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Why does a Mac Pro have TWO Ethernet ports?

Friends:

This may sound trivial, but why does a Mac Pro have TWO Ethernet ports? I don't understand the rationalization for this. What do you typically do with the second one?

Also, I note that sometimes the two green dots on the control panel inside system preferences are lit, when only one Ethernet cable is plugged into port 1 as if both ports were connected to something. Why is this?

Thanks amigos,

Migs

2.66 GHz Quad Core Intel Xeon Mac Pro/ 3 Gb SDRAM, Mac OS X (10.5.7), Using C++ under XCode 3.0

Posted on Jul 3, 2009 7:08 AM

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Posted on Jul 7, 2009 5:46 PM

Not one darn thing trivial about asking an honest question... And now that you've learned, so have others.
Glad to have you here. 🙂
10 replies

Jul 3, 2009 8:25 AM in response to Miguel Reznicek

This may sound trivial, but why does a Mac Pro have TWO Ethernet ports? I don't understand the rationalization for this. What do you typically do with the second one?

The second port could be used for a high-speed (1 Gbps) link between computers and file servers while the first is used for internet. Internet modems don't have 1 GBPS ports, so sharing one port on the computer would reduce the bandwidth available for file transfers.
Also, I note that sometimes the two green dots on the control panel inside system preferences are lit, when only one Ethernet cable is plugged into port 1 as if both ports were connected to something. Why is this?

If there is nothing connected, the dot should be red.

Jul 8, 2009 5:21 AM in response to Samsara

I'm actually having some difficulties. Within our office network we have two internet proxy servers with IPs: 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.0.3. When I connect to ...3 everything works, but when I connect to ....1 I have no access. I'm only using one port to do these tests. The MacPro tries to connect but fails. I deleted all my network settings and entered them again to try and get ...1 to work to no avial. I would really like to know how to diagnose if the problem stems from my machine or the respective server. I have substituted cables to make sure it's not something trivial but I'm still stumped.
As always, thanks for your kind input!
Migs

Jul 8, 2009 12:46 PM in response to Miguel Reznicek

In my difficult experience of configuring ports and other issues with sharing and so on, it's the Mac and not anything else that is causing 98% of the problem. I've been finding odd things in a variety of programs that only work if I make changes and restart my Mac again.

What the problem is I don't know. Perhaps router issues also? But it's in your Mac somewhere. That's just how I would look at it and then start uninstalling and reinstalling any software involved.

I wish you luck with what can be a really bothersome problem. I hope others more familiar with the topic will write in too. if they don't, start a new topic on this alone and more people will see it.

Jul 10, 2009 1:02 PM in response to Miguel Reznicek

I was actually on the phone with Applecare about this very issue last week. My Mac Pro and Linkstation network drive are both 10/100/1000, but my older Netgear router is limited to 10/100. I thought I'd speed things up by connecting my network drive into Ethernet 2. It *will not* work. I've tried creating different locations with one port turned off, manually entering the IP that came with the Linkstation, etc. Either I can see the Internet on 1, or the Linkstation on 2, but I have to unplug one to see the other. The supervisor at Apple was stumped; he was intrigued enough, he said, that he was going to keep researching the issue and call me back if and when he found a solution.

Why does a Mac Pro have TWO Ethernet ports?

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