pose a problem. For most ordinary programs, the switch over might occur without the user even noticing it. 2) If you are running both wifi and wired, and the WAP or a switch is disconnected from the network gateway without being powered off. On a Windows machine, the various network adapters have a priority, basically if multiple network connections are active, one is favored over the others to be used first. If your machine has wifi prioritized over wired, and the wireless access point is, say, unplugged from a switch somewhere, you get in a situation where you are still "connected" wirelessly but have no path for traffic sent to the wireless access point to get out into the rest of the network. This can cause a failure of local network and/or internet connectivity. The same can happen if your machine uses wired before wireless and the switch you are wired into is disconnected from the rest of the network at large without being powered down. Either of these are easily resolved by turning off the NIC that Windows is trying to use and forcing it to use the other connection which may not be having problems. Quoted:
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Is it really detrimental to be hard wired into a network and connected via wifi? Any time anything happens with a computer first question from IT is "was your wifi on?" I'm suspecting they are full of shit, as they generally can't figure anything out. It's not a big deal. Our people with laptops do it a lot and it's never been a serious concern. There are only two things that can go wrong that I can think of offhand: 1) If the programs you have running are running through your wifi connection and then said wifi gets turned off or the WAP is powered down, this will cause your software to lose network connectivity until the connection can be reestablished through the wired connection. This is a minor thing and in most cases does not pose a problem. For most ordinary programs, the switch over might occur without the user even noticing it. 2) If you are running both wifi and wired, and the WAP or a switch is disconnected from the network gateway without being powered off. On a Windows machine, the various network adapters have a priority, basically if multiple network connections are active, one is favored over the others to be used first. If your machine has wifi prioritized over wired, and the wireless access point is, say, unplugged from a switch somewhere, you get in a situation where you are still "connected" wirelessly but have no path for traffic sent to the wireless access point to get out into the rest of the network. This can cause a failure of local network and/or internet connectivity. The same can happen if your machine uses wired before wireless and the switch you are wired into is disconnected from the rest of the network at large without being powered down. Either of these are easily resolved by turning off the NIC that Windows is trying to use and forcing it to use the other connection which may not be having problems. Don't get me started on the wifi... Routers are shit and generally once a day someone has to reboot them...again reboot being the only fix known by "IT." |
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Don't get me started on the wifi... Routers are shit and generally once a day someone has to reboot them...again reboot being the only fix known by "IT." Quoted:
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Is it really detrimental to be hard wired into a network and connected via wifi? Any time anything happens with a computer first question from IT is "was your wifi on?" I'm suspecting they are full of shit, as they generally can't figure anything out. It's not a big deal. Our people with laptops do it a lot and it's never been a serious concern. There are only two things that can go wrong that I can think of offhand: 1) If the programs you have running are running through your wifi connection and then said wifi gets turned off or the WAP is powered down, this will cause your software to lose network connectivity until the connection can be reestablished through the wired connection. This is a minor thing and in most cases does not pose a problem. For most ordinary programs, the switch over might occur without the user even noticing it. 2) If you are running both wifi and wired, and the WAP or a switch is disconnected from the network gateway without being powered off. On a Windows machine, the various network adapters have a priority, basically if multiple network connections are active, one is favored over the others to be used first. If your machine has wifi prioritized over wired, and the wireless access point is, say, unplugged from a switch somewhere, you get in a situation where you are still "connected" wirelessly but have no path for traffic sent to the wireless access point to get out into the rest of the network. This can cause a failure of local network and/or internet connectivity. The same can happen if your machine uses wired before wireless and the switch you are wired into is disconnected from the rest of the network at large without being powered down. Either of these are easily resolved by turning off the NIC that Windows is trying to use and forcing it to use the other connection which may not be having problems. Don't get me started on the wifi... Routers are shit and generally once a day someone has to reboot them...again reboot being the only fix known by "IT." Probably because they're using plain old consumer routers. Needing to reboot them usually is not a problem for routers targeted at a small business and up, but those devices tend to cost more too. We have offices spread all over the country. We have some of those cheapo routers in places where we have two or three employees in the entire building. On the flipside, headquarters has a Cisco box (a device that I despise maintaining, but that's another thread). Different needs, different tools. |
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Forget that shit. You guys are still using Lotus Notes?
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Don't get me started on the wifi... Routers are shit and generally once a day someone has to reboot them...again reboot being the only fix known by "IT." Forget that shit. You guys are still using Lotus Notes?
NO SHIT!!!!! I've been beating that drum for years. It SUCKS. |
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As someone else noted the hardware should always default to the NIC & not the wireless.
So both connected at the same time should not be a problem. However if your hardware does not do this your looking at various problems. IT asks you to disable the wireless when troubleshooting for just this reason. You may think it's dumb but WE know it's not because it happens all the time. |
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As someone else noted the hardware should always default to the NIC & not the wireless. So both connected at the same time should not be a problem. However if your hardware does not do this your looking at various problems. IT asks you to disable the wireless when troubleshooting for just this reason. You may think it's dumb but WE know it's not because it happens all the time. I've been seeing more laptops these days that are defaulting to wireless over wired  Don't ask me why, I think it's dumb, but I've seen more than once in the past couple of months.
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Don't get me started on the wifi... Routers are shit and generally once a day someone has to reboot them...again reboot being the only fix known by "IT." Sometimes IT folks are stuck with crap hardware and/or software(not of their choosing) where reboot is really the only thing that can be done. |
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Quoted: Latest claim was that it was the cause of a blue screen of death. It might do a lot of things, but it won't do that. Depending on the operating system, most will default to one or the other, even to the point of if you are on Starbucks Wifi and wired to your office that it will use one even if the resource isn't available via that route. You almost never have to worry about turning wifi off when plugging in because it won't be used. (Exception, some hardware will switch the wired port on or off depending on if you are on battery or not, so don't plug in and stay on battery, plug into the wall too.) |
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I blame lotus notes. I refuse to participate any further until lotus notes is eliminated.  I actually had an issue a few years ago where the user was having trouble emailing someone in Finland. I don't remember much about the issue except that the person in Finland was still using Lotus Notes. I was like WTF who still uses Lotus Notes! LOL |
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Oh I'll bitch all I want. The immediate question in response to the blue screen of death was "did you bump it?" That some top notch detective work Lou. Followed with the standard reboot instructions. I know it sounds retarded, but rebooting fixes most issues people complain about. Loose cables too. It's an easy canned response that usually works. |
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Quoted: NO SHIT!!!!! I've been beating that drum for years. It SUCKS. Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Don't get me started on the wifi... Routers are shit and generally once a day someone has to reboot them...again reboot being the only fix known by "IT." Forget that shit. You guys are still using Lotus Notes? NO SHIT!!!!! I've been beating that drum for years. It SUCKS. |
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i'd bet my next two paychecks that the latest claim is wildly incorrect. Quoted:
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Latest claim was that it was the cause of a blue screen of death. i'd bet my next two paychecks that the latest claim is wildly incorrect. While I suspect your right. When it comes to computers I've learned to never bet against them. |
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I know it sounds retarded, but rebooting fixes most issues people complain about. Loose cables too. It's an easy canned response that usually works. Quoted:
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Oh I'll bitch all I want. The immediate question in response to the blue screen of death was "did you bump it?" That some top notch detective work Lou. Followed with the standard reboot instructions. I know it sounds retarded, but rebooting fixes most issues people complain about. Loose cables too. It's an easy canned response that usually works. I know, I get that, it's just that if the reboot doesn't fix it, often times that's all they can provide. "It can't be done" is another automatic response. |