Need Help With Windows-Mac Networking

[omponx]

Hi Guys, I'm new to this forum (actually, I signed up just to figure this thing out)

So here's the current state of affairs:

- I'm using a Win 10 PC and my friend is using a Mac OS X Sierra.

- We both are in a network using our ISP provided modem/router.

- That modem sucked because it's not a gigabit one and we want a faster data transfer between our computers.

- So our current solution is me buying a Gigabit PCIe card and connecting my PC with his iMac directly using an ethernet cable.

- Thus the current state of our network: we each have 2 connections. My motherboard's default ethernet port is connected to the router, and my Gigabit PCIe is connected directly to his iMac. His iMac uses the WiFi to connect to the router while his ethernet port is connected directly to my PC.

 

And here's the problem:

Both of our computers can't seem to 'remember' which connection to use. If one of us turns off our connection to the router (i.e the only connection that exists is the direct ethernet cable), the data transfer is as it should: 1Gbps. But with every restart, the data transfer went down to 100 Mbps (i.e the computer uses the router for connection).

 

So my question is: How do we solve this? How do we tell each of our comps that they should use the router for the internet and use the direct connection for data transfer?

 

PS: I know that I could just get a Gigabit router and everything'll be fine (or just get a Thunderbolt PCIe card for my PC). But this is really driving me crazy so I just want to know if there's another solution that only involves some tweaking to the settings.

[Oshino Shinobu]

I would really recommend just getting a small gigabit switch. About $15 and all your problems are solved without any configuration to do if the switch is unmanaged. 

 

How are the IP addresses configured for the connections? Is the direct connection on the same subnet as the main network? If so, try putting it on a different address range. ie. if you're using 192.168.x.x/24 for the main network, try using something on the 10.x.x.x/8 address range for the direct connect (10.10.10.10/8 and 10.10.10.20/8 maybe as it's easy to remember)

[Windows7ge]

If the LAN is 192.168.X.0 then you can follow part of Oshino Shinobu's advice except if this is a P2P connection don't use /24 is a huge waste of addresses. Use /30:

Network: 10.0.0.0/30 (/30 = 255.255.255.252)

PC: 10.0.0.1/30

Mac: 10.0.0.2/30

Broadcast: 10.0.0.3/30 (Broadcast will configure itself so don't worry about it)

 

As for an alternative option to a 1Gbit router of which you'd still have the potential issue of the wireless NIC mixing with the wired NIC is you need to configure the NIC's metric. The metric is a assigned value that determines the fastest path. This could also be explained as cost or the cost of a route. The lower the cost the "faster" the link (not really you're just tricking the interface to THINK it's the fastest so it uses it) by default metric is configured automatically on windows and probably MacOS which means the metric on the wireless NIC is likely auto-configured lower than the physical. Setting static values such as the LAN = cost of 0 or 10

Wireless = 20 or 30 then both systems SHOULD (no guarantee) see the physical as the faster connection and use it by default when transferring files between systems.

[Tiberiusisgame]

I've done this before and I know exactly what you're trying to do. You want to transfer files rapidly between the two systems. The OS is irrelevant as both systems use the same networking protocol (these days).

 

You're setting up an AdHoc network and causing one NIC to auto-switch it's send/receive pair, simulating a cross-over network cable. By eliminating a router, you're also eliminating DHCP so you should to set the IP addresses of both machines to something in a different class (10/192 are common, as illustrated by @Oshino Shinobu above). To be free of the class system though and avoid potential collision, set one machine to 5.5.5.1 and the other to 5.5.5.2. Set the "gateway" IP address to the IP of the first system.  For DNS resolution your computer will likely always use your 'internet' connection. That means all web pages. Now you have to enable file sharing on both computers using the samba protocol. To access that share, you will have to reference the static IP of the sharing computer's NIC.

 

1. Plug the cable in.

2. On the Mac, go to System Preferences > Network, select the NIC on the left that will be used and do the following for the configuration:

 

3. On the PC, go to Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Center > Change Adapter Settings, pick the NIC right click and select Properties, click on the IPv4 section and Properties, Use the following IP address and do as follows:

 

 

4. Enable file sharing on one of them and reference that share, such as:

A Windows share accessed from a Mac, go to Finder > hit Command + K on your keyboard and put smb://5.5.5.1/ as the server address. It should prompt for credentials if the share was configured that way.

 

 

The easiest way to accomplish all of this is a NAS, but for the cost of a long Cat5 cable, this is great too.

[omponx]

@Oshino Shinobu @Windows7ge @Tiberiusisgame

GOT IT!!!!

So yeah. The answer was to set a static IP on both of the comps and using the same subnet, and it has to be different from the subnet of the router.

From there on you just need to enter the IP address of the corresponding comp (assuming you've set the correct sharing, etc etc)

 

From Windows:

- "Run" (Win+R) and enter the Mac's IP address. Set a shortcut or Quick Access to make it easy the next time.

- For iMac: open "Finder" and "Connect to Server" and enter "smb://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (the IP address for the PC)

 

So yeah. It's working well now, thanks a bunch you guys

[Windows7ge]

2 minutes ago, omponx said:

From Windows:

- "Run" (Win+R) and enter the Mac's IP address. Set a shortcut or Quick Access to make it easy the next time.

- For iMac: open "Finder" and "Connect to Server" and enter "smb://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (the IP address for the PC)

That's one way of making it happen. If it works for you then that's all that matters.

[Oshino Shinobu]

17 minutes ago, omponx said:

@Oshino Shinobu @Windows7ge @Tiberiusisgame

GOT IT!!!!

So yeah. The answer was to set a static IP on both of the comps and using the same subnet, and it has to be different from the subnet of the router.

From there on you just need to enter the IP address of the corresponding comp (assuming you've set the correct sharing, etc etc)

 

From Windows:

- "Run" (Win+R) and enter the Mac's IP address. Set a shortcut or Quick Access to make it easy the next time.

- For iMac: open "Finder" and "Connect to Server" and enter "smb://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (the IP address for the PC)

 

So yeah. It's working well now, thanks a bunch you guys

On Windows at least, you should be able to set the share on the Mac as a network drive, basically treating it as a local drive with a drive letter and all. Just right clicking on the share and selecting "Map Network Drive" should do it. 

 

I think you can do something similar on Mac, but I haven't done it myself so I'm not too sure. 

[omponx]

30 minutes ago, Tiberiusisgame said:

The easiest way to accomplish all of this is a NAS, but for the cost of a long Cat5 cable, this is great too.

Can't stress this enough. The Cat5 cable is actually free cause I have one that was just the right length just lying about, so getting this speed with the price of 1 Gigabit Ethernet PCI card is really just awesome.

 

8 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

On Windows at least, you should be able to set the share on the Mac as a network drive, basically treating it as a local drive with a drive letter and all. Just right clicking on the share and selecting "Map Network Drive" should do it. 

 

I think you can do something similar on Mac, but I haven't done it myself so I'm not too sure. 

Oh wow. That "Map Network Drive" suggestion is great. Thanks, dude.

 

Anyway. Here's another interesting question: Say I want a higher speed than 1000 Mbps. (Cause that was what I originally wanted. The Gigabit Ethernet was a band-aid solution, I just chose to settle for a mere 1000 Mbps speed)

 

My motherboard is Aourus Z270x Gaming k5 and my friend's iMac is from the mid 2011.

In short:

- My mobo can support a Thunderbolt 3 (assuming I buy the add-in PCIe Card) and also have a spare PCIe x16 running at x4 slot. It also has a USB-C connector (but NOT a Thunderbolt 3)

- The iMac only has a Thunderbolt 1 slot available (with a Mini Displayport connector).

 

Is there a way I can connect them with a higher speed than 1Gbps?

[Tiberiusisgame]

Thunderbolt to Ethernet is limited to 1Gbps. That's been my experience even using fiber optic TB cables between Mac Pros. It isn't published anywhere which is typical for an Implementstion of an Intel standard like TB. A 10Gig NIC on both ends and a higher grade CAT cable would work but the Mac is the problem. 

 

You'll have to research this because the networking protocol inplementations are the limiting factors. 

 

Now I'm curious about the problem you're trying to solve. 

[omponx]

11 minutes ago, Tiberiusisgame said:

Thunderbolt to Ethernet is limited to 1Gbps. That's been my experience even using fiber optic TB cables between Mac Pros. It isn't published anywhere which is typical for an Implementstion of an Intel standard like TB. A 10Gig NIC on both ends and a higher grade CAT cable would work but the Mac is the problem. 

 

You'll have to research this because the networking protocol inplementations are the limiting factors. 

 

Now I'm curious about the problem you're trying to solve. 

Well. To be honest, it's not that much of a problem per se: We just want a fast data transfer between the 2 comps. And as I researched I found these 2 benchmarks:

- 1 Gbps Ethernet connection. I'll consider this as the lowest speed (100 MBps) and the lowest price (about $10-ish).

- 10 Gbps Thunderbolt connection, which I'll consider the fastest speed (1 GBps) and the highest price (about $150-ish)

 

So I'm just curious is there something in between.

[Tiberiusisgame]

There isn't anything between that.

[omponx]

9 minutes ago, Tiberiusisgame said:

There isn't anything between that.

Damnit.. I was worried that'd be the answer. Thanks anyway 

[bcguru9384]

2 hours ago, omponx said:

Damnit.. I was worried that'd be the answer. Thanks anyway 

try this go into windows adapter screen

hold ctrl and mouse click the 2 eth cards

right click and select bridge

do same on mac