What are good networking cards?

[Nightowl]

Have 2 compaq presarios at home & want to network them. Need to know what are good cards to get. What all should I get with them? Read the 3-part article on networking and found it helpful, but want more input.
Thanks

[TCarff]

I'm new to networking too, you might want to check some of the other posts dealing with the networking kits. Most kits give you 2 or 4 nic cards and a hub.

[beatle]

I'm definitely no networking guru, but I do have 5-system network just recently switched over from BNC to RJ-45, 3 machines had combo adapters (3Com Etherlink III & XL) and were no problem. I had to replace BNC cards in two and got (less pricey than 3Com) Linksys ISA cards for $19.95 and they installed and got on very easily. We also had to get a hub & got a dual-speed Netgear 8-port for $200 - whole thing seems to be working fine. My recent foray into shopping for that stuff seemed to indicate Linksys is a lower-priced line that the techies seem to feel works (OK, I'm prepared for my drubbing from the pros). 3Com is apparently the Cadillac line(?). If file transfer speed is not an issue, you could go cheap, skip the hub & get BNC coax. But you'll be buying old technology and, afterall, just a few short years ago we didn't really think about dealing w/gigabyte-size files.
Good luck!

[Nightowl]

Local retailer had D-Link DE-906 kits on sale so I picked one up. So far, everything has gone great. Only hiccup is making the epson 600Q printer work on the other computer. It tries to install it and says there are some files missing. I give it the win 98 disk with no luck. I'll have to dig out my printer set up disk and see if that works. Personally, I think this is totally awesome. I networked my computers! Not bad for a polysci major eh?

[Geoff]

Cool, well done. We've got a coax network here, doesn't really bother me because I don't use it that much myself. However I run an email server on this computer that caches email to/from my ISP, hence mum can do email any time using her computer and it refreshes when I connect to the net. So the network does get some use, but coax is fast enough. I've got a combo card on this computer and I made my own crossover cable so if a friend comes over I can hook up with him with no problems.

Are combo cards meant to work with both connections at once? I remember having to detach the coax last time a friend came over.

[Nomar]

I had the same printing problem over my network as Nightowl. I have a Lexmark 2050 that I was trying to use as a network printer but whenever I tried to install it it said their were files missing. So I went to the Lexmark homepage and they gave me different instructions than Windows 98 help and it was so simple to install once I had the right steps. I would recommend going to the epson homepage and checking in the faq's and things.

[hendra]

Pretty interesting discussion we've got here.
But then, the question is still without answer yet.
What are the good networking cards ?
I have only 2 choices now, Lynksys ($47) or 3com ($108). So, what's the real cause of 3com price ? Why is it almost double the price of the other brand? Is it a much better perfomance (maybe double ) ?
I heard from a friend once that he must dowload 3 times to get a correct zip file by using a certain brand network card. He has no problem after using 3com. Could that be a problem in Lynksys ?

For anybody who replied to this.. I thank you in advance.

regards


[This message has been edited by hendra (edited 02-17-99).]

[Nightowl]

I have not heard of that problem. I've downloaded lots of stuff so far with my new network cards in place and have not had any problems. I have a friend who swears by his Linksys cards and absolutely hates 3-Com. Another friend wouldn't have anything but 3-Com in his system (then again, his company sells the cards too!). The D-Link kit I got was $79 (2 cards, 2-15' cables, t-connectors for use with coax, hub, ac power cord, and system drivers disk). I even got my printer to work (original problem was human error).

[beatle]

I reiterate guys, I've got 3Com & Linksys operating together w/o problems - I think 3Com is the Caddy of the group and you can't go wrong there, but Linksys works as well (for ~1/3 price).

[crackerboy]

Hey, I just installed two Kingston KNE30BT combo cards (PCI) (10Mbs) in two of my PC's. They work well so far and only set me back about 27 bucks apiece. I've heard good things about Netgear stuff and SOHO has a nice network starter kit out. Sorry, I'm new to this but I hope these give you a few more things to consider.

[This message has been edited by crackerboy (edited 02-19-99).]

[TCrom]

I have a D-Link network set up. One ISA and one PCI card and my network works great. The kit was $40 after rebate. They were easy to set up.

[Nightowl]

I ended up with the D-Link kit and I am really happy with the results. Glad your setup went so well for you too!

[MGallik]

LinkSys PCI combo cards, BNC
cable, T-fittings and 2
terminators and I've never heard
of a single soul having a problem.
Most kits cost more that the parts
I've heard and experienced a lot
of monster stories with D-Link.

[This message has been edited by MGallik (edited 03-07-99).]

[timbo]

Heres an answer to the "why 3com" question:
compatibility.
if any of you intend to use or do currently use alternate OSes such as Linux or the BSDs,
you'll quickly find out that generic Linksys whatever cards will not work. if you want cheap, buy a 3c509. They are supported by everything, and can be bought for less than $40.

[jbester]

Personally I would recommend D-Link:
They are the #2 manufacturer of NICs and the #1 manufacturer of hubs in the world, they have great support and lifetime warranties on all their products.

I've heard Linksys doesn't even make their own hardware, they source from various other manufacturers...that they are strictly a marketing company.

3Com is expensive because they are the #1 manufacturer in terms of volume - Bert Metcalfe, one of their founders,was the guy who pushed the IEEE to set the Ethernet standard. They also have huge marketing expenses and are primarily aimed at corporate. You are not just paying for a card, but also for a lot of marketing, enterprise management capabilities, other features you will probably never use in a small network, their recent acquisition of US Robotics, and of course you are suplimenting their stock price. Not just a cadillac, but more like a Rolls Royce, if you want to waste money on things you probably don't need, you can.

In terms of performance everyone's cards are usually within a few percentage of each other. Beware of the P/E indexes, they also measure CPU utilization which is only an issue for very high-end servers in a corporate environment. Not to mention that most "independent labs" are paid by the manufacturers who get tested.

Check the prices, try them all out and I would bet you'll find D-Link is the best value. Plus you can actually get through to their support and its free!

[binkman]

seems like it boils down to linksys, 3com and d-link. what about other 'cheaper' ones like Realtek, etc? does anyone else have any experience with these?

[pbssbp]

I've used numerous brands of 10baseT Ethernet cards and have never had a problem with ANY of them on a small LAN. My work LAN runs all 3-COM and it works wonderfuly. But my home machines have bargain bin wonders and that LAN works great too.

Keep in mind:

1 - Throughput is not an issue when you network two PCs together because your hard drive is not likely to keep up with the wire speed. If you have a regular hard drive your cheapest network cards will run about as fast as a hard drive to hard drive transfer on the same machine.

2 - Game protocols are designed for T-1 and slower speeds (about 1 MBPS and slower) so you'll never feel a pinch on your small network.

3 - Why buy a hub when a crossover cable will do?

4 - Your Compaqs probably run Windows 95 or, at worst, Windows NT. Even the most cheap of cheap 10BaseT cards will support these OSs.


About the only thing I'd be concerned with is making sure the card you're getting supports an IRQ and Memory range that you happen to have available. It's a pain in the but to reconfigure your whole system 'cause your NIC only supports IRQ 5 and that's what your sound card is already using. Other than that I'd get the cheapest thing you could find.

Paul