Do you use onboard LAN or a seperate NIC

[RichUK]

I actually use an additional NIC, even though the past 3 motherboards I used have had dual LAN ports. I don?t know why but i have used the same NIC through 4 different rigs, over about 4 years.

Never really thought about using the onboard LAN. Also i have never researched it but is there any performance dif between the two?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Yes. On the dual p3 I use the onboard. The network interfaces in the iBook are buggy so I use a USB based hard wired interface and USB wireless interface. On the dual athlon I use a PCI wireless card and a PCI gigabit card. I use the internal interfaces in the amd64 notebook and the powerbook.

 

[Eug]

I always use on-board LAN... unless there isn't one onboard or if it's some crapola chipset with buggy drivers.

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
The network interfaces in the iBook are buggy

Why? Which model? I didn't use my iBook's onboard wired LAN much but when I did it worked perfectly. Same goes for my MacBook.

 

[JAG87]

using a network card uses less CPU resources than using onboard. but honest to god, who needs so save a few clock cycles when we have Athlon 64 and Core 2 Duo. Come on, it might have helped when we had a P2 or a K6, but now it gives no improvement at all.

 

[NuAlphaMan]

I'll use onboard unless there is a problem with the onboard NIC card.

 

[JonnyBlaze]

i use onboard and a spereate nic.

my onbaord is connected to cable internet and the other is my home network.

 

[SonicIce]

wouldn't onboard be faster due to not having to go through the pci bus? would only be notiecale through gigabit

 

[bob4432]

i have been using onboard since the nf3 days, before that it was the 3com 905b nics due to the huge driver support with different flavors of ghost and acronis. currently on my nf4 board i use onboard, the only reason i would use a pci nic is if my hdd imaging software (acronis) didn't support the onboard, which acronis 8 didn't, but 9 does

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: SonicIce
wouldn't onboard be faster due to not having to go through the pci bus? would only be notiecale through gigabit

i thought the older chipsets put it on the pci bus, now i think it is on the pci-e x1 bus, but that may be chipset dependent, not sure....

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Eug
I always use on-board LAN... unless there isn't one onboard or if it's some crapola chipset with buggy drivers.

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
The network interfaces in the iBook are buggy

Why? Which model? I didn't use my iBook's onboard wired LAN much but when I did it worked perfectly. Same goes for my MacBook.

Original iceBook 500/dual usb so it is quite old and well (ab)used. I'm running OpenBSD on the system too, which could account for some of the issues. If the ethernet cable jiggles the wrong way I lose my connection, and I'm guessing there are some minor issues with the wireless interface in the OpenBSD driver. My other 802.11b interfaces are prism based so I can't test whether it's a driver or hardware type issue, but I have plenty of extra wireless devices so using an USB based one isn't an issue for me.

The wired lan stopped working in OS X for whatever reason, although it could have been just a cable issue. Which was ok, since I mostly used the wireless anyhow.

My powerbook works just fine in OS X, so I'm not complaining.

 

[dexvx]

There is no difference between onboard and add-on. Its the chipset of the NIC that matters more than if its soldered on to the mainboard or not. Most onboard NIC's are cheapo RealTek's. The premium ones are Intel and Marvel based, which are better due to broader OS support and advanced network features not found.

However in general, the newer the NIC the better. Older Intel/3com 10/100's are probably inferior to the newest Realteks.

 

[Madwand1]

Decent onboard (not going through PCI) is generally better for higher-end gigabit. For gigabit, when you think about an add-on NIC, you should think about PCIe (or perhaps PCI-X, but that's less commonly available). PCI is a shared bus, and getting off it is generally better for high bandwidth applications, such as gigabit. There are several PCIe GbE NICs available, at least with Intel and Marvell chipsets.

Now if you think this talk about high-end gigabit is way out there, because of general consumer Intenet limitations of 1-6 Mb/s, I see your point of view -- you should get the best 10 Mb/s NIC you can find!

 

[theprodigalrebel]

I use onboard LAN. However, I'm planning on getting two Killer NICs and modding them to run in SLI.

 

[Rommel44]

I use onboard because there is no difference.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: theprodigalrebel
I use onboard LAN. However, I'm planning on getting two Killer NICs and modding them to run in SLI.

LOL good one!

 

[Oyeve]

I use a USB Wireless adapter but I still use my internal NIC so I can connect my PS2 online, I just bridge the connections.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: theprodigalrebel
I use onboard LAN. However, I'm planning on getting two Killer NICs and modding them to run in SLI.

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Eug
I always use on-board LAN... unless there isn't one onboard or if it's some crapola chipset with buggy drivers.

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
The network interfaces in the iBook are buggy

Why? Which model? I didn't use my iBook's onboard wired LAN much but when I did it worked perfectly. Same goes for my MacBook.

Original iceBook 500/dual usb so it is quite old and well (ab)used. I'm running OpenBSD on the system too, which could account for some of the issues. If the ethernet cable jiggles the wrong way I lose my connection, and I'm guessing there are some minor issues with the wireless interface in the OpenBSD driver. My other 802.11b interfaces are prism based so I can't test whether it's a driver or hardware type issue, but I have plenty of extra wireless devices so using an USB based one isn't an issue for me.

The wired lan stopped working in OS X for whatever reason, although it could have been just a cable issue. Which was ok, since I mostly used the wireless anyhow.

OK. That explains it... twice:

1) Broken port
2) Open BSD

 

[Ausm]

I use my onboard port until it dies then I switch over to a PCI ethernet card .


Ausm

 

[HannibalX]

I use a PCI Gigabit card (3Com). All the motherboards I have used are only 10/100.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

I use a Killer NIC

 

[blckgrffn]

In the past I used nice add in nics, but anymore the PCIe or native gigabit interfaces are fast enough for me

Nat

 

[SonicIce]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: SonicIce
wouldn't onboard be faster due to not having to go through the pci bus? would only be notiecale through gigabit

i thought the older chipsets put it on the pci bus, now i think it is on the pci-e x1 bus, but that may be chipset dependent, not sure....

What about nforce3 250gb and nforce4?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Eug
OK. That explains it... twice:

1) Broken port
2) Open BSD

:laugh:

Remember, not all of us can afford brand new macbooks.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Onboard. No way I'm going to limit myself with a PCI NIC when I have dual onboard gigabit

 

[corkyg]

Onboard. Why? Because it's there and it works perfectly.