What "network address" is Windows referring to?

I was looking around my network card properties and saw a configuration box for "network address." For this, is Windows referring to the MAC address or IP address or something else? And does anyone know the difference between optimizing the network card for CPU and optimizing for throughput? How does that affect network performance?

 

Sounds to me like you have a 3COM network card. Am I correct?

The network address is usually the 16 digit MAC address. Though some do confuse it with the IP address.

As for the throughput, I have tested this and found it best to leave it at CPU. When it comes to I/O, the network is not a bottleneck that you affects you that much. Save the CPU to handle other I/O tasks, such as CD burning.

 

Thanks for the note. Actually, I don't have a 3COM card, but all the various cards that I have in my home and at work all have that "network address" field to fill in.... so should i simply assume it is for the MAC address? Seems kind of odd - so does that mean I can clone a MAC address by filling in that field?

 

It has been a while for me, but as I remember it, yes, at one time you could put in your own MAC address and clone one if you needed to. But I always viewed this as a security risk. Each MAC address is supposed to be unique to each card. A pool of MAC addresses is assigned to the manufacturers, and they assign one to each card.

I also must apologize, the MAC address is 12 digits, not 16. But the Novell Netware IPX address uses an 8+12 digit scheme, and this is what I was thinking of. In your case, you are not using Netware, so you need not concerne yourself. But with Netware, your address is built upon your network address plus your MAC address. The Netware administrator would select the 8 digit network hexidecimal address (2FA653BE) and your network cards MAC address (000347880572) would be appended to the network address. So your address would look like this in Netware: 2FA653BE:000347880572

I have always liked this addressing compared to IP. An IP address can be assigned to any card, but the IPX address is unique to each card. It made it easy to restrict a nodes access to the server, not just the user. If you have a PC in a public area for instance, you could restrict that PCs access, no matter who logged in. This is why I did not like the ability to clone MAC addresses.