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Buying Hardware for X86 OSX


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Hi,

 

Well first of im running OSX on my computer. This is the confiugration that i have right now:

MotherBoard: Gigabyte K8NS-Pro (nForce 3 250 chipset)

CPU: Amd Athlon64 3000+

Memory: 1GB Ram

Video Card: ATI Radeon 9800 pro sapphire

Ethernet: Marvell Yukon Gigabyte Ethernet (which dosn't work)

=====================

The upgrade:

 

-CPU Amd Athlon 4000+ (This is my main question, i can't find it on the HCL list, but im sure it will work and it has SSE3 well im getting the San Diego core)

 

-Video Card: Radeon 7000 (This one seems to support OpenGL, but no QE or Core)

(I don't know if this would work, i don't know what kind this guy had: this is the one im getting http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16814103151 ) (There still isn't any ATI or Nivida GFX card that supports QE, Core right? What do u guys think is the best bet for me to get?

 

Ethernet Card: 3Com 3c900 ( I can't find any of the ethernet cards in Newegg? (http://froogle.google.com/froogle?sourceid=mozilla-search&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&tab=wf&q=3Com+3c900&btnG=Search+Froogle)

 

Sound Card: I have built in sound card but its a Realtek AC'97, i mean just normally it dosn't work, but im planning to use this guid to see if it works: (http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Audio)

 

So what do u guys thinks?

 

-Tabha

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3com stands for quality and this is always a good choice (much better than Realtek, for instance), but you have to understand that this is a truly "classic" card that has long been discontinued.

 

http://support.3com.com/infodeli/tools/nic...cs/ug/index.htm

 

http://support.3com.com/infodeli/tools/nic...cs/ug/index.htm

 

These cards were already supported with NeXT's OPENSTEP 4 for Intel:

 

http://www.shawcomputing.net/rhapsody/hard...1.html

 

You can currently find lots of five on ebay. But don't forget that these cards are from the mid-nineties (last century) and only do 10Mb/s, whereas 100Mb/s is standard now with people slowly but steadily progressing to 1Gb/s.

 

Although I appreciate classic hardware, I really don't understand why you would like to put such an outdated NIC into a brand-new box.

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well i mean, i have a built in ethernet connection in my mother board, so the other one would be just for using OSX, so what your saying is that these are outdate cards?
Yes, definitely. :-) Although I'd say they're not only "outdated", but in fact rather "ancient".

 

I was saying that 3com is a rather good brand. 3com cards, even old ones, are always better than comparable Realtek cards, for instance. A three year old 100Mb/s 3com card is better than a factory-new 100Mb/s card from Realtek.

 

didn't quite understand what u were getting at. So u think i should go with the 3Com 3c900?
I'd choose at least a 100Mb/s card. Remember: with a 10Mb/s card like the 3com you referenced above, you only have a throughput of perhaps half to one MegaByte per second. The 100Mb/s card is ten times faster!

 

If you just want a simple card for Mac OS X, you can of course buy such a Realtek... looking at the wiki, I can see that the popular and cheap Realtek RTL8139B/C/D is supported.

 

If you want a quality 3com card (with decent speed), however, I would rather have a look at the 3c905* series mentioned in the wiki if I were you.

 

http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/HCLPart#Ethernet

 

Here's a nice 3c905B-TX that goes for 3 USD (plus shipping) on ebay:

 

http://tinyurl.com/a7d5r

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I was saying that 3com is a rather good brand. 3com cards, even old ones, are always better than comparable Realtek cards, for instance. A three year old 100Mb/s 3com card is better than a factory-new 100Mb/s card from Realtek

 

Realtek only makes the chipset. 3Com is no longer competitive for a reason.

 

New Airnet AES100 with Realtek 8139D chipset $8.74 shipped

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16833338001

 

3c905B-TX is also not compatible with the current build of Vista while the Realtek is supported.

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are u sure the Airnet AES100 works, because i can't find it on the HCL. And about the Radeon 7000, thats what it says on HCL list. This is what it says on the list " Radeon 7000 - VESA 2.0 1024x768 (I got 1280x1024x32@85). OpenGL works, no QE or Core Image."

 

so i don't know

-Tabha

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Realtek only makes the chipset. 3Com is no longer competitive for a reason.
And what is that reason? Quality? Funny guy. 3com no longer competitive? They still sell their stuff to corporate users (not to to home users, of course), like they always did.

 

3c905B-TX is also not compatible with the current build of Vista while the Realtek is supported.
Personal experiences? I heard of one person that had problems with it, but nonetheless the drivers for this card are included with Vista Beta 1, according to the driver lists floating around the net:

 

http://activewin.com/articles/2005/drivers.shtml

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are u sure the Airnet AES100 works, because i can't find it on the HCL.
Look again, you'll find the Realtek 8139D chip on the list.

 

so which one should i buy?

nepali_gurkha,

 

because of its quality, I'd buy the 3com. But I am not in your position. I don't want to run Vista with this card. Although I question thrunner's claim that the 3com generally does not work with Vista, I want to make clear that I HAVE NO PERSONAL EXPERIENCE with this card and Vista, therefore I cannot prove my point.

 

Anyway, in the beginning we were just talking about the Mac OS X for Intel developer preview release and not about Vista, so whether the 3com works under Vista seemed completely irrelevant to me (especially when considering that the gigabit card you already have will most likely be supported by Vista).

 

I'd say, follow thrunner's advice and buy the new Realtek. By no means this is a great NIC, but at least it will be supported by most operating systems. Seems like you're not looking for a good NIC, but simply for one that works (more or less).

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Terry's points are all valid.

 

I just wanted to point out that the 3COM is an old card (several versions with same name) with no new drivers and may not work with Vista (didn't work for me and I have about 5 of these cards), not that you care about running Vista.

 

3Com is not what it used to be is another point I was making.

 

For one $ I would go with new.

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  • 5 months later...

I gotta revive this thread fo this reason:

 

Networking on X86 SUCKS!!

 

Ive installed 5 different cards, None work.

 

Two that ive tried are mentioned here and they STILL dont work.

 

I have the Realtek 8139D AND the 3com 3C905B-TX card and neither work.

 

What in the world am I doing wrong??

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