Well I'd always install the latest NIC driver for any OS you use.

If you just want to be crazy and use the built in NIC driver for whatever NIC you are going to use then I'd assume that any NIC released after Windows ME came out wouldn't have a driver already in Windows ME. There's mabye a 50/50 chance that a NIC released before Windows ME came out might have drivers in Windows ME but I wouldn't bet on it.

I doubt you could find a Windows ME HCL nowadays.

I doubt you could find a Windows ME HCL nowadays.

Unless, of course, you were to Google "Windows ME HCL", in which case you could find it pretty readily. 😉

But rather than going through that whole list, just dig up a 3C905 or an RTL8139-based card. Those are natively supported in pretty much every OS since Win95. And chances are good that you have at least one of the two laying around somewhere.

This is why I use the 3com 905 series cards. Windows 98 and up have the drivers for them pre-installed. The cards are cheap and easy to find on ebay. (i've bought 10 packs in the past)

don't use the revision A cards though, I hear they have issues with windows 98. The revision C cards usually have network boot bios installed. There is an Intel card thats pretty populat and had built in drivers but I dont remember the model name. I want to say 82559 but I may be wrong.

I have a Intel Pro 100 that I use for all of my retro stuff because Win98 and later include drivers for it. I don't install driver updates for the NIC. These do use that 8255x chip series.

3C905B/C are decent too for the same driver reason. But I think I like Intel more because I believe they are less prone to IRQ sharing issues with other PCI cards.

A useful utility for all Windows OSs is TCPOptimizer because it makes an absolutely insane improvement in 9x/ME's network performance on high-bandwidth internet.

Thanks a LOT for the suggestions people!!! 😀
Some really good hints here!

I have a ton of newer and older NIC's laying around so I won't be needing to buy a NIC

Thanks again you guys are great! 😁

swaaye wrote:

I have a Intel Pro 100 that I use for all of my retro stuff because Win98 and later include drivers for it. I don't install driver updates for the NIC. These do use that 8255x chip series.

3C905B/C are decent too for the same driver reason. But I think I like Intel more because I believe they are less prone to IRQ sharing issues with other PCI cards.

A useful utility for all Windows OSs is TCPOptimizer because it makes an absolutely insane improvement in 9x/ME's network performance on high-bandwidth internet.

I bought 2x Intel Pro 100M cards off ebay for like $10. Nice cards. Win98SE does have drivers for it as well but I still install the 10.3 driver set just so it is up to date.

Just got through some IRQ hell as it is. My rig was working great till I decided to do some wire management and swap my NIC and soundcard around. After that the NIC, Soundcard (aureal SQ2500), NEC highspeed USB all were grabbing IRQ 3.

Just about tried everything and swapped to a SB Live! which didn't fix it. Tried assigning IRQs for the soundcard. Eventually I found that the NIC would let me assign it to IRQ 4 sorting out the mess.

Sad part is IRQ 7 and 15 are free and nothing will take up those spots.