Replacement ethernet card choices?

[hompsar]

I have a MacPro (First Model)/2006-2007 and I believe my ethernet card is in need of replacing. For awhile now I have been looking at what types of cards can be used and am still not quite sure. Anybody know how to point me in the right direction so I do not make any mistakes...?

 

[codymac]

I've had very good luck with Realtek 8169 chipped cards in hackintoshes (no tweaking needed) but I don't know if there's a PCIe card with that chipset.

Rule of thumb is stay as close to what Apple uses as possible for the least amount of issues.

Sonnet has some options available that might be the least painful route:

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/computercards/index.html

 

[hompsar]

Yeah. I checked those cards out but it did not seem like they were compatible with my 2006-2007 Mac Pro...

 

[codymac]

I'm surprised the Sonnet cards won't work.

Unless someone comes up with a simple solution, you'll probably have to scour the hackintosh hardware compatibility list to get an idea of chipsets that work and then find a card that will fit:

http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Wi-Fi might at least get you by temporarily and finding an Airport card (if you need one) is at least cheaper than a new main board.

 

[hompsar]

I don't use WiFi on my Mac Pro. I just need one ethernet plug and i'm set.

 

[hompsar]

Netgear GA311 came up in the Wiki because it uses the same chipset as most Mac stuff. Blah blah blah.

 

[codymac]

Netgear GA311 came up in the Wiki because it uses the same chipset as most Mac stuff. Blah blah blah.

Yeah - but it's a PCI card. It's my default for hackintosh builds.

There's one in the machine I'm typing this on.

 

[hompsar]

From what I understand the NIC card in my 2006-2007 Mac Pro is PCI. Is that incorrect?

*d'uh. I bought a flashed ATI Radeon 1900 XT that was PCI-E. How forgetful we can become. Hmmm... That means I need to keep looking >_<

 

[hompsar]

Found this card. Shows it is Mac compatible.

 

[goMac]

From what I understand the NIC card in my 2006-2007 Mac Pro is PCI. Is that incorrect?

It's built into the motherboard, it cannot be replaced.

However, you can add another working ethernet port, which is what you are looking at doing.

What makes you think your ethernet ports are broken?

 

[hompsar]

We just re-wired our entire property and everything is AWESOME until I am pushing bandwidth in and out of my NIC. Even when only doing say 100 mb/s down and up other computers on the network spike to over 600 ping.

 

[goMac]

We just re-wired our entire property and everything is AWESOME until I am pushing bandwidth in and out of my NIC. Even when only doing say 100 mb/s down and up other computers on the network spike to over 600 ping.

And you've got a gigabit router or a 100 mb/s router?

This sounds almost like bad wiring. Could be that something could have gotten messed up when new wiring was laid.

 

[codymac]

We just re-wired our entire property and everything is AWESOME until I am pushing bandwidth in and out of my NIC. Even when only doing say 100 mb/s down and up other computers on the network spike to over 600 ping.

This doesn't sound like a bad NIC to me.

 

[hompsar]

We are using the Asus WL-500gP V2 router. When we decided to change our hardware we decided to re-wire and I ran, cut and crimped every line individually. I can download extremely fast and upload quite well it's just that when I am causing down/up traffic everything goes to ****. You don't think it is a NIC problem?

 

[goMac]

We are using the Asus WL-500gP V2 router. When we decided to change our hardware we decided to re-wire and I ran, cut and crimped every line individually. I can download extremely fast and upload quite well it's just that when I am causing down/up traffic everything goes to ****. You don't think it is a NIC problem?

Well the router you're using maxes out at 100 mb/s. It could be an issue.

There is a small chance the NIC is defective. But your router isn't very high speed.

 

[hompsar]

Well the router you're using maxes out at 100 mb/s. It could be an issue.

There is a small chance the NIC is defective. But your router isn't very high speed.

Where do you see that it maxes out at 100 mb/s? This particular router was recommended by a friend (who has never steered me wrong up until possibly now) and I never saw anything about that when I was looking into it...