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Ethernet Card Info

This page has all the info I have collected on using various ethernet cards
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D-Link DFE-530TX+ ethernet card in a 6400 11/2/2002

Jeff wrote to tell me about his success using a D-Link PCI ethernet card in his 6400 and also suggested I start a page for all ethernet card info. I thought that was a great idea so here it is :) Thanks Jeff!

[Hello,
Just thought it might be a good idea to add a PCI Network card area to your Misc. info list. I've had great success getting D-Link DFE-530TX+ cards (typically $5-$15) to work in all of my older Macs including my 6400. The drivers that work best are found on the website for the chipset manufacturer <http://www.realtek.com.tw> not the actual D-Link drivers. The cards are even Mac OSX compatible.

My wife uses the 6400 in the kitchen for TV, FM, Internet Radio (iTunes), Buying groceries (SimonDelivers), Email, and surfing the web. It's mounted under the counter inside of a cabinet with the monitor and keyboard up top.

Thanks for the great site,
Jeff]

If anyone has a card they would like me to add here, just email me and tell me your story :) Thanks.

9/9/03 D-Link DFE-530TX network card sold in Europe will not work on our Macs!: A reader sent word that the European version of this card does not have the "+" in the name and does not work on his 6400. Thanks for the info.

[A word of warning to European readers; the D-Link DFE-530TX+ is sold in the USA. In Europe we get the D-Link DFE-530TX. Exactly the same product name, but without the "+". A slight but important difference, not helped by the fact that retailers, at least in the UK, often use the "+" literature in their product descriptions. Encouraged by Jeff's post, I forked out £9 for the plusless version. To be frank, I never even noticed the missing plus when I ordered. I stuck it in my wife's 6400/200, hooked it up to my spanking new adsl router.. and nothing. I downloaded drivers and spent happy hours tinkering about in them with a binary editor. After much fun and games I only succeeded in moving from no recognition whatsoever of ethernet, to the system recognizing it had ethernet but being unable to use it. For those who relish a little Mac schadenfreude I'll add a little more context:
In order to use the card drivers I had to upgrade the 6400 from 8.0 to 8.6. Tinkering with the delicate ecology of an elderly Mac is fraught with perils, especially if your friendly local pre-enjoyed vendor sends you the install disks for a G3 powerbook. Then there's the little problem of the 6400 having no native connection to my whizzy Ti550 powerbook. To get a driver onto the 6400 I have to download it via my old AOL connection, which has been upset by the OS upgrade. When it does connect, the old Stuffit version on the 6400 won't unzip the drivers. I can't install a new Stuffit version 'cause it won't run on 8.6. I have to hunt about in the loft to find old Mac magazine covermount CD ROMs to get an older but not so old Stuffit. In the end I download and reformat drivers on the powerbook and e-mail them to myself at AOL, then back down to the 6400. Then there are the long, low hours of restarts, extension manager reconfigurations and more, many more restarts. You get the picture. Anyway.. it doesn't work. Tomorrow I have an Asante FreindlyNet 696 card arriving. Price - £18. If that doesn't work, I may shoot myself. The standard delivery cost will be more than the price of the DFE530TX but life is too short. I did pinpoint one distinct possibility for European cheapskates like myself - the Sitecom 10/100 fast PCI card. It costs a tenner and Sitecom lists a Mac driver. But as I say, life's too short. Wish me luck.]

12/22/2003 Bad experience with the D-Link 530TX+ ethernet card: I don't know if this will happen to many people trying this ethernet card but Gregg wanted to warn us about what might happen. Thanks Gregg! Read on to find out what happened.

[I spent many unhappy hours with a D-Link DFE-530TX+ NIC and mucking about with a binary editor with the extension that came with the card, the latest version downloaded from D-Link and the Realtek 8139 extension.

The problem is neither of the extensions from D-Link has a PCI ID that matches the card like the instructions say it's supposed to! That doesn't speak well of their programmers. :P

Never got anything to work and for now my 7300/200 is sitting with the lid off and a corrupted System thanks to this so-called "Mac Compatible" card. So it's not a 6xxx, but you wanted experiences with this NIC!

I tried clean installs of both 9.1 and 9.2.2 fixed up using the latest OS9 Helper and the result when booting with any of the three NIC extensions was always a corrupted System.

Fortunately I picked up the card on a $10 clearance at Office Max and it works great in PC box with Windows, so eventually it'll find a permanent home in one.]

2/28/2004 More on the DFE 530TX+ ethernet card: There seems to be some discrepancies as to whether this card will work or not on our Macs? Some say it does and others say it doesn't. Jeff, who originally wrote in about this card, wrote back to say that he just tried the latest version from D-link and it works just great for him. Thanks Jeff! Click here to read past info on this card.

[Hi again,
I just wanted to follow up on the D-Link DFE-530TX+ information that I sent after reading about some people having problems with this card.

I recently picked up another 6400 and decided to test the latest D-Link cards to see if they are still compatible and easy to set up. To my surprise, they now have even better drivers on the install CD that comes with the card. I installed a brand new D-Link DFE-530TX+ in slot B1 in the 6400, powered up and ran the installer and everything came up and worked great with no tinkering.

I then decided to try and get my Umax c600 working with one of these cards. I had spent countless hours trying to get the Farallon comm slot card working with no success. Installing the D-Link card was a little hard because it would only work in the middle PCI slot, but once I figured that out it was smooth sailing.

Both machines are running OS 8.6 right now. I don't know why these cards aren't working for some people, but my experience has been very positive with these cards. I've installed them in PowerMac 9600, PowerComputing PowerCenter Pro, Performa 6400, Umax c600, and more. They are also very friendly with Mac OS X. I had one installed in my PowerComputing machine when I upgraded to OS X and I didn't even have to install any drivers.
Thanks again for the great site!
Jeff]

Here are two versions of the Mac drivers I found on Realteks web site.

Also I just purchased this card and although I have not tried it in my 6400, it works great in my B&W G3 running OSX 10.2.8. And It came with OS 8.x / OS 9.x drivers. Click here to download them.

Please let me know if either of these work for any of you? Thanks.

7/6/04 - Update on using a ethernet cards with Realtek chip sets: Daan posted some information that is found in the readme that come with the Realtek drivers that could help some people having trouble with these cards. Thanks Daan.

[Just read on the frontpage about the RealTek drivers not working for everyone... Have you followed the hints in the Readme? The extension recognizes the card form it's id, which should be pci10ec,8139 (look it up in Apple Menu->System Profiler). If it isn't that, you need to modify the driver using a hex editor, as is explained in the install.txt file. For example, I had to change it to pci11f6,8139 and after that the driver worked flawlessly.]

Falk has another reason for why some of these cards may not work. Thanks Falk.

[Hello Thomas!
Just wanted to let you know that in some DFE-530 Cards (especially mine :- ( ) a DAVICOM Chip is soldered. This little baby isn't compatible with the Realtek ones and maybe that's the reason for some cards not working.
-Falk]

Farallons 10/100 ethernet card for the 6400 2/3/1999

Click here to get the latest driver software 2/15/2001
Click here for Farallons 10 BaseT drivers
Click here for Farallons older 10/100 drivers that sometimes work better then their newer ones!

Last week I installed Farallons 10/100 COMM II slot fast ethernet card. This card goes in the same slot as your internal modem uses so you will have to remove it before inserting the ethernet card.

Farallon part#YPN998L for $89.99

Installation was very simple. Just remove your mother board, then remove the internal modem if installed and place the ethernet card in the same slot. This is the slot behind the PCI riser card. Now just press the mother board reset button and place the mother board back in the computer. Boot and install the software then restart. I suggest disabling Apples Ethernet extensions before running this card to make sure there is no compatibility issues.

Once restarted goto your Apple Talk control panel and then select make active and then the window will open. Select the Ethernet setting in the Connect Via window then close the control panel. Now you need to open the File Sharing control panel (or Sharing Setup depending on your OS version) and set it up. This involves giving your Mac a name and a password. Now click on Start File Sharing and close this control panel. The last thing to do is once File Sharing has started you need to select something to share. The easiest thing to do is click once on your HD icon and then under the File menu pick Get Info then Sharing (or just Sharing depending on your OS version). In here you can tell the OS to make this shared and set up who gets to view it. Once this is done then any oter Mac on your network can view your HD if they have the password. You can also allow guests to have access without a password.

On another Mac you can now goto your Chooser and then select Apple Share and your 6400 will appear in the window if all went well.

It worked flawlessly for me. Since this was for my future cable modem I didn't have much to test it on yet except with my PB 233/G3. I hooked the 2 togeter with a crossover cable (needed when 2 computers are connected without a hub) and I was instantly accessing the 6400 from the PB. I tried copying over the latest AOL 4 install which is 12+MB and it took less than 30sec to complete. Very fast! The PB only has 10B-T so I won't see the full potential of this card unless I get another computer with a 10/100 ethernet card.

Update 2/6/1999: Farallon has released optimized drivers for its Fast EtherTX-10/100 PCI and Comm Slot II Ethernet cards and Mac OS 8.5. The company claims performance improvements of "up to 35% on file transfers over a leading third-party card."

Update 6/24/1999 Farallons 2.0 extension for their 10/100 COMM II ethernet card not compatible with OS 8.6: Ever since getting my cable modem and upgrading to OS 8.6 I have been having some more shut down freezes. I traced it to Farallons "Farallon FastENPlus" version 2.0 extension. It was an update to make the card run faster but it seems to be incompatible with OS 8.6. If I revert to the 1.1 version which shipped with my card, I have no shut down freezes at all. I will be emailing Farallon this info.

8/7/1999 Farallon admits their 2.0 driver for the Comm II slot 10/100 ethernet card is incompatible with OS 8.6: I just got this from Carl who recieved an email from Farallon stating that they are aware of the issue and working on a fix. Thanks Carl.

8/27/1999 Farallon Fast EtherTX-10/100 and cable modems: I found this on MacFixIts web site. It seems there is more of a problem then just shutdown freezes as I and a few other have experienced with the 2.0 version of their driver. I haven't had this problem yet but its definitly worth noting.

10/28/1999 FIX is out!: Farallon just released version 2.1 for their 10/100 COMM II slot ethernet card and so far it is working fine on my 6400 with OS 8.6 as well as some other users :) Plus it seems much faster then the 1.1 driver I had before! Click here to goto Farallons download page. NOTE that it is listed as NEW but still only showing as version 2.0? I think its a typo as once you download it Get Info does show it as 2.1.

3/31/2000 Farallons Comm II 10/100 Fast Ethernet card not compatible with OS 8.1: Herbert has been exchanging email with me to figure out why he had such poor performance with his Farallon CommII ethernet card in his 6400. He found that their 1.x driver was very suggish and would crash with OS 8.1 and the 2.1 driver did not work at all. He installed OS 9 then the 2.1 driver worked great. But then he had a problem with his Keyspan USB card. The fix was to reboot back to OS 8.1 and run the installer? Man, do we all have to keep several systems installed for situations like this? Possibly? Thanks Herbert.

I haven't tried OS 9 on my 6400 yet but I used Apples 1.3.5 drivers which are probably what Keyspan used also and they work great with OS 8.6. Maybe Apples installer will work under OS 9 better?

7/22/2000 New Farallon drivers for the 10/100 PCI and COMM II ethernet cards: Here is a link to get the latest drivers (2.2.1 for PCI and COMM II 10/100 cards). I don't know what they changed though?

8/18/2001 Farallon issue with 6400 shutdown returns?: Yann reports that he installed version 2.4 of Farallons ethernet 10/100 driver and was unable to shutdown his 6400 the proper way. Reverting to the 2.1 driver fixed it. Thanks Yann.

[Thanks for your answer!
I had version 2.4, the latest drivers found on Farallon's website. Yesterday, I switched back to the original driver found on the CD (version 2.1). I added recent Open Transport extensions available on the 6400's Zone. I also discovered that I had manually disabled the File sharing extension a long time ago and I was finally able to mount my 6400 hard disk on the iBook's desktop. (My first goal was to mount the iBook on the 6400)
Now everything seems to work and my 6400 didn't refuse to shut down! :)]

This problem was reported awhile back but with Farallons version 2.0 drivers. I wonder if the problem has come back to haunt us? If you are using Farallons 2.4 ethernet driver, could you please email me how its working for you? Thanks

9/2/2001 Farallon 10/100 etherfast 2.4 drivers do not affect shutdown for everyone: VRic wrote to say that he has the 2.4 version of Farallons drivers and they do not affect shutdown on his 6400 as I posted in my last update but he does have a wake from sleep issue that he has not found the cause of yet? Thanks VRic.

[I use a Farallon ethernet 10/100 COMM slot II card with v 2.4 driver on my 6400/Sonnet G3 under Mac OS 8.6 and have no problem shutting down.

It can't seem to wake from sleep though, but I still had no time to find what is causing this: I just don't let it sleep anymore, which is no big deal since it's a server anyway. I didn't suspect the Farallon card. There are also a Formac Proformance III video card and a FW/USB combo card similar to the one from Evertech in this mac. I'd rather put the blame on the FW/USB card or it's FW drivers from 9.1, maybe someone has ideas to share about wake from sleep issues? I found some PCI cards having trouble with the deep sleep feature in G4s.
----
VRic]

Tiong also wrote to say that he has zero problems with the 2.4 version. Thanks Tiong.

[I have been testing the Farallon 2.4 drivers since the problem was noted in your forum. No shutdown or wake from sleep issues for me in both OS 8.6 and/or 9.1
Regards,
Tiong]

9/29/2001 Update on Farallons v2.4 driver causing shutdown problems: VRic wrote me back to say he now can confirm that the v2.4 of Farallons drivers does cause a shutdown problem but only if no network connection is made to the card (at least on his system). Thanks VRic.

[I sent you this recently :

> I use a Farallon ethernet 10/100 comslot II card with v 2.4 driver on my
> 6400/Sonnet G3 under Mac OS 8.6 and have no problem shutting down.

Since then I had the problem, and I believe I found at least one reason for the inconcistencies in those reports : this driver seems to cause the mentioned problem ONLY WHEN THE ETHERNET PORT IS NOT USED. If there's something (a LAN, another Mac or a DSL modem) connected to the Ethernet port, Bob (my 6400) shuts down normally, if not it won't.

That's why I didn't see it sooner. So the fix is easy: if you have a network, plug it back! If not, deactivate the Farallon driver, since it's not needed anyway.

This looks similar to an old problem we had with built-in Ethernet under system 7.x: if the Ethernet port was empty, AppleTalk would throw an error and revert to LocalTalk.
----
VRic]

Kingston PCI Ethernet card works on a 6400 11/20/2002

Sam wrote to say that he has a Kingston Ethernet card in his 6400 and its works fine. Thanks Sam. I'm not sure how old this card is but I'll add this to my Ethernet card page.

[Here is something I thought your readers might want to know. I have a Power Macintosh 6500/225 to which a previous owner has added PCI Ethernet. The card says "Kingston" on the bottom and "10/100 Mbps" on the top. In the middle is the ethernet port and four lights labeled "Link", "Act", "100", and "FDX". I am running Mac OS 8.1, and there is a "Kingston PCI Fast Ethernet" extension in my extensions folder. The card works great!]

Sonic System ethernet card in a 6400 12/16/2002

Click here to get the Sonic 10BaseT PCI Ethernet drivers

Alec sent me some info on an older ethernet card made by Sonic System. He says it works fine for him with at least OS 8.1. Thanks Alec. He sent me the driver incase anyone needs it. Click the link above to get it.

[Hi Tom,
Seeing you are recording ethernet card info, both of the 6400's here have Sonic Systems Inc PCI 10 cards in and they work without problems under OS 8.1. One card is 10BaseT only while the other has 10BaseT and 10Base2 connectors. A small driver extension 'PCI-10 Ethernet' is needed for the cards to function. One of them is an ex-college machine (they now use all PC's) and they ran without problems on the network there using System 7.5.3.
Regards,
Alec]

NexNIC ND010 ethernet card 9/9/2003

Click here to get the OS 8.5 through OS 9 drivers
Click here to get the OSX 10.1 drivers

[Hello, many thanks to you and your site for your help.
I have a 6400 that I clean installed OS 9.1 on no G3 processor upgrade though, just the standard 200mhz and the L2 cache board. whilst looking for a cheap nic that was mac compatible I managed to find a NexNIC ND010 card by UNEX http://www.unex.com.tw/ they had a small zip file with all the drivers for all the OS they support. It was only £12 from a local cheap Pc place and it seems to work fine. I have it files sharing and internet browsing with no prob so far.
thanks
Phil.]

He later sent this.

[Hi, just checked the CD that came with the UNEX NIC and all the Mac Drivers are on there too, Mac OS 8.x, 9.x and 10.x!!!!]

SMC 1255TX ethernet card 12/22/2003

John sends word that he didn't have much luck with the D-Link 530TX ethernet card (you need the 530TX+ for our Macs) but did have success with an SMC 1255TX ethernet card. Thanks John.

[Thomas,
I thought I'd add to your ethernet card report. My first attempt was with a D-Link 530TX, and like your other writer it was a waste of time. Not only did the card not work but I hosed something in the system and had to reinstall from a backup. I learned from that and began to search company web sites to be sure Mac drivers were available before I dropped any more cash. Eventually I found that SMC makes two cards with Mac drivers, called EZ PCI Card 10/100, models 1244TX and 1255TX. I opted for the 1255TX because it has drivers for systems 7.53 through 9.2.2. I'm using FU-8.6. The 1244TX driver is for 9.1 or above. Both cards also have drivers for various OS X versions but that's not a factor for the 6400.

After the card was in I ran the driver installer and rebooted. The card was recognized and after changing the configuration from modem to ethernet I was on my LAN and into the internet. The only glitch was that the TCP/IP panel shows that the card has two ports when it only has one. Either port setting works on my 6400.

The card cost $28.95 Canadian (about $20 USD) at a local store and was listed at the same price at Macwarehouse Canada. Some things to note: there is no Mac documentation available, the included diskette is pc only, and the Mac drivers from the website come compressed in pc formats so you'll need a compatible expander. Also, don't confuse the 1255TX with the 1255TX-PF. The extra features of the PF card don't work on Macs and the drivers are OS X only. The website for SMC is www.smc.com.

Thanks for all the years you have kept this site up for the 6400 community.
John]

The drivers can be downloaded from this location.

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This page last updated 12/24/2004