OT: DELL SUCKS! Re: PC Gamer, best 50 classic games issue?

From: Tothwolf <tothwolf_at_concentric.net>
Date: Thu Jan 10 22:33:28 2002

On Thu, 10 Jan 2002, Ethan Dicks wrote:

> We have a local computer shop that (last week) had as-is 3c589 NICs
> for $5, but no dongle. I bought a couple spares, and a Xircom PS-CEM-28
> (also no dongles). Hopefully the 10BaseT dongle I have for another
> Xircom card will work (the 100BaseT dongles _are_ different).

Well, I overpaid for my 3c589D about 4 years ago. It cost me around $70
used, although it was in its original box. 3com makes 2 versions of the
dongle for the 3c589 series. One has a 10Base-2 BNC connector and RJ45,
and one has a single RJ45. The 3c589 bundled with the single RJ45 dongle
is more common, since it was usually around $25-35 less than the other
version. The single RJ45 dongle is available for around $5-10 directly
from 3com, and I imagine the dual media version of the dongle sells for
roughly twice that. These boards also came with a 2 pair 10Base-T cable
that is very flexible and around 6 feet long. I never found that cable to
be very useful since it always seemed to be too short to reach where I
needed it to go. While I'm thinking about it, I believe the 3c589D was
later replaced by the 3c589E. I don't know what the differences are, but
they did use the same driver.

Incidentally, the 3com EtherLink III series and later NIC products are
covered by a lifetime warranty. This warranty also seems to cover the
3c523 (microchannel, 16 bit) NIC. If the product fails, 3com will replace
it with a refurbished (usually just re-certified) unit of the same type.
On one occasion, 3com replaced a dead board I sent them with a different,
but better unit, since they were unable to locate another identical board.
For common products such as the 3c509 (ISA), 3c90x (PCI), and PCMCIA
cards, they will be replaced by an identical unit.

Xircom should still have replacement dongles available, but I've had very
limited exposure to their product line.

-Toth
Received on Thu Jan 10 2002 - 22:33:28 GMT

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