About network cards failures...

[hikaruichijo]

Hi, I'm curious if when cable network card fail, it is always the chip what' get's damaged? are there other pasive components than can get damaged?
I've seen a lot of integrated network cards fail, when the card is a realtek one, no problem but when it's another one, like an intel, 3com, broadcom... it's a shame and if it's a laptop it's is a real trouble.
Thanks.

[shovenose]

Re: About network cards failures...

Hi, I'm curious if when cable network card fail, it is always the chip what' get's damaged? are there other pasive components than can get damaged?
I've seen a lot of integrated network cards fail, when the card is a realtek one, no problem but when it's another one, like an intel, 3com, broadcom... it's a shame and if it's a laptop it's is a real trouble.
Thanks.

I've never ever seen a network card failure. I've heard/read people removing lightning-damaged NICs from motherboards when they were shorted and preventing the mobo from booting, but honestly 0 failures. Most NICs are really simple, so I image that yes, it's the actual chip that dies.

[hikaruichijo]

Re: About network cards failures...

I have an Asus A7N8X with the nvidia network card damaged, everytihing else works including the other integrated nic. And now I'm testing an old Compaq Evo N600c that has the intel nic damaged but everything else seens ok.
Replacing the nic chip itself it's more than dificult.

[R_J]

Re: About network cards failures...

You could also check the jack itself as it could be a magnetic type (has built in transformer) its possible it could be an open winding, jacks are easier to replace if thats the problem

[shovenose]

Re: About network cards failures...

I have an Asus A7N8X with the nvidia network card damaged, everytihing else works including the other integrated nic. And now I'm testing an old Compaq Evo N600c that has the intel nic damaged but everything else seens ok.
Replacing the nic chip itself it's more than dificult.

Simply removing it and using a pci-e card should suffice. I picked up a couple of these recently and they worked perfectly.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/200892532413...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

[hikaruichijo]

Re: About network cards failures...

Well, adding an expansión card to a desktop board is a common workaround but I was wondering if it was posible to repair the card because its integrated and on laptops like I said is a pain in the ass ....
Anyway I allways avoid realtek network card like they were fire....

[stj]

Re: About network cards failures...

that's my prefered card.

avoid SMC cards

[mariushm]

Re: About network cards failures...

We have brand name cards in reputable stores here starting from around $11, no need to hit eBay for them, here's just a couple as example

TP-Link 3468 : http://www.pcgarage.ro/placi-de-retea/tp-link/tg-3468/
Edimax EN-9260TXE V2 : http://www.pcgarage.ro/placi-de-rete...en-9260txe-v2/

Also worth mentioning, there's USB 3.0 network cards, with chips that can actually go up to 1gbps, not just usb 2.0 chips with usb 3 connector.
The ASIX AX88179 chip is probably the first that has built in usb 3 and they seem to work fine, here's just a couple of usb 3.0 adapters which should work fine :

Cable Matters SuperSpeed USB 3.0 to RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet Network Adapter in White : http://amzn.to/1qqh4km

Plugable USB 3.0 to 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN Network Adapter (ASIX AX88179 chipset, Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, Vista, XP, Linux, OS X, Chrome OS) : http://amzn.to/226Ldkf

They're also backwards compatible with USB 2.0 ... Could be great to have around, for example if you have an old laptop or a PC and you want to backup data from them before formatting drives or whatever.
The cpu usage would be a bit higher at high speeds compared to native pci or pci express cards but they're a decent alternative nevertheless.

[hikaruichijo]

Re: About network cards failures...

Well this is offtopic because I wanted to know if anybody repaired a damaged NIC.
But anyway I runaway fron any solution based on realtek/marvel etc... that kind of chips relly a lot on the cpu. They are a lot cheapper for some reason...

[hikaruichijo]

Re: About network cards failures...

You could also check the jack itself as it could be a magnetic type (has built in transformer) its possible it could be an open winding, jacks are easier to replace if thats the problem

The transformer is that tipical black rectangular component that is usually close to the NIC chip?

[stj]

Re: About network cards failures...

yes

[shovenose]

Re: About network cards failures...

Well this is offtopic because I wanted to know if anybody repaired a damaged NIC.
But anyway I runaway fron any solution based on realtek/marvel etc... that kind of chips relly a lot on the cpu. They are a lot cheapper for some reason...

lol... and that matters how when you have a multi-core processor?

[eccerr0r]

Re: About network cards failures...

I've had two NICs fail, two flaky NICs (one on PCI card, other onboard), one failed one that sort of still works, and rest have been very reliable. Not sure what's up with the onboard one (Realtek. Sometimes disappears from PCI table if you reboot computer, works fine on cold boot.)

[hikaruichijo]

Re: About network cards failures...

So this transformer is present on all old nics i've seen, what is the function it has? If the nic got damaged because a lightning is posible that this transformer got damaged not the chip?

[hikaruichijo]

Re: About network cards failures...

lol... and that matters how when you have a multi-core processor?

Well it's like when having and "hardware acelerated nic" or not, realtek chips send interuption requests to the cpu for a lot of thins and when the cpu get's interupted it does not do another things and a good nics don't do that, they have the hardware necesary to handle all the stuff necesary and only feed the cpu with the data.
When a cpu receives an IRQ request it doesn't matter a lot if it's multi core or not.
I'm don't have a good level of English and I can't explain it better sorry...
Maybe another forum member knows what I'm talking about and can explain it....

[eccerr0r]

Re: About network cards failures...

Much like in real life, interrupts are expensive. Realteks tend to require more of them to get any certain number of bytes through compared to more expensive chipsets that can handle mailbox/DMA. However on low utilization machines and OS that handles interrupts efficiently, this isn't that much of a problem.

That being said, most of my realteks work ok. Except that flaky motherboard and one PCI that fried its onboard LDO... These are both rtl8169 based...

[R_J]

Re: About network cards failures...

The transformer is internal to the jack itself. I repaired a fta receiver that someone replaced the jack on and just used a regular rj45 jack, I could never get better than a 10mb connection, I did some checking on another one I had and found it used a transformer type jack, I found one and installed it and now it connects at 100mb like it should. they are easly checked with a meter
I believe most motherboards use this kind of jack but I could be wrong
I just checked a couple motherboards and they use magnetic rj45 jacks. like this site http://www.btoptech.com/products/rj45-usb/91.html the transformer is internal

[hikaruichijo]

Re: About network cards failures...

So old cards have this transformer on the board an newer cards have it integrated on the jack itself.
That's a great step forward on what I was investigating.
But I still don't know what's the function of this tranformer.
I'm going to look if it's posible to buy this tranformers new.

P.D. I know that a lot of people would say that this is a way of lossing time but I have the tendency to loose time in this kind of thins, don't know why.

[stj]

Re: About network cards failures...

function of the transformer is to isolate each system from the network, and to increase the current of the signal at the expense of the voltage so as to boost the effective range.

[hikaruichijo]

Re: About network cards failures...

function of the transformer is to isolate each system from the network, and to increase the current of the signal at the expense of the voltage so as to boost the effective range.

Thanks a lot for the info!!

I'm testing the rj 45 jack on the board of the Compaq n600c and it seens to have the tranformer integrated an shorted because i don't see it on the board and the pins have continuity with the board.
I'm goinng to look for another boards to compare the results and look for another jack.