Solid PCI gigabit NIC

[Adcadet]

Hey Gang,
My onboard Nvidia gigabit LAN adaptor (on my Asus P5N-E SLI) is flaky. About a year ago it died so I put in a 100bT PCI NIC I had laying around. A few months ago for some reason I tried the onboard gigabit NIC again and it worked. Today my computer froze up and after a reboot the onboard NIC again didn't work in both Windows 7 and Ubuntu. I tried everything I could think of to get the NIC working again (disabled it in the BIOS then re-enabled it) but nothing works. Oh well.

My computer will be doing a fair amount of media hosting/network backups across my little network, so I think I'd see the benefits of gigabit over 100bT networking, and the rest of my network is gigabit. Can somebody suggest a solid gigabit ethernet card? Preferably one that has widespread driver support including Linux. Something that avoid outrageously high CPU usage would be a nice plus. Are the Intel cards solid?

 

[LunarMist]

I have an Intel PCI GbE card in one machine and it works just fine for transferring files to other machine. It was a Newegg OEM and I downloaded the drivers from somewhere.

 

[Bozo]

I have been using the Intel PWLA8391GT PCI card for a while now. No problems in any of the dozen or so that I have installed.

I have also used the Intel EXPi9301CTBLK PCI-E card with no problems.

 

[LunarMist]

I have been using the Intel PWLA8391GT PCI card for a while now. No problems in any of the dozen or so that I have installed.

I have also used the Intel EXPi9301CTBLK PCI-E card with no problems.

I have one of the latter, too. :aok:

 

[ddrueding]

I agree that the Intel cards are great.

 

[Adcadet]

After reading through this (http://www.storageforum.net/forum/showthread.php?t=7827&highlight=gigabit+NIC) I'm wondering if there is any point in getting a PCI-e (vs just a PCI) NIC. For me, far and aware the feature I'm looking for is reliability and easy of use (well-supported drivers in both Windows and Linux).

 

[ddrueding]

None of my new motherboards even have PCI anymore, so I would aim for PCIe just to futureproof a bit.

 

[Adcadet]

None of my new motherboards even have PCI anymore, so I would aim for PCIe just to futureproof a bit.

Good point. The only downside is that I would then loose my only PCI-e 1x slot (my P5NE SLI has on PCI-e x16 slot, a single PCI-e 1x, and two PCI slots). I was sortof hoping to keep that open in case I wanted to put in a TV tuner card.

 

[LunarMist]

The NICs are so cheap that I used the PCI type because I had the slot and wanted to keep the PCIe free. I don't know if there is any difference in speed.

 

[Stereodude]

I don't know if there is any difference in speed.

There is a measurable difference, but even a PCI GigE card will be faster than a 100Mbit one.

 

[Adcadet]

The NICs are so cheap that I used the PCI type because I had the slot and wanted to keep the PCIe free. I don't know if there is any difference in speed.

I believe Stereodude's post here (http://www.storageforum.net/forum/showthread.php?t=7827&highlight=gigabit+NIC) suggests that the Intel CT Dekstop, which is a PCI-e 1x card, is fasting than the Intel PT (or MT? I think MT is end-of-life) Dekstop which is a PCI card. I guess I'm not familiar enough with the Intel cards to really know what PT/MT/CT means. I also don't understand the significance of those speed differences.