Network-1 : 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0, has a default gateway and DNS. Network-2 : 10.10.10.0/255.255.255.0 has no default gateway or DNS. Currently the PC is connected to the two networks via 1 'USB to Ethernet Adapters' (Network-1) and 1 internal NIC card (Network-2). I would like to know if I have the following opions: 1. Add a extra NIC card on the PCI slot of the PC and connect the Network-1 to this. or 2. Can I use a router to connect the two networks and use the single NIC card but not sure if my applications will be able to connect to the resources. Some more details on the PC and the Applications: The PC does not require internet. The network-1 is used for accessing a shared folder on the server. The network-2 is a network of Analyzer instruments and each instrument has a unique IP in the form of 10.10.10.X. The application running on this PC connect to these instrumets to get the results which it then combines and computes and then is stored on the server located on the network-1. Thank you in advance and really appreciate any guidance or suggestions. -D

Those emoticons are really annoying... Anyway, adding an extra PCI NIC will give you essentially the same setup you have now, so I don't see any advantage there. You can connect the two networks using a router and still access resources on both - that's the purpose of a router, isn't it? But my question would have to be why? Is there something about your current setup that isn't working properly?

Bob, Sorry, for the annoying Icons, was trying to let off some steam.. Yes, the USB-Ethernet adapters keep failing because of the condition (Chemical Exnvironment) they are in and as it is a USB connection, sometimes users (multiple operators) remove the USB to attach thumb drives etc. Thank you very much for your response. If I go with the router option, can you please advice if there are particular router type I need to use and what configuration should I use the routers. I am not from networking backgorund. Thanks in advance.

If there's only one PC that needs to connect to the instruments I'd go with the internal NIC option, it'd be easier to set up and you'd have one less failure point (the router) to worry about. If you want to be able to access the instruments from multiple PCs then the router is the way to go. If you go with the router: Since you want to route from the 192.x.x.x segment to the 10.x.x.x segment, you'd connect the 10.x.x.x segment to the router's WAN port and the 192.x.x.x segment to one of the router's LAN ports. You'll have to configure the router to not serve DHCP requests on the LAN side. You'll also have to give it static addresses on both the 10.x.x.x and 192.x.x.x segments. Since there's no Internet involved, just about any router will do. If it has wireless you'll have to turn that off or else you'll have a security issue.

I agree with Bob. Visit: anITKB.com, an IT Knowledge Base.