Is there anyway such that I can connect to 2 Routers from 2 different ISPs to one Ethernet/LAN Port on my Desktop PC?

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Shashank80

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MTNL Freedom 800
Is there anyway so that I can connect to 2 Routers from 2 different ISPs to one Ethernet/LAN Port on my Desktop PC which has only one LAN Port as it can accommodate only one LAN Card such that I can use both the Connections at the same Time - One from MTNL with their ADSL router (as a backup) and the other from TIMBL with the Wi-fi Router from TP-Link which I just bought? I am confused how to do it? Someone please guide.
 
easy solution would be to invest in a load balancer or a router with two wan ports.
 
Yeah, Load balancer is the way to go for reliable bandwidth and consistency.

Another solution would be to buy a cheap PCI Wi-Fi card for your PC and use both Wi-Fi/Ethernet connections at the same time. The only caveat being that you can't utilize full bandwidth where the site only accept connections from one IP address. Works great with torrents and IDM downloads. (if the host allows multiple IP connections on a direct link.).
 
Any particular brand or model of load balancer or router? Please suggest and how also I would have to setup.
 
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i dumped a huge TP-Link box for an edgerouter x. for me, both of these devices have kind of struggled to maintain connectivity when one of the two connections go down. but edgerouter x is obviously superior. if you live in gurgaon, i can give you my tp-link to test it out.

setting up would depend upon the device. tp-link is fairly easy. you just configure the two wan ports as you would do in individual routers and then setup how you want to use them (failover or run together). edgerouter is slightly complicated but works similarly.

i believe there are also simple routers out there with wireless capabilities so you can have everything in one single device. someone on the forum has an Asus with two wan ports. it would of course simply things for you as you would not need to run two different devices as i have been running.
 
And is there anything cheap if I just wanted to use one of the connections when the other was down - something like e.g., I have a kind of VGA Cable attached to my monitor (do not know what it is called) which has 2 ports at the other end with a switch (not network switch) - 1st one connected to the CCTV Camera System through its cable and the 2nd one connected to the Desktop with a separate Cable. Whenever I want to check the CCTV footage I switch to CCTV. However, most of the times is switched to the Desktop connection.

I would like to have something like this to switch between Two ISPs' connection at my will. Could you please suggest something for this as a cheaper alternative, even I have to leave one connection unused and only as a backup? Thank you.
 


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Get yourself a 4 way toggle switch..... Use it before router or a 16A FP changeover...... I know it is a very crude way of doing things..... But that is what you asked for.

Router would reconfigure itself every time you switch ISP.... Preferably switch the router on/ off also while switching the ISP....
 
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Although loadbalancer should work fine but you can try this and see if it serves your purpose before investing in a loadbalancer. Also this solution is only if you have atleast 2 NIC in your Desktop.

If you're main motive is not to increase throughput then you can use the following, this will work for any version of windows :
The trick is to change the network card priority so that the wireless connection remains active when a wired connection is made.
The first step is to get to the "Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Center" page. On the left side of that page, click the link "Change adapter settings". This should bring you to the "Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network Connections >" page.
Select the wireless connection, right-click "Properties", and provide an admin password (if necessary). This should bring you to a dialog box named [wireless connect name] Properties".
In the list box titled "This connection uses the following items:", scroll down to "Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)" and select it. The "Properties" command button will enable; click it. This should bring you to a dialog box named "Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) Properties".
Click the "Advanced" command button. This should bring you to a dialog box named "Advanced TCP/IP Settings".
Near the bottom of the dialog box, there should be a check box named "Automatic metric". Uncheck it. That will enable a text box named "Interface metric". Fill in a number. It needs to be larger than 1 (reserved for loopback) and the number you choose for the wired network (see below).
Click three "OK" command buttons to return to the "Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network Connections >" page.
Repeat the above for the wired connection:
Select the wired connection, and right-click "Properties" to get to the [wired connection name] Properties" dialog box.
Select the IPv4 list entry and click "Properties", and on the next dialog box click "Advanced".
Again Uncheck "Automatic metric", and fill in a number in the "Interface metric" box. It needs to be larger than 1 but smaller than the number you chose above.
I would assume that it's also possible to give the wired network higher priority than the wireless, but I didn't test that.

How to use Wireless and Wired Connection both at a same time in Windows 7?

If your motive is to increase throughput i.e. combining the speeds of both the connections then try to set the same metric for both the connection(try setting both to 15). Or you can use a software loadbalancer like Dispatch by connectify or any other load balancer which can combine both your connections into one.
 
You could also go with any OpenWRT capable router, and with the mwan3 package you can easily load balance and configure failover of multiple WAN links. The Asus RT-AC58U could be a good choice.

However you may not be able to achieve double the throughput from a single device, but with multiple devices you should be able to utilise both the links more effectively. Failover though can be easily achieved with OpenWRT.

The advantage here is that any of your devices can then access the same redundant service without any special configuration. It would be transparent to the other devices.
 
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