a question

Neil Zanella nzanella@cs.mun.ca
Wed Nov 11 10:25:17 1998



On Wed, 11 Nov 1998, Sergei Haller wrote:

> On Wed, 11 Nov 1998, Neil Zanella wrote:
> 
> > 
> > - There are different versions of the 3c905B, namely:
> > 
> > Boomerang, Vortex, and Cyclone
> 
> 3c59x  is the Vortex card
> 3c90x  is the Boomerang
> 3c905B is the Cyclone

Thanks. That makes things clearer.

> > and these names do not appear on the box as far as I could tell: one has 
> > to look at the card inside the box. As I haven't purchased one yet I 
> > cannot tell which one the card I intend to purchase uses yet.
> > 
> > - None of the cards supports 100Mbps yet.
> > 
> > - Some of the cards work at 10Mbps
> 
> 3c595, 3c905 and 3c905B support 10 and 100 Mbps
> 3c590, 3c900 and variants (for example Combo) support 10 Mbps

Thanks for this information. What I was asking though was if at the
present time 3c905B works in 100Mb/s mode or only at 10Mb/s since
some people have been reporting some trouble with 3c905B at 100Mb/s.

> The 3c59x isn't produced for one year (or more).
> AFAIK the 3c905 (Boomerang) isn't produced, too.

Though it may well be the case that the 3c509 is not being produced any 
more I am pretty sure that I can still find some around here, though I 
wouldn't count on finding any anywhere else.

In view of the fact that I do not write device drivers, if I had a choice,
would you suggest I buy the 3c905 or the 3c905B? The pros for the 3c905
is that I've used them before and the driver for them seems to be really 
solid. My compliments. My priority right now is getting a card that won't
make me run into trouble. If I knew about writing device drivers then of 
course I would look at it differently.

Your opinion is *VERY* valuable to me,

Please let me know what you think will work best for me,

Thanks for the adviace, and thanks for the drivers!

Have a nice day,

-- Neil
please reply in person to: nzanella@ganymede.cs.mun.ca