[Salty Dog]

Ok I don't know why but my PC does not have one in it. I need one for my cable modem that will be hooked up on Tues Nov 13th.

If I go to Best Buy should I look for a specific brand or model??

How do I know which one is good or bad?

How much do they cost??

How hard is it to install......I am pretty handy but I don't want to gut my tower either.

Thanks

[nucleuscracker]

well congrats on getting cable - you should love it - i do.

As for your card, I have an Intel PRO PCI adapter and it works great for what I need it for - there maybe newer and better available.

You may want to check around with some of your local computer stores vs going to Best Buy. I was sent to a local one by the Road Runner rep - the card was cheaper then thru RR also they installed it for free. (but i imagine its easy to plug in)...



hth!

[schrocat]

SD,
any NIC card will work...(you want a 10/100 PCI)
Where you buy the card is probably more important than what you buy.
A NIC is a NIC (of course ,of course)...the only difference is support and warranty, so get it at a place where a return is easy in case you get a dud.
Prices range from 15.00 to 115.00, I always go for the cheap ones.
Free is nice.

Easy installation of the hardware depends on the PC case...results may vary, my cases don't even require a screw to attach the card to the chasis.

A new device comes with drivers, so you could install it yourself a day or two before the guy comes over to hook you up. Give it the drivers but you don't need to enable it.
You might get some harmless DHCP errors depending on how far whatever "setup wizard" comes bundled with the card tries to configure everything.

Good Luck...

[Firefish]

I always go for the cheap $15 ones also, Never had a problem with them. If you got a new computer then it should be P.N.P. and all you have to do is slip it into an open slot and turn the computer on. (but things never go that smooth with computers )

[icemark]

I have used several different brands and they are all pretty much the same, with the exception that I like to have the WOL (Wake On Lan) ones for work and my home network, but that shouldn't be an issue for you unless later you plan on networking your computer(s).

D-link have been very reliable and cheap for me.

[Salty Dog]

As always........Thanks for the help.

The card I got is a LINKSYS ETHERFAST 10/100 LAN CARD w/WOL

I opened my tower and found an open slot at the bottom. It took more pressure to get it ti click into the slot but I was warned to be firm with it by the instructions so I guess that is normal. Once plugged in I secured it with the screw from the old slot plate and closed up the tower. Plugged all my stuff bck in and powered up, installed drivers off floppy and restarted.........very easy. All seems to be fine.........cable is not set up until thursday though so I will let you know then.

Couple questions.

The inside of my tower is VERY dusty.........my video card has about 1/2 inch deep family of dust bunnies on it. I have NEVER seen a decline in performance or had oddball things happen with this system EVER so should I clean it and if so how??

I was told by the guy at Comp USA where I got the card that sometimes PC's don't like what slot you plug something into because it has to share resources with something else if you pick wrong slot. I have not seen any trouble at all since the card went in yesterday but a couple times it seems like things are going a little slow. A couple slow launched games and some slow internet (still dial up same connection speed) and intial boot up seems slower.........could this be because I put in the card or am I just paranoid and imagining things??

When I power up and Windows loads it now throws up that oh so annoying network password box with my name and no password in it. No matter if I click OK or CANCEL it still just sends me to desktop. How can I get rid of this stupid box?? I never had it come up before I put the card in.

Thank you all and I will give you all my system info in case that will help your techie brains get rollin'

GATEWAY
PIII 500
128 MB SDRAM
20 GB Hard Drive
DVD/CDROM
CD Burner (easily paid for whole system with this baby)
TNT2 Ultra 32MB Video Card
4 port USB HUB that I use for toys like camera, joysticks etc
SoundBlaster Live! w/digital audio output to a set of Boston Acoustics

I know some people do not like Gateway for one reason or another but I have to say that this machine has performed above any hopes I had for it when I got it 3 years ago. I have added a scanner, web cam, ethernet card, Burned 1000 CD's on it, it runs games that people say it won't (Ex. Max Payne) and runs them very well. downloaded and intstalled and uninstalled 100 different things, watched a ton of DVD's, moved it across the country twice, totally stripped it and reformatted hard drive after a virus snuck in and it has not even so much as blinked. I actually had to rip off the quality seal sticker they put across the tower seems to know if you have opened the tower for the first time to put the LAN card in.

ramble has now ended..............thank god!!!!!

[schrocat]

SD,
The resource conflict the CompUSA guy speaks of shouldn't rear its head.
Old schoolers had to juggle IRQ's 7,5, and 11 sometimes...generally to fight NIC vs Soundcard battles. Sometimes changing the physical slot helped also.
It booted after you installed, you have video, sound, and point devices. You'll be fine.

The slowness you are experiencing shouldn't be noticable at the point of an app launch. Instead, it should be slower booting...but I'd be amazed if it was obvious.
The password authentication process is what might be slowing things up...both by being invoked and then the subsequent processes it has to go through (even though your password is probably null)
Even in a scaled down state, security adds wait time.

PS...you got the right card. They rock.

later

[Salty Dog]

So can I bypass that network sign in window at start up somehow??

P.S. Since it went so smoothly I talked my bro into getting cable and just installed the same card on his DELL tonight which runs WIN Me.

I am such a techie

[schrocat]

Off the top of my head...
right mouse click network neighborhood, select properties...

One of the tabs will display all of the devices,protocols, and their corresponding bindings.
Look for, and remove "client for microsoft networks"...click apply, then Ok...then it will reboot.

[mastaJ]

YET, If you network computers you will need the Client. When/If you get a Hub the instructions for getting the Client back will be there. LINKSYS is what I have no probs to date, except hooking up a WinME Laptop to the exsisting network with a Win 95 AND 98 on it. Have fun!

[Salty Dog]

Cable is up and screamin'

Guess I did the card right.

Even better.......Best Buy has the card in this weeks ad for $10 so I will get some cash back tomorrow

Just finished a 76 MB download in minutes..........could never even stay connected long enough to finish it on 56K.

Man are there a lot of losers out there probing for systems to hack into. My Black Ice showed hits within minutes of startup.

Question............can people get into my system when it is off?? I don't see how Black Ice can protect it when it is off but I also don't know if someone can get in when it is shut down?????????

Don't know why or how I lived with 56K so long

[Salty Dog]

In case anyone is interested this card is at Best Buy right now priced wrong at $14.97..........with a $10.00 mail in rebate(in the Ad) so if you need a card at $5 I doubt they will last long.

Same card at Comp USA $25

[schrocat]

SD,
The back door on a powered off PC would be wake on lan.
WOL is disabled by default, needs a special cable...you're safe.

Black Ice isn't very good by the way.
You'll see.

[Salty Dog]

Why would you say that Black Ice is bad?? Everyone I have asked says it is good. Just curious..........let me know if there is anything specific I should watch for.

All seems perfect so far.

[icemark]

I agree with Schrocat on the black ice thing...its sort of like Norten, its okay, but doesn't block everything. It can be fooled relatively easy.

If you need a software firewall then ZoneAlarm is much better.

[Justler]

Keep in mind that some cable modems offer USB hookup, such as 3com and Motorola on their Surfboard cable modems... this may be the better route (no pun intended) for you if the connection is not being shared upon multiple computers.

[schrocat]

Justler,

Nice pun.

SD,
If you were to frequent any blackhat exploit or script sites...you would take note of the MANY tools available to spoof trusted app activity and gain access to Black Ice protected boxes.
It's really not a matter of if.
It's a matter of when.

Obviously, Black Ice is better than nothing.
Perhaps it improved, I doubt it. It needed serious work a few months back.

Friendly fire took out a box of mine 6 months ago...I posted about it.
At the time, I blamed it on shares created by Audiogalaxy.
Turns out it was a friend who didn't intend on actually killing the PC. He was just trying to prove a point.
"Black Ice su***"
Once he learned what happened to the machine (which is used almost exclusively by my Law School attending wife who is humorless on such matters) he clammed up...until the guilt set in. Heh.

Black Ice just sat there...offering me a flashy splash screen, yet quite oblivious to the sophmoric activity.

I'm sure while my box was being hacked, Black Ice was vigilant in informing me that nodes were pinging my IP...

[Salty Dog]

So what gaurds your system now??

What is a black hat exploit or script site??

This is all kinda confusing to me. My mother had a cable modem on her system for a year with no firewall or anything and she had no trouble........that we know of.

Thanks for all the help.

Did your buddy replace the system he toasted??

[Justler]

I'm running FreeBSD 4.4-STABLE as a NAT box... I really should just go buy a cisco 2600, or the modular 2500 (2524 I believe).

[GregD]

Salty Dog, and others-

I would recommend using Zone Alarm (newest version) or Tiny Personal Firewall.

I use Tiny Personal Firewall - it is excellent and free. You can download it at www.tinysoftware.com.

A couple of simplified explanations regarding the hacker behavior people are discussing here...

the most popular hack that is employed today is a hacker places a small program on your machine (sometimes referred to as a 'bot') The purpose of the bot is to sit on your machine in a kind of "sleep" mode until it is awakened by a command from the network. When this command is received the bot's generally do 1 of two things:
1) does malicious activity to your machine
2) starts using your machine to attack another machine on the internet in coordination with a bunch of other 'bots' told to do the same thing at the same time.

#2 is the most poular...example when a site goes down due to "DoS" or denial of service....what is typically happening is multiple bots have been triggered to flood the site being attacked with network requests/traffic. Most times the machines that the bots are running on are not affected and many users never realize they were unwilling participants.

The problem (one of many) that is commonly exploited by hackers is that it does not verify the integrity of the programs running on your machine. For example, most firewalls will identify any program that it hasn't been told to ignore when the program runs on your machine. For example, if it doesn't recognize the program "foo.exe" when the program foo.exe starts the firewall will tell you. The exploit is that as a hacker I can rename my program to be called something like "explorer.exe" and Balck Ice will not be able to distinguish it from the legitimate program with the same name "explorer.exe" that is required to be running when you run windows. This is referred to as "spoofing".

Firewall programs like zone alarm and tiny personal firewall are able to detect spoofing by looking at the "digital fingerprint" of the program in addition to the name. Therefore to use the example above...even if I renamed my bot program foo.exe to have the new name of explorer.exe, the fingerprint of the program would be different and detected by the firewall software. Black Ice is not able to check for this/do this and this is just one of the issues with black ice

I tried to take this out of computer-geek-speak and put this in layman's terms....hope this helps!

Greg D