What 's a 3Com 3c515 worth these days?

From: UberTechnoid <ubertechnoid_at_Home.com>
Date: Fri Dec 28 14:10:06 2001

A few months ago I'd have said there was no such thing as an isa 100mb nic
but a friend of mine has a boxfull of HP 10/100 isa nics in her office
closet. They work ok on our 10mb lan but don't give even the performance of
my PCI 10/100 nic in 10mb mode. I can see a reason for them if you have a
100mb only net (we have an HP hub not in use right now because it is 100mb
ONLY) soooo.

Regards,

Jeff

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tothwolf" <tothwolf_at_concentric.net>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, December 25, 2001 10:33 PM
Subject: RE: What 's a 3Com 3c515 worth these days?


> On Tue, 25 Dec 2001, Ethan Dicks wrote:
> > --- Tothwolf <tothwolf_at_concentric.net> wrote:
> > > On Tue, 25 Dec 2001, Ernest wrote:
> > >
> > > > > There were very few *ISA* 10/100 NICs ever made. The 3C515 is one
of
> > > > > them.
> > >
> > > I don't really consider these cards to be hard to find, you just won't
> > > find them in most used computer shops. The 515 isn't too popular,
since
> > > there isn't much gain with it compared to a less expensive 509.
> >
> > Much gain? 10BaseT vs 10/100? Seems like a win to me. The only real
> > problem is that you can't saturate a 100mbps line from an ISA card.
>
> The ISA bus can't handle anywhere near the full 100mb/s bandwith, so these
> cards throttle the bandwith considerably. From personal experience in
> testing tons of different cards on my lan, I just don't see enough of a
> throughput difference when comparing the 509 and 515 to justify the extra
> cost. This is especially true when the second generation 509 cards can be
> had for less than $5 easily, and have much better driver support.
>
> > As I mentioned in my first post, I think the only real need for one is
> > if you find yourself on a 100BaseT *only* network.
>
> That would be about the only use for them that I can think of. Most modern
> 100mb/s networks are switched and support N-way autonegotiation (and
> 10mb/s), so there just isn't much use for a 100mb/s ISA nic anymore.
>
> -Toth
>
>
Received on Fri Dec 28 2001 - 14:10:06 GMT