PCI Gigabit Ethernet on the cheap

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I am the proud owner of several Sawtooths; these were the last PowerMac to have 10/100 ethernet.

I bought two Trendnet TEG-PCITXR PCI gigabit ethernet cards for only $12 each on ebay.  I am happy to say that it works perfectly and uses built in drivers found in 10.5.2+.

Here is a product page for it:  TEG-PCITXR

It lists nothing about mac compatibility, but I read on a couple different sites that these worked in 10.5.2+ so I gave them a try. Glad I did.  It's also a great idea for firewall systems that need 2 ethernet or even a PowerMac with dead onboard eth.

So any PowerMac with PCI and 10.5 can easily benefit from this card.  I am loving the true gigabit speed.  It makes network drives perform like local drives.


EDIT:

After further testing I have found that these cards do work under 10.4.11.  I had one working on both my G4 upgraded G3 tower, and one of my spare Sawtooth.  Both were running 10.4.11.

I have been using the two cards under 10.5 for over a year and they offer very reliable and consistent performance.  I get around 27MB/sec on average, and up to 34MB/sec when transfering between my two Sawtooth.  Far better than the 4-11MB/sec I get on the built in 10/100.

These cards also work perfectly in Debian and Lubuntu Linux.  There seems to be no OS I use that these don't work perfectly with.  OpenBSD also.

These cards are a must for G4 towers.  The built in ethernet on my Gigabit (Mystic) tower only gets around 20-21MB/sec vs these cards that are 27-34MB/sec as I mention above.

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3 comments:

  1. Unknown15 August 2012 at 13:20

    Would you have any recommendations for USB/PCI dongles for Wifi? I know there isn't much out there. I'm running 10.4.11.

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    Replies
    1. zen15 August 2012 at 16:04

      Since you expressed interest in running Leopard in your other comments I think the best thing you can do is buy a Geforce 5200+ or Radeon 9600+ and run Leopard. Your dual 800 will be a bit faster and have access to a lot more software. 10.5 also has a lot more unintended natural compatibility with certain wintel market hardware.

      I don't use wifi at all with my 2x Sawtooth but I do have $7 USB bluetooth dongles in both and they are tested to only work on 10.5 only as are many of the wintel market wifi dongles. It's more about the newer generation wireless hardware/software technology than the OS itself.

      I bought my 9800 used on ebay for 65 shipped. 9800/Leopard and OpenGL really work well together so that helps 2D and 3D. This one upgrade will give you several advantages.

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  2. zen15 August 2012 at 21:25

    I was just trying to remember any PCI wifi I have used and I remember a clients tower a few years back. They had a Motorola card with B/G support. I have also seen a few youtube videos of others using the Motorola.

    You will have a better chance with PCI cards over dongles on 10.4 so I would try to find a Motorola PCI.

    If you do go the Leopard route then save the money for a cheaper dongle and it would give you extra toward a Core Image GPU.

    Hope that helps.

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