Looking for an ethernet card. (1 Viewer)

[Jacob_St]

I'm looking to buy an ethernet card for my Pentium 4 PC and am wondering if they all are basically the same. There are two computers in my house (an IMAC and my PC) and both will be using the same cable internet connection via a hub. Is there a special card that I should use? I know I need a hub and RJ 45 cable but am unsure about the card for my PC. The Apple already has a card.

 

[Craig LeBlanc]

I'd go with a 3Com 10/100 PCI ethernet card. They are a little more expensive than the bargain brands, but I have yet to see one fail (use them at work -> 300 machines or so).

 

[Matt DeVillier]

while 3com makes a good NIC, I disagree that they are worth the price differential compared to D-Link, Netgear, or Linksys. I worked for the IT dept at the U of MD during my 4 years there, and the linksys cards gave us the least amount of problems. at $15 or so for a LNE100TX, you can't go wrong.

 

[KyleS]

I personally use 3com but if money is an issue I have also noticed that the brands Matt recommended are great for the money. Building computers for friends all the time I have a problem recommending they spend 40+ for a 3com when for $15-25 they can pick up a linksys or netgear.

KyleS

 

[Jeff R.]

I hear a lot of people recommend Linksys products but in all my years of experience, Linksys, by far, is the brand of networking equiptment that I have the most problems with. I no longer go near their products. I have had tremendous success with Netgear products and they are very similar in price. I'd recommend going with a Netgear card. In fact, I'm stopping by the store this evening to pick one up for myself.

 

[Andrew Pratt]

we're using d-link's at work on all our PC's and also what I'm running on both my PC's at home and so far there hasn't been a single issue with any of them. They're also reasonably priced and I agree about the buggy linksys gear...their routers are usualy the ones I hear about people having problems with..though they do have a good part of the market share so you're more likely to hear about issues...that said with our IT dep there's only one person using linksys while the rest of us are using D-link NIC's and either D-link, SMC or netgear routers.

 

[Matt Stryker]

D-Link rocks for a cheap card, but they may be hard to find.

The biggest problem with the cheaper cards is driver support; a lot of the no-namers give you the drivers on the CD and thats all you'll ever get. If a new OS comes out, you're screwed.

Linksys, DLink, SMC, Netgear, and 3com are good. I've had some problems in the past getting the Hawking Tech cards to work right, so I'd stay away from them.

 

[Rob Lutter]

I got a Linksys 10/100 for $5 at Office Depot last week... it was very easy to install (now I just need a DSL/Cable/Lan to try it out with )

 

[Jacob_St]

Hi everyone, I went ahead and bought a D-Link DFE-520TX+ for 15.00 from Best Buy today. I'm having a problem when loading my Road Runner internet software. It keeps telling me I have a faulty adapter in my card.

My guess is the the problem is occuring because I don't yet have the cable and modem connected to the card. I know that's required to get on the internet. I was just loading the Road Runner software in order to test my card to see if it(the card) was installed correctly. Do you think this could be the reason for the error message?

 

[AllanN]

I have road runner and I didt even bother installig the software. It just picks up a DHCP address using my old ISA 16bit 10Mb RJ-45/BNC/AUI Multi card. So it should work with any network card. The old ISA card is hooked up to a Windows 2000 computer that uses ICS(NAT) to share it out the internet to the rest of the network. I have a Linksys 10/100 PCI card, Linksys 10/100 PCMCIA card, a D-Link 10/100 PCI card, and a Belkin 10/100 PCMCIA card on the rest of the network nodes hooked up to a Linksys 10/100 8 port switch. I had no trouble installing any of the card or there drivers. 3Com is a excelent company that makes wonderfull network cards and the only modems I will ever buy. But for small home applications Linksys and D-Link give you way more bang for your buck.

Check the device manager and see if there is a ? or ! buy the network card, or if the network card even shows up. If If there is no ? or ! buy the card and it does show up in device manager you shoudl be set up OK. If Road Runner is the same where you live you will need to make sure you have TCP/IP set up to use DHCP this is the default setting for TCP.IP so there shold be no problem there. What version of Windows/MAC OS/Linux/etc is on your computer???

If you have windows you can test this out buy opening a command prompt. It should be under Start>Programs>Command Prompt or Start>Programs>Accessories>Command Prompt

Then type the following:

ping 127.0.0.1

hit enter and the following should come up

Microsoft Windows 2000 [Version 5.00.2195]

(C) Copyright 1985-2000 Microsoft Corp.

C:>ping 127.0.0.1

Pinging 127.0.0.1 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time

 

[Jacob_St]

Hi AllanN. I looked in device manager and an exclamation point is next to the card. I also tried locating "command prompt" but can't find it on my Windows Me OS. When I click on the card in "Device Manager" it says my driver needs to be updated. The computer can't find the driver on the floppy disk that came with the card. The date on the disc is pretty old it has Oct 01 2000 printed on the label.

 

[Chad Ellinger]

Sounds like you have the wrong driver installed for your OS. Check out http://support.dlink.com/downloads/ and download the proper drivers for your card and WinME. Good luck!

 

[Jacob_St]

Thank you Chad. The problem is I already tried that yesterday and for some reason the driver won't load. It (the driver) downloads as a WinZip file. I downloaded the Win Me driver to my desktop then used WinZip to try and open it. For some reason it will unzip the driver but won't open the driver after unzipping. I even tried re downloading the driver again and going through the same process with no luck. I guess I'll just have to take the card back and buy a different brand.

Thank you Allan and Chad for trying to help me. Both of you were very helpful.

 

[AllanN]

Where did you unzip the driver to? What you want to do in device manager double click on the network card, select the driver tab, and then click the update driver button. Somwhere you should get a option to search for a driver on a floppy disk, cdrom, windows update, or specify a directory. Choose the specify the directory option. Browse to the directory that you unziped the driver to, then it should work.

Windows Update might also have a driver. To use that just click Start>Windows Update.

About the command prompt, for some stupid reason microsoft decided that users did not need to access it any more. No offense to your computer and your operating system. But IMHO Windows ME is the worst version of windows ever released.

You may be able to reach the command prompt by clicking Start>Run

Then type in the word "command" (without quotes).

Press OK

This should get you to a command prompt, I dont think the MS Nazi disabled this option to access the command prompt.

 

[Jacob_St]

Thanks AllanF. Typing command in run worked and I got the reply from 127.0.0.1 just as you described in your earlier post. Windows update didn't have an updated driver for my ethernet card though it did have a new one for my dial up modem.

I went ahead and specified where the file was unziped to as you suggested but the computer still can't install the driver.

I keep getting the message the file "DLKRTS.sys" was not found.

It says to insert my floppy which came with the card but after it searches the floppy the same message appears. My guess is the floppy is missing a file I need for my card to work.

 

[Jacob_St]

I called D-Link tech support and the friendly tech guy told me my problem is common with this card on Win Me. He went through various solutions and he told me to call back if they didn't work and he'd research the problem. None of the solutions he gave have worked so I'm just going to take the card back and buy a different brand. If this card is this complicated to install it's not worth the bother.

I just finished trading it for a LinkSys card and that one loaded perfectly. What a relief!

 

[Travis Hedger]

I have had a Linksys LNE 10/100 version 1 for over 2 years and it has been in multiple computers with Win98, WinMe and XP without a single problem. I also have a Linksys 10/100 router and cable modem. I love Linksys products, they are a good value and I have yet to have one fail on me.

 

[AllanN]

As I noted above I have a Linksys 10/100 its is the exact same model as the one Jacob has. I have never tried it on ME though. Best Buy is good about returns though so there should not be a problem for him getting his money back. You may want to consider upgradeing to XP, not specifically because of this issue but because it is a far better operating system than ME/98/95 because it is based on Windows NT/2000 technology.

 

[Jacob_St]

I'd love to upgrade to XP but I can't. I bought an intel wireless game pad and the software that came with it is not compatible with XP. Now that intel has discountinued the product and has no plans to offer upgraded software, I'm stuck with WinMe. The pad is very nice and was way too expensive for me to just chunk it. I'm going to ride out WinMe for a few years before I upgrade.

My Linksys ethernet card loaded up in minutes and so far there are no problems. Of course my rj 45 cable hasn't arrive yet so I won't be able to test the card out until then. (knock on wood)