[FrogMaster]

Hi guys!
Can somebody explain what makes the difference between a 15$ NIC and a 100 or 200$ one?
On the paper most of them look the same and often are built around the same chipset.
Apart from the brand premium and bureaucracy overhead costs at large corporations HQs, what does justify the price gap?
Would a professionnal experimented in installing networks give some insight?
What does guide his choice from a technical/operational point of view?
Nic cards are so common these days that I wonder if anybody still cares about this component.
Thanks alot for giving advice on that subject which will help me setting up a new home network.

[Volitaire]

For home network it doesn't really matter.. cheap $15 10/100Mb cards work fine.. in business they may use more expensive 3coms or so because of compatibility... Ie remote installs running from DOS.. only supports few net cards.. like if it's 3com sure it'll work.. but some cheap card from Rwanda might not cuz of drivers and stuff...
otherwise it's mostly the same stuff.. maybe better quality?.. better support.. nothing much for home user.. oh yeah it matters if ur using Linux/Unix.. they're not as good as windows when it comes to taking peices of hardware


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Volitaire
A+, MCSE, MCP+I, ACT

[FrogMaster]

Thx for your input Volitaire.

I want the home network I am planning to be as reliable and safe as possible, with a solid Internet sharing connection.
In fact three PCs (one of them the laptop I use for homework, thus the need for safety) attached to a hub behind a fourth one acting as a server and as a firewall between my ADSL connection and the Internet.
In your opinion would it be worth spending some extra bucks for a pair of branded medium- to high-end Nic cards at least in this fourth PC which would be the most critical and loaded component in this system?

[simonroockley]

You can get a 3Com905 PCI based network card for about $40. I've never had any problems with these and most operating systems recognise them from the start. Cheaper network cards may no support things like hibernate under windows 2000.
The 3coms also seem to be faster than the Realtek 10/100 Mbit cards I used to have.

[APV_SAV]

3Com stuff is only a hype, like he said, business buy it for compatible issue. As for home user, get the Aopen products they are cheap and has the best support of drivers among cheap network cards so far. as if you are only using NT or win95/98 or even win 3.11, most cheap network cards will do alright with the native drivers from o/s

[FrogMaster]

Thx Simon.

I suspect some of these cheap Realtek no-name Nics of giving you no more than basic service and reliability.
I have already noticed random and unexplainable packet losses that seemed to disappear with borrowed Hewlett Packard (damn expensive ones!)cards.
As I may have rather heavy traffic on some occasions at both sides of the server/firewall, for example two simultaneous on-line Q3A games or MP3 downloads, I cannot afford to give too many packets away.

[FrogMaster]

APV_SAV,
it will be an all Win2k setup except for the NT laptop.
I agree there is a lot of hype attached to some brands. But is this enough to explain one order of magnitude price gap?

[A-guy]

Dont even worry about it man. Win2k will run any nic you put in there like a champ. if you think that your network will improve at all by getting expensive 3com cards it wont. The difference wont be noticable unless there is a real problem. Just get a cheap good brand. Dont get a brand from some company in taiwan without a stupid website that went out a business a few years ago. Get like that one guy said aopen or kingston is good.

[A-guy]

Oh yeah and one more thing. Be sure to set all your nics on your lan to the correct adapter media type. Ie 100baset, 10baset ect. instead of autodetect. This has been known to cause intermittent access incompatibilities with certain setups. just avoid it if you can.

[Cordless]

just my 10cts worth - my Realtek card has just died I reckon from overheating???!!??
work fine for a couple of hours and the bugs out
turn off and let cool - fine again until 30 mins etc.....

[NEO^]

Hmm... ABout 3com. Had a 3c905b at work. DIdn'tget it to work in 100mbit in win2k. Other ppl had the same problem. Changed it to an 3c595 and it worked perfect! =) So be careful. 3c905c is supposed to be workin better

[FrogMaster]

OK guys.
I finally got one of those HP J2585b nic cards from my company's IT guy for a couple of beers . Good stuff. They use hundreds of them in their networks and are happy with them. It will sit at the front end of my system.
I'll follow your recommendations guys for the other cards in my network and send to the bin this noname-nowhere Realtek crap and get some cheap and good stuff from Aopen.
Thx all of you.
Take care.

[Kyosho46vr]

NetGear is the best NIC card and starter LAN
home network setup out there. 2 NIC cards-4port hub-2-25' connectors------69.00
you cant beat that!!!!
Have several schools running all NetGear and
all sorts of old to new OS- it all works!!!

Ned

[clutch]

I use Intel Pro/100+ Managment Adapters all the way around ($75-$100 ea.). This is because when I was working as Sys Admin at once facility that used Novell 3.12-4.x, cheaper NICs would get fried by the native IPX protocol in about 3-6 mos (this was due to constant 802.2 re-broadcasts in an 802.3 environment). This was the reason that we had to go to better NICs, this and the fact that the cheaper cards (Realtek, Linksys, and Kingston at the time) had drivers that weren't particularly robust. We did have great luck with D-Link NIC in both laptops and desktops, but I have had such fantastic luck with the Intels that I don't plan to drop them anytime soon.

BTW, I have heard that the Linksys line has been pretty good lately. But I haven't heard anything new on Kingston and the Realteks always suck.


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Regards,

clutch

[clutch]

Corless,

What protocols are you using? If you are beating the hell out of the NIC with wasted broadcasts that will overheat it (like my previous example). Also, is it close to a large heat source (like a V3 or GeForce)? I usually keep the NIC at the lowest available PCI since I don't use ISA parts.

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Regards,

clutch

[Rudyatek]

I too am looking into getting a LAN setup between a Win2k/Win98 (dual boot) system and another Win98 system. However I'd also like to be able to try out some alternative OSs and still have internet access through the network, like Linux or BeOS. Are there certain NICs that are good in terms of wide compatability over many OSs?

[clutch]

Intel.

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Regards,

clutch

[Rudyatek]

Any particular models? I'm totally new to this so I wouldn't know which to choose...

[clutch]

I use the Pro/100+ Management Adapters. I used this same NIC in DOS 6.22, Win9X, WinNT 4.0, Win2K Pro/Adv. Server, Linux Redhat/ Mandrake 6.0. As a matter of fact, these NICs and my SB 64 AWE are the only two components I own that have always had support.

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Regards,

clutch

[Rudyatek]

Sounds great. Now I have another question. My purpose for setting up this network is primarily to allow both computers to access a Cisco 675 external DSL modem. How does the modem connect into the network? I've seen different setups described, depending on if multiple IP addresses are available. I only have one, so I assume I'll have to setup the modem access as a client/server thing? Does that mean I'll need 3 NICs, two in the server?