How to setup NIC Teaming

I think the reason tech support was unable to help you is due to the fact that windows 8.1 does not natively support teaming. A quick search on the subject yielded this page. Both Gigabit LAN ports on your board are provided by intel so it should in theory work. The last time I set up teaming it still had to be done via a server OS or linux so I am afraid I am a bit out of date here 

7beauties wrote: I have an ASRock Z87 Extreme 9/AC motherboard which touts its dual Ethernet LAN.  I'm supposed to be able to create a NIC Team that could split internet connectivity in two, like SLI does for GPUs and RAID 0 does for HDD, for faster downloads.  Would someone please help me with this?  I have Windows 8.1 Pro 64 bit OS.     I'm disappointed with ASRock's customer service as their response to me seemed to say that I was on my own in this matter.  This will effect how I choose a new motherboard in the near future.  Thank you.

Teaming is simple to set up, as the example in the link above provided by odiebugs demonstrates. Don't select the type of team used in the example, that does not apply to your use situation.

Teaming will work fine with Win 8.1. You will need the Intel network driver installed, the Lan driver ver:18.5.54.0 from your board's download page:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z87%20Extreme9ac/?cat=Download&os=Win8a64

You will need a network cable connected to both of the RJ45 network inputs on your board. The two cables are either connected directly to your router, or to a simple network switch that is connected to your router.

As shown in the example, you open the Properties of one of the network chips on your board in Device Manager, and you should find a Teaming tab. Select that and follow the prompts.

For PC use with the Internet, I would suggest Adaptive Load Balancing as the type of team to create. That will allow the two network chips to work together.

As mentioned above, Teaming is described in your board's manual. There is also a FAQ about Teaming among the many FAQ topics available on ASRock's website. I learned how to use teaming simply by following the procedure in the New Team option in the Device Manager Properties for my Intel network adapter.

This is from your board's main manual, page 48:



Both of the network connections on your board are one Gigabit connections. Why one is running at 100 Megabit, I'm not sure. It most likely is in a power saving mode at a lower speed because it is not receiving a signal.

I have the two network connections teamed on my Z87 Extreme6 board, through a switch teamed as Adaptive Load Balancing. Windows Network and Sharing Center shows this:



You can see the speed as 2.0 Gbps.

The reality is our ISPs are not downloading at 1.0 Gbps, they are most likely at 100 Mbps or less. The speed we see above is between the router and PC, not the speed into the router itself.