How do I know which NIC is which?

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Windows hosts.
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zdawg
Posts: 9
Joined: 22. Aug 2014, 21:48

How do I know which NIC is which?

Post by zdawg »

My physical host is a Windows 7 box, the guest OS is a Windows 10 VM.

My physical box has two integrated NICs, one of which I've permanently disabled due to flakiness (won't even buy another Intel board EVER but I digress :lol: )

When I look in the settings for the VM and "Adapter Type" I have two Intel adapters to choose from:

Intel Pro/1000 MT Desktop (82540EM)
Intel Pro/1000 MT Desktop (82545EM)

Is there any easy way to determine which adpater is the one I want to use, and which is the one I've disabled? Currently neither one of them is able to get an internet connection, but before I dig in and troubleshoot I want to make sure I'm not assigning a NIC that is disabled (and unplugged) on the host :lol: .
socratis
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Re: How do I know which NIC is which?

Post by socratis »

zdawg wrote:When I look in the settings for the VM and "Adapter Type" I have two Intel adapters to choose from:

Intel Pro/1000 MT Desktop (82540EM)
Intel Pro/1000 MT Desktop (82545EM)
Are you sure you got that right? "Adapter type" (if you open the "Advanced settings") is the virtual type of network card presented to your guest and it has absolutely nothing to do with your physical NICs. Also, the names are not exactly the same, so I'm asking again, can you double-check that you have the situation correctly? Please post a screenshot if you have to.
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zdawg
Posts: 9
Joined: 22. Aug 2014, 21:48

Re: How do I know which NIC is which?

Post by zdawg »

Here's the full list of potential adapters, as shown by VirtualBox, I assume I'm supposed to be using one of the Intel NICs because the 2 integrated NICs on my host are Intel (quite possible that I'm misunderstanding something here):

Image
BillG
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Re: How do I know which NIC is which?

Post by BillG »

No, it has nothing whatever to do with the host machines NICs. It refers to the virtual (emulated) NICs in the vm. The best one to use is usually the one selected by default. For Windows 10 that is the Intel Pro/1000 MT Desktop (82540EM). My Windows 10 uses that one (the physical NICs on the host are Dell WiFi and Realtek GBE),

For older OSs the choice is usually one of the older NICs which will have a "out of the box" driver for the chosen NIC.
Last edited by BillG on 29. Oct 2016, 08:18, edited 1 time in total.
Bill
socratis
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Posts: 27330
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Re: How do I know which NIC is which?

Post by socratis »

zdawg wrote:Intel Pro/1000 MT Desktop (82540EM)
Intel Pro/1000 MT Desktop Server (82545EM)
To add to what Bill and I already said, you did in fact have the names wrong as I suspected. It's OK, they're close enough... ;)
Do NOT send me Personal Messages (PMs) for troubleshooting, they are simply deleted.
Do NOT reply with the "QUOTE" button, please use the "POST REPLY", at the bottom of the form.
If you obfuscate any information requested, I will obfuscate my response. These are virtual UUIDs, not real ones.
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