Is there such a beast?

[Maximilian]

A PCI network card that has more than one port? I cant find one. Is it because the PCI bus is too slow for it?

 

[Farmer]

Peak transfer rate for PCI 2.2 is 266 MB/s, so dual gigabit ethernet shouldn't theoretically be a problem. Of course, those are peak transfer rates.

PCI-E X1 would be similar at 250MB/s.

 

[Maximilian]

Sweet, where can i buy one? All the ones on komplett.co.uk and overclockers.co.uk only have one lousy port

 

[Farmer]

I don't know if there actually is one. I just know 266MB/s is right around 2Gb/s, so it should work.

 

[Varun]

PCI bandwidth is 133MB/s shared by the entire bus, unless you have 64bit PCI which is what Farmer is speaking of. PCI-X is a different form factor.

I think this is what you are looking for: http://cgi.ebay.com/ZNYX-ZX342-Dual-Por...Card_W0QQitemZ9707674932QQcmdZViewItem

It might be easier to just add two single PCI cards though, or get onboard and add a second. Gigabit takes the entire PCI bus though so transfer rates may be slowed if running two separate ones.

 

[Farmer]

Varun:

I'm not talking about PCI-X. I believe PCI 2.2 is (32bit/8)(66MHz) = 264MB/s. I don't know if his PCI bus runs at 33MHz or 66MHz. PCI-X is capable of almost a GB/s.

 

[Maximilian]

Ok, well its just so i can hook up my xbox 360 to my comp so i can get into xbox live through the comp's connection which is using the onboard network port already. Suppose a 1 port one would suffice.

Its just i had the choice to go with a mobo that had two network ports and i thought "hah thats stoopid, whos gonna use TWO network ports lol..." yeah... regretting that i didnt get it now

 

[Cogman]

They do exist, however they are freaking expensive (look at newegg.com they have a few that I have seen, but they are upwards of $200.00)

 

[Blain]

Why not just buy a cheap 4 port network switch?

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: Blain
Why not just buy a cheap 4 port network switch?

Student halls play hell with routers. Mac address's etc.

 

[Varun]

Originally posted by: Farmer
Varun:

I'm not talking about PCI-X. I believe PCI 2.2 is (32bit/8)(66MHz) = 264MB/s. I don't know if his PCI bus runs at 33MHz or 66MHz. PCI-X is capable of almost a GB/s.

I appologize I was not aware of 66MHz PCI cards. I don't think I have ever seen a PCI card that was greater than 33MHz other than some PCI-X cards. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[bwatson283]

Originally posted by: Soviet

Originally posted by: Blain
Why not just buy a cheap 4 port network switch?

Student halls play hell with routers. Mac address's etc.

Talk with your IT department, or look up the stuff on the website. Some school's will alow you to use router/switch/etc. You said that it play some havoc with it, but talk to the staff there, there might be a few custom settings to use that they require for them to work right on their network. Just might be the cheaper way.

 

[Ruptga]

My school says switches are fine but not to use routers. My old roomie had a router and it usually worked perfectly fine. There were times that the network would be entirely unresponsive, but that happened to everyone, not just us (first year having a wireless network was apparantly throwing the IT guys for a loop). Now I'm using a 5 port switch I got from TigerDirect for something like ten bucks, and I haven't had any problems.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: Soviet

Originally posted by: Blain
Why not just buy a cheap 4 port network switch?

Student halls play hell with routers. Mac address's etc.

Hmm? Most routers allow you to change the mac address. Connect your PC to the network first, then change your router's mac address to match your PC, then connect the router directly.

Alternatively, just get multiple NICs (USB or PCI) and use those. Or plug the router into the PC and have the PC share its internet connection with the router, and then connect everything else into the router.

Of course, even besides that, the network would throw the router for a loop (disconnect like every 4 hours) until I installed wrt-dd and changed some settings.

 

[bwatson283]

Originally posted by: Fox5

Originally posted by: Soviet

Originally posted by: Blain
Why not just buy a cheap 4 port network switch?

Student halls play hell with routers. Mac address's etc.

Hmm? Most routers allow you to change the mac address. Connect your PC to the network first, then change your router's mac address to match your PC, then connect the router directly.

That might work, maybe.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: bwatson283

Originally posted by: Fox5

Originally posted by: Soviet

Originally posted by: Blain
Why not just buy a cheap 4 port network switch?

Student halls play hell with routers. Mac address's etc.

Hmm? Most routers allow you to change the mac address. Connect your PC to the network first, then change your router's mac address to match your PC, then connect the router directly.

That might work, maybe.

My experience with dorm networking is generally that you don't need a router at all -- just have everything get a DHCP address directly. It's not like a cable/DSL installation where you only get one IP; in general the DHCP server will hand out multiple IPs to one physical wall jack without a problem. In this case, if you have a "router", you'll want to disable the "routing" part and just use it as a switch.

Of course, YMMV. They may have it set up so you can only get one IP address -- but in that case, you can give the router the MAC address of your PC and it should work. However, I'd check with the IT staff at your school, since they may not be happy if you do this without asking and they don't want you to.

 

[Roguestar]

Changing the MAC address only sticks until you power off the NIC or router.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: Roguestar
Changing the MAC address only sticks until you power off the NIC or router.

Uh, on the routers I've used it stays until the router firmware is reset.