Recommendations for NICs?

[David Kelly]

On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 12:20:34PM -0600, John wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 10:12:29AM -0800, Chuck Swiger wrote:
> > 
> > Intel (fxp, em) and Broadcom (bce, bge) make fine NICs, and the
> > older DEC/Intel 21x4x Tulip series (dc/de) was quite good as well.
> > The Marvel Yukon (msk) and nVidia MCP (nfe/nve) seem to be OK
> > (although older nVidia hardware had bugs); the Realtek (re/rl) and
> > VIA (vr/vge) are at the bottom of the heap, especially the older
> > pre-gigabit hardware.
> 
> Thanks!  That's perfect.  I have a chance to buy a few Intel Pro
> 10/100 (fxp) cards.  I guess I'll take it!

Snag 'em! My favorite "no worry NIC." In recent years one could pick
them up surplus for $2 to $5. Then "they just work." And if one is
forced to use Windows the Intel driver (not the one Windows ships) adds
a lot of useful stuff which is missing, such as the ability to *see*
(without leaving the application) what IP address the card is using.

Oh, and not only that but the Intel cards work (without need to install
drivers) on MacOS X PCI machines.

> Just curious, though - you don't mention 3Com cards one way or the
> other, yet there's a lot of them out there.  Any comment on those?

3com's downfall has been due to their mixed bag of sometimes great,
sometimes disappointing.

-- 
David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly at HiWAAY.net
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Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.