My guess: An NE2000 compatible network card with the common RJ45 connector and also a COAX connector. Both connectors are used for networking, but COAX is more old fashioned.

Either that or a 16MB GM Wavetable combined with Voodoo6 accellerated Graphics. 😉

I might be the very lucky owner of an ultra rare 16MB GM wavetable Voodoo6 network card! 😀 I have never handled a network card before, so I am completely clueless about this subject. You mention the code RJ45. Can I buy a "RJ45 cable", and connect this card (on my Windows 98 SE box) to say my main Windows XP machine? And then transfer files from machine to machine? Thanks.

Yeap. If you find drivers for the network card, you can share a folder/disk on win98 and you'll be able to access it from the other PC. You can also connect the PC to the net if the second PC is connected.

Yeah, you could. But I'd highly recommend you do some reading about basic networking before you screw with that. Setting up a LAN isn't difficult, but it's also not the sort of thing to wander into blindly... you at least need to know what components are involved and have a general idea of how they work together, otherwise you're in for a world of frustration.

I thought 98 and above had default NE2000 drivers, maybe I'm thinking of Windows 2000...

It is for sure an NE2000 Compatible NIC.

Back in the day I managed Novell Networks and there were a lot of manufacturers trying to get onto that same boat 😉

yes, windows came with generic NE2000 drivers... should work fine... I had el cheapo no name NE2000 cards before that worked fine with it.... I have a real NE2000 card somewhere and it looks exactly like the pic above, except it doesn't have the 10base2 coax connector

if you have broadband, you'd almost certainly have messed with networking before!

Iirc networking different versions of Windows can have it's own set of troubles.

Anyway, for networking, I'd advice to do a little reading.
I've found networking can be as easy as setting up a computer for the internet, but with more cables involved...IF there aren't any problems.
And if you do get problems, I either ask a friend of mine or ask google.
And disabling the firewall temporarily fixed like 2/3'rds of the connection problems in my LAN 😉

This network card doesn't have jumpers, so it is configured by a setup utility that was provided by the manufacturer. Without that it is difficult to find the actual settings. Once you know the settings you can try to use it as NE2000 compatible, but you'll probably find the original driver.

Maybe try http://www.google.de/search?q=dp83905+driver

h-a-l-9000 wrote:

This network card doesn't have jumpers, so it is configured by a setup utility that was provided by the manufacturer. Without that it is difficult to find the actual settings. Once you know the settings you can try to use it as NE2000 compatible, but you'll probably find the original driver.

Maybe try http://www.google.de/search?q=dp83905+driver

You mean Windows 9x can't work with these cards out of the box?
Ouch...time for me to start tracking down drivers again! 😁

mine worked fine without using any of the original utils

Thanks a lot for the info people. I have prepared a fresh Win98SE CF, in order to mess about with this card. I am going to do some reading about networking too. I'll need a cable, and so I looked on ebay for RJ45. Adverts there mention the code cat5e. I might go for 3 metres (meters) of that stuff. Does that sound like a good idea? Thanks.

Don't get a cable that's too short 🤣, found out the hard way 😜

Cat5e is for 100mbit/second while cat5(no-"e") is for 10mbit/second 😉

Slightly OT but you never know...

Discovered something interesting with networking notebooks. We had all these notebooks and some wanted to play Warcraft III.

So on one machine we created a "Ad-hoc WLAN network" and the other machines joined. And that was it! We could play LAN games 🤣

There are heaps of older games that are LAN compatible and run just fine on Intel GMA video cards. So these would be perfect for such a scenario. Especially netbooks...

Cat5e is for 100mbit/second while cat5(no-"e") is for 10mbit/second

Actually, Cat5 is rated for 100MBit/sec while Cat5E is rated for 1GBit/sec. Cat3 is the 10MBit/sec standard.

Cat6 is rated up to 1GBit/sec, just like Cat5E, but is much more robust against interference, and Cat6A is rated for 10GBit/sec.

I had a few old PC's in my garage about 10 years ago hooked up with !0Base2, which is the round connector on the card in the OP. It was cheap and plentiful as everyone was getting rid of that stuff at the time, but you had to have every PC in the network switched on, as it was a bus network.

I have been reading about network cables. Am I right in thinking that I need a crossover cable, because I am attempting to connect one PC to another PC, and also there is no device that sits in the middle of this type of connection, such as a modem or a router.

I found it easier to just use a switch or a router and use only 1 kind of cable 😉

Correct. At this point, consider getting a network hub/switch along with some normal network cables instead, as it will allow you to connect more than two PCs.
Used 10/100Mbit network switches are very cheap these days...

On the topic of switches. If you have a broadband gateway/router/WLAN all-in-on device, the four ethernet ports at the back are a switch.

Just power it up, hook up four machines are you are set! Just in case you have one of these lying around.

Man this takes me back to the days of bus networks and pulling terminators in the computer room to crash all the machines 🤣

I also had these Novel Ethernet cards (NE1000 I believe) and together with a null modem cable, this was my first encounter with networking. And Doom of course! THE reason to get into home networking back in the day...

PS: Most of you would have enough hardware lying around to build a software router. A PC, a couple of ethernet NICs and the right software and you are set!

I am currently using a "wired" NetGear box, in order to connect my main Windows XP PC to the internet. I believe it is called a modem/router device. Its model code is DG834 version 2. Can I just use that?

It has 4 "network looking" connections on the back of it. In fact, 2 of them are currently being used, to connect 2 PCs to the internet. The other 2 connections on this NetGear box are not being used. On the back of my WinXP box, I have a spare "network looking" connection socket, because my mobo has 2 of these connections, which is convenient. One connection is being used, and a cable is connected to it, and it goes to the NetGear box, so I can use the internet. If I buy a "straight" network cable, I could connect it to the other free network socket on the back of the WinXP box, and then connect the other end of this straight cable to one of the 2 free sockets on the modem/router device.

Does that sound like a good idea? Thanks a lot people.