3Com embedded NIC - is it any good?

[Tea]

I seem to have a gift for stupid networking problems.

A few weeks back my Soltek SL-75DRV5 died. So I replaced it with an Albatron - a KX400 8XV Pro - see: www.albatron.com.tw/product/KX400_8XV_Pro.asp

Nice board. I like it. Nothing fancy, but effective and quite cheap. Along with the other usual KT-400 goodies, it has an integrated 3Com 3C910-A01 10/100 LAN. Seeing as there was LAN on-board, I put the el-cheapo Realtek 10/100 aside and used the on-board NIC instead.

The board wasn't as stable as the Soltek to start with, but when I replaced the crappy NEC PC-2100 RAM that, for some reason ran perfectly in the Soltek with a single Infineon 512MB DIMM, it's been spot on. Except for two things:

(1) About once every two minutes or so (I think it's at semi-random) my W2K task bar pops up with a network cable unplugged message. The message never lasts for more than a second or two, and then everything is normal again. There is no noticable network delay - it only goes to my Smoothie on a crossover cable, and my cable internet is crappy enough that I'd be unlikely to notice any non-gross performance hit anyway. The Realtek never did this. Is it a real issue? Or is it just a more truthful driver, that's reporting stuff the Realtek covered up?

(2) Just once I got a fair-dinkum BSOD. The errant app was the NDIS driver. I don't like getting a BSOD. Given the location, I suspect the LAN driver or card. (I have the latest drivers installed.)

Any comments on the 3Com network chips?

Should I disable it in the BIOS and slip the Realtek back in instead?

 

[blakerwry]

i think the chip is probably good... but the connector on the motherboard might be damaged or there might be a problem with your drivers...

Did you install windows with the non-stable RAM? that might contribute to the problem... are you using the latest drivers from the mobo makers site or from 3com?(i'd recommend getting them from 3com)


You might also want to check the RJ45 connector on the motherbaord to make sure everything looks good... a new cable probably wouldn't hurt either.

 

[Tea]

Wow! That waz quick!

I'll check those things tonight when Mr Zlavedriver Tannin letz me off from the daily grind, Blake. I'm running driverz from the motherboard site. I'll take a look at the 3Com site for updates then too. (Or maybe I should just stick the Realtek back in and be done with it?)

 

[Tea]

Well, I got home after a hard day making Tannin rich at the office, and it crazhed again!!!. No little thing, a fair dinkum Blue Zcreen of Death. The culprit was NDIS again.

No more mezzing about. I dizabled the 3Com crap and ztuck the Realtek back in. Problem haz gone away now.

On a random zample of one, I can now zay that 3COM zuckz. :evil:

 

[Tannin]

Tea, you can't say that. A sample of one doesn't mean anything.

(Doez the network work now that I got rid of the 3COM?)

(Yes.)

(Did it work before?)

(No.)

(So ztop arguing.)

 

[Handruin]

One thing I could think of about your issue is that the 3com was set to autosensing and this was causing an issue with your hub/switch/Smoothie?. It should work fine with that setting, but for some reason it doesn't.

Can you try kicking the card over to 100/full or 10/full and see if this fixes it? I know you already fixed the issue by replacing it...

 

[Tea]

Nice idea, Doug. But I'm going to apply Rule 1: now that it ain't broke, I ain't going to fix it! Besidez, taking the lid off the A-Open full tower iz a pain.

For the record, my W2K install is almost two years old now. I keep thinking about installing from scratch again, but then I bump up against Rule 1 again. So it's had about 5 or 6 motherboards, but they have all been VIA. From memory:

FIC AZ-11 (KT-100)
ASUS - some expensive crappy thing I forget, another KT-100 I guess
AZ-11 again
Some other KT-100 I forget
AZ-11 again
Soltek SL-75KAV (KT-133)
Soltek SL-75DRV2 (KT-266A)
Epox something or other (KT-266A)
Soltek SL-75DRV-5 (KT-333)
Albatron KT400 Pro (KT-400)

Hmmm ... That'z more than 6. Whatever. Stick with the same chipset or a more recent version of it and you don't have to reinstall. That'z my ztory, and I'm zticking to it.

 

[honold]

you don't have to take the lid off - just change cables and try.

i would strongly suspect auto-sensing of port speeds here as well.

 

[Buck]

I would also suspect autosensing of port speeds or Albatron's implementation of the 3COM chipset is not very good. I've seen this before on integrated LANs.

 

[Fushigi]

I'd agree that the autosense is the likely culprit, especially as you're using a crossover cable & not a hub/switch.

- Fushigi