Steven Bowers wrote: > Compgeeks is offering a 4port RTL8139D nic for an attractive price. I > know the 8139 chipset is supported, not quite so sure of the 8138D. > Can anyone speak for these cards? The price is nice and a 4port nic > would be very handy.
CAREFUL... If this: http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=A-3905&cat=NET is what you are refering to, this is (probably) not quite what you think it is. I have a couple similarly marketed, similarly described cards (although, with a cheap dc(4) chip), and while they are VERY useful, they are not four-port NICs. What it actually is is a single port NIC with a four port switch. I'm fairly sure this is the exact same thing. Evidence: the picture seems to show two moderately small chips, most quad-port NICs have five chips -- four NICs and a PCI-PCI bridge. COULD it be a PCI-PCI bridge and a quad-port NIC chip? Perhaps, but I'm not aware of anyone putting four NICs on one chip. Don't get me wrong, this kinda card is incredibly handy sometimes -- this one, like the two I have, has auto-cross-over, so you don't have to be finding the cross-over cable when going PC-PC. I use them in what I call "portable DMZ" machines -- a PF machine which keeps an infected machine from talking to anything on the 'net inside an office, but still lets the machine talk to the outside world. Also saves a bit of rats-nest if you need one of those "mini-switches" behind your desk. For what it is worth, I've paid a lot more than the $13 they are asking there for those things...the first because I wanted to see what it really was, the second because it is a useful tool. Yeah, they sell 'em as "Windows routers". I don't want to think about how they do routing with one NIC. Ick. Nick.
