Hardware recommendation for a laptop with two NIC's (network interface controllers)?

Question

I need a laptop that has two network cards onboard. I've tried in vein searching for such a beast. Can anyone shed some light on where I can find such hardware? It should also have a parallel port.

Answer 1

That's gonna be mighty hard to find. Just finding one with a parallel port is difficult these days.

Have you considered an option of getting a regular one (that has parallel port and network card inside) and then getting another network card in pcmcia form?

Answer 2

Easiest way to aquire dual nics is using the built-in nic and for the second through a usb network adapter or express card ethernet adapter. The express card versions would give you much better performance if you need gigabit speeds.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category%5Fslc.asp?CatId=589&srkey=usb%20ethernet

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4624349&CatId=200

Same with the parallel port. Just easier get a USB adapter:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category%5Fslc.asp?CatId=471&name=USB%20Parallel%20Adapter

With the external options, you can get almost any laptop you like and would use better.

Answer 3

None with two inbuilt NICs.

Your best bet is to get a USB-to-Ethernet dongle, or a PCMCIA or ExpressCard Ethernet solution.

As to parallel-port, get a USB-to-Parallel port extension, or go for one of the older notebooks (plenty have parallel ports built-in).