I think one from old Intel PRO/100 (EtherEpxress) series based on 8255x would be a right choice. These cards are known for built-in support in majority of old & new OSes/apps as de-fact standard, unbeatable performance and minimal cpu load. Would be very useful for weak cpu.There is also IBM, HP and Compaq branded cards based on these chips.
http://cgi.ebay.com/PILA8460-Intel-EtherExpre … p3286.m20.l1116
http://cgi.ebay.com/HP-NC3120-Fast-Ethernet-S … p3286.m63.l1177

I use 3Com 905 NICs in pretty much everything, and they seem to have equally good compatibility. No complaints about performance, either. I'd recommend them just as highly as the Intel PRO/100.

StormRyder wrote:

I have an old system, from the late 90s with an Intel Advanced/EV mobo and a Pentium 1, 100Mhz processor. It has Win98 SE installed on it. I want to get a LAN card for another PC (also quite old but at least has more modern architecture, such as a couple USB ports). Will a LAN card work with the old PC (the Advanced/EV one)? The EV mobo does have 4 PCI ports. I'm thinking it will work just fine, but... just to make sure? Any odd quirks I don't know about?

Thanks

If you live in the UK then i could post you a free Intel PRO/100 LAN card 😀 I also have a spare ISA LAN card too!

PowerPie5000 wrote:

If you live in the UK then i could post you a free Intel PRO/100 LAN card 😀 I also have a spare ISA LAN card too!

Ahh too bad. I live all the way in the USA.

1.) Okay well what about the fact that all these NIC cards which I've been browsing online say in their specification they have PCI 2.2 For instance, this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?It … N82E16833166017

My motherboard manual says that the PCI slots support the PCI 2.0 standard. Will such a card with the 2.2. PCI standard be backward compatible?

2.) Also in that same linked product, I'm interested what the 33/66 Mhz spec means. Is that just for 32/64 bit?? Like, if it's 64 bit, it'll be 66 Mhz? I think I'm being stupid, but I don't know. The other NICs don't say that, so what does it mean?

Thanks a lot!

I've never even paid attention to the PCI revisions, they're backwards compatible, so if it'll fit the keying of the slot, it should work fine.

I'm not sure what they mean by 32/64 bit, since that's just a regular 32-bit PCI card, not 64-bit. As for the 66mhz, it's a bit complicated, but basically, 64-bit PCI can come in 33, 66, 100, or 133mhz speeds, and it will always fall back to the lowest speed device installed. Like, a 133mhz bus would fall back to 33mhz if you installed a bog-standard PCI card. So, a 66mhz card would assure that the bus would at least run at 66mhz. Presumably, anyway... I'm not entirely convinced that Rosewill is actually a 66mhz card.

And anyway, that sort of stuff only really matters in higher-end server and workstation hardware... everything else just uses standard 32-bit/33mhz PCI. So I don't really see the selling point on that NIC... it's not like the high-end workstation market is going to be looking for a $15 off-brand NIC.

In any case, I wouldn't buy that thing. Look at this place, they've got Adaptec NICs for $3, and 3Com 905's for $6.

I'm sure almost anything will work. The only issues might be drivers for old OSs and PCI keying, but I think NICs will probably be designed with compatibility foremost on the priorities.

Yeah I wasn't really seriously considering that one, if those special "features" don't matter. Thanks for explaining; that simplifies things (I can just ignore that whole 33/66 business). Was just making sure it's not something I need.

This one was at the top of my list. I think the shipping will only be like another $2

But thanks for the alternative shopping suggestion. Apparently they also have one of the 3Com 905's for $2 (was at the bottom of the list).

Do you know anything about that Adaptec card? Recommended? (I think it's first time I even heard of that brand haha) It says I get free shipping on it so that seems like the best deal. But Adaptec website doesn't even have drivers for it ... kinda sucky. I found some random site offering some drivers, so I guess that's fine?

Thanks a lot for the help!

I've never used an Adaptec NIC, but they've never done me wrong with their SCSI cards, so as long as drivers can be found for the OS you want, it should be alright. I didn't see the $2 3Com ones, though... that'd probably be the better deal since I know those will work without problems on Win95/98.

BTW, Intel's Pro 1000 GT PCI edition will work with Windows 98, DOS and probably 95 too. 😀
http://www.intel.com/support/network/sb/CS-006120.htm

I've run that card in a 440BX mobo. That's the oldest I've gone with it though.

If my past system configuration notes are correct, I used to have a Realtek 8139 Ethernet Adapter working fine in a Pentium 90. That used to be the most abundant and cheap chipset for years.

Alright so I actually found this page on the Adaptec website ... (ugh, their website is ridiculous btw; I got that page from a google search but i cannot get that same result from doing a search from within the adaptec website itself... so stupid)

And it says on there that "Only drivers that are not included or embedded within a supported operating system are listed below". And it doesn't list Win98. So does that mean that if I plug the card into my machine with Win98 SE, that it should just work without me doing anything else?? Do NIC cards typically just work like that, without further ado? I honestly have zero experience with NIC cards... when I first got into building computers, it was already in the era of WinXP and Realtek chips embedded in the MoBo. I thought that you should always install the manufacturer-provided drivers when dealing with ANY hardware in windows older than XP?

I think I want to go for that adaptec card after all cuz $3 with shipping included is just too good to pass up. But I'm just being paranoid about drivers; I'm always like that...

I'd still probably go for the 3Com 905 you found for $2, but as for the Adaptec drivers,, Windows 98 does include drivers for a lot of NICs that were out at the time, so there's a decent chance it'll work out of the box. But, even if it doesn't work natively, I found a couple possibilities here, and here, at least one of which should be usable.

Bah! I thought the shipping for that adaptec one was free... what it really meant was that it's calculated differently. They still charge me $6 for shipping. So screw that. I ordered the 3Com one 😀

Argh, I could've saved myself time not thinking about it! Would've just taken that one a long time ago.