NIC Teaming
Over the past months, I’ve accumulated various technical notes not only on the development of the WTF-Model, but also on my general tech setup, that I’m now finally publishing.
Background
Since I use Parsec for H.264/H.265 video streaming to access all my systems, my Ethernet controller occasionally overheats and disconnects — extremely disruptive during calls or streams.
My LAN traffic averages around 1 TB monthly due to constant video transfers. Limiting the link speed to 1 Gbps didn’t help; the connection would still drop during meetings or while streaming with OBS.
The Solution: NIC Teaming
To address this, I configured NIC Teaming with a 2.5 Gbit Realtek USB Ethernet adapter as a standby interface.
It takes over instantly whenever the Aquantia 10 Gbit controller fails, resulting in seamless failover with no noticeable disruption.
Implementation on Windows 11
Since NIC Teaming is a Windows Server feature, I enabled it on Windows 11 using a third-party GitHub project:
Windows11LBFO
The LBFO (Load Balancing/Failover) implementation is mature and reliable, even though Microsoft has deprecated it in favor of newer solutions.
For my use case, the traditional setup performs perfectly. While it supports link aggregation up to 12.5 Gbps, I’ve decided after some tinkering to only using the failover configuration.
Configuration Details
In practice, NIC Teaming creates a virtual adapter representing both network interfaces.
This adapter handles IP, DNS, and gateway configurations. The abstraction is straightforward — both controllers run in automatic mode, and the system switches between them instantly when needed.
Result
My configuration designates the 10 Gbit controller as primary, with the 2.5 Gbit adapter in hot standby.
When the 10 Gbit link stabilizes, control seamlessly returns to it.
The setup has proven reliable, transparent, and highly effective — a strong recommendation for anyone facing intermittent Ethernet issues under heavy network loads.