But how exactly do these adapters work, and why are they important for your device? We will discuss just that and a lot more in today’s article. We will also suggest some basic configurations for the Network Adapters that you can use on Windows devices.
What is Network Adapter?
Network Adapters or Network Interface Controllers(NIC) are the components of a computer that exchange data over a network (LAN or Internet). It facilitates communication with another device over a network by allowing the computer to receive the data packets. Network Adapters are generally connected to the motherboard. You can use the network adapter with a wired connection through ethernet (plugged into the RJ-45 connector) or with a wireless network through Wi-fi. Some of the categories of the Network Adapters are listed here.
How Do the Network Adapters Work?
As discussed earlier, the Network Adapters facilitate the data transmission over a Network. The data to transmit are converted into digital signals and exchanged. This exchange process from the Network Adapters is based on the Data link and Physical layer. The data packets travel in the network and arrive at the adapter. They get attached with source and destination MAC addresses referred to as frames. These frames are transferred in the form of digital signals. Similarly, the NIC converts digital signals into frames while receiving the packets. Then it checks the checksum value and destination MAC address of the packets. Finally, the packets are freed from the frames and received by the computer. The packet data that are to be exchanged are kept in the data link layer. This layer also creates the data packets to send through the network. After that, these packets get sent to the physical layer. Here it gets converted into a digital signal and transmitted using the network connectors.
What is Network Adapter in Windows?
The Network Adapters you generally see on the Windows operating system deal with the software packages or the drivers that make the NIC operational on your device. These drivers are there in your device to manage the functionalities of the Network adapters. They are installed by computer manufacturers, or Windows will install the generic drivers automatically when the adapters are connected. Some external network adapters might even require you to install the drivers manually.
How to View and Enable the Network Adapter in Windows?
There are several ways to get the details of your Network adapters on Windows. Getting the details of these interfaces becomes important while troubleshooting the issues with the network. There are different command lines and GUI-based tools that you can use for this purpose. You can use the ipconfig command to get the basic details of all the network interfaces (wired and wireless) in your device. Here’s how you can do it. The Network Adapters sometimes get disabled by default or by some misconfigurations. You can enable it back to get the network connections working.
