Re: 10/100 NIC Recommendations?

[abbott in Northfield <jabbott dingo smig net>]

Ray Curtis wrote:

> The card should auto-detect the fastest speed the hub can handle, so
> you don't need to change anything on the machine.
> The card and the hub are the only things involved, however from the
> hub on is another matter.

I really don't know too much about this but I can relate an experience I had with a
3com 3c9xx card.  It is auto sensing much like your SMC.  The card was working just
fine in a machine running 5.1.  Then I upgraded that machine to 5.2, still the card
worked perfect.  Then we had a power outage and when the machine came back up it
could not longer talk to the network.  I tried alot of stuff on it but could not get
it to work.  Finally, somehow or another, (this has been a few months now) I figured
out that the card was running at 100.  I don't know if something changed with the
power outage or something on the card in some way got toggled.  I can't remember
exactly how I tested this but think I felt pretty sure at the time I knew it was
talking at 100.  To fix it I rebuilt the kernel and when I booted into the new
kernel the machine was working fine.  So, my point here is to question, does the
kernel really have nothing to do with auto detection?  Or is the 3com card different
from the SMC in this way?

I have a quick question to tack onto the end of this.  On a friends pair of machines
I loaned him two network cards and wired a cross cable and he is running peer to
peer with no hub.  One of the cards is auto sencing, the other is an HP with jack
for 10 and a jack for 100.  His network works fine at 10 but won't work at 100.
Does 100baseT require a hub?  Or does a cross cable have to be wired different for
100?  Does 100 base use more than 4 wires?

--ja