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Any reason to turn off wifi when connected by thunderbolt adapter to cat-5 1 gig ethernet cable to network on A/C power for MBPr? Does turning wifi off help with anything? Does keeping wifi on help anything?

justingordon
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Turning Wi-Fi off ensures traffic isn't accidentally sent over Wi-Fi instead of Ethernet. You can set the network priority in System Preferences, but I've had OS X send traffic over Wi-Fi even though it should have been sent over Ethernet. That being said, if you don't particularly care which network your traffic goes over, there's no harm in leaving Wi-Fi on.

shim
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Warren Pena
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  • you are assuming that both ethernet and wifi are connected to a network. Would you see any harm in keaving on your wifi, even if it is not connected to a network? (security maybe?) – Vincent Feb 07 '13 at 04:04
  • @M0sthated Keeping wireless on but not connected is actually more secure than on and connected to a network as there are fewer paths in to your computer. The OP specifically mentioned being on A/C power, although it's worth noting that if they were not, then disabling wi-fi when it's not needed would conserve battery life. – Warren Pena Feb 07 '13 at 04:16