Patent ID: RE41397

Claim:
A process method for driving a network interface card, comprising: providing a multi-port network interface card on a stand- alone computer, the multi-port network interface card having at least three ports for connecting the stand- alone computer to a one network, the at least three ports being capable of transmitting data from the stand- alone computer to the network as transmit ports at the same time to a remote host attached to the network at an aggregated bandwidth of the at least three ports, a selected port from the at least three ports being capable of receiving data from the network as a primary receiving port, wherein the multi-port network interface card is configured to transmit new data over a selected transmit port while transmitting other data over the other transmit ports at the same time so as to improve load balancing of data from the stand- alone computer; initializing each of the at least three ports, the initializing further including, ascertaining the connection type for the ports, and scanning the indices of a lookup table to determine if the ports are active; creating registry groups by selecting ports from the at least three ports; defining start time-out values to assist in the efficient load balancing of active ports; monitoring a status of the at least three ports between the stand- alone computer and the network; detecting a failure in one of the at least three ports that connect the stand- alone computer to the network; upon detecting the failure in one of the ports, re-assigning data to be transmitted over the failed one of the at least three ports to an active port of the at least three ports, the active port being selected in a round robin technique in a manner such that data transfer load is automatically redistributed over active ports; and receiving data over one of the at least three ports designated as the primary receiving port.