PCMCIA Network card advice!!!

[ElectroBlaster]

Hi guys!

Ok i want to add ethernet to my 1200 and have been looking at these pcmcia nic cards and the reset fix I have to sort out!

I have a compatible list (which is a little bit out of date) so I have a pretty good idea which one's work and dont etc...

My local pc contact/supplier can get me this one:

CNet CNF401 10/100Mbps RJ45 32bit PCMCIA Network Card

I need to know if this is incompatible or if anyone knows any decent links on this subject!

//admin: please don't use direct signature in your post, configure your UserCP (http://eab.abime.net/usercp.php?s=) instead.

[Frog]

if it's NE2000 compatible then it should works. BTW no need to do hardware modification to get a reset card. Just grab CardReset on aminet.

[jmmijo]

Originally posted by Frog
if it's NE2000 compatible then it should works. BTW no need to do hardware modification to get a reset card. Just grab CardReset on aminet.

Good info frog, now, does this little app also work on other Amiga models?

[rgen]

I don't know this card but it should not work because you wrote it is a 32 bit card (cardbus interface ?) and Amiga's PCMCIA slots are only 16 bit interfaces !!!

[RetroMan]

.... and btw. not ALL Ne2000 compatible cards work on an A1200 :(

[ElectroBlaster]

So what your saying is it should be 16bit and when stocks of these cards dry up! the amiga 1200 is dead in the water as far as ethernet goes :( unless you buy an add on board like the AmigaOne etc...

all i want to do is network my 1200 to our pc's for file sharing!
i forgot about the pcmcia slot being only 16bit :(

why cant these 32bit cards be backwards compatible?

[Bloodwych]

You could try the parallel port solution. £15 and you get direct access to all your PC devices just like a true network.

For all the info you'll need, read this thread:

Parallel PC2Amiga network solution (http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3587)

If you have any questions regarding the above, then ask them here! :)

Here is a quote from the above thread containing some info on the subject (I love quoting myself! :) ) :


Well I’ve got the Amiga-PC parallel link-up kit and a Competition Pro this morning.

The Pro is built like a tank but a little stiff for my liking. I’m sure that either a few games of BattleSquadron (Novabombs) or showing it a picture of Margaret Thatcher will transform that newbie Comp Pro stiffness into putty in my hands.

The parallel linkup kit has been my best Amiga purchase for a long time. For a mere £15, I’ve got a decent PC-Amiga network pushing speeds of around 22-40 KBYTE/sec depending on if reading or writing! Best of all however is that my PC is now the Amigas bitch , with the miggi being the master and the PC the dominated slave.

I’m very impressed with the software. A simple Pcdrive icon on my WB gives me direct access to all the PC drives for reading, writing or extra storage space. Brilliant!! The simplicity and power of the Amiga WB always amazes me.

[ElectroBlaster]

You could try the parallel port solution. £15 and you get direct access to all your PC devices just like a true network.

Nah m8! ive been down this route already and its just to dam unreliable for me :( my amiga worked fine the other day and now pc2amiga is dead again??????????

it just wont work this time! it keeps timing out? same settings as the other day too. im whacking workbench back on but i know it wont last if it works again :(

its time for a REAL network where it will work everytime i need it.

[Bloodwych]

Oh someone slap me! :rolleyes How could I forget your "PC2Ami problems" thread I posted in a couple of days ago! :confused

Please forgive my pathetic idiocy electro! Sometimes I read threads without looking who posted them.

*hits himself several times*

Yep, that's better. :D

[RetroMan]

Try to get a Fiberline 4680 (hope that´s the right one ;) ) ! It´s really cheap and definitely works with the A1200 ! Or try to get one of that compatability list you got from ebay, should be really cheap :)

[ElectroBlaster]

Hey Blood! no worrys old chap :) if it works for you then dont change it... just ive had bad luck with it :( but then again this is the one from Aminet, not the kit you bought m8!

RetroMan
have you got any links for this card m8? sounds like you had good luck with it :)

[RetroMan]

Sorry, but I don´t use that one ;) I got myself a noname PCMCIA 10MBit card and it works fine, but I know the Fiberline works cause a lot of people report it does :D

[ElectroBlaster]

where did you get your card m8?

has it got any numbers on it...

[RetroMan]

Nope :( It is a really NONAME card !! Only thing on the front side is "10 Base Ethernet" and "PC CARD" and I bough it at a local dealer for my Laptop, but found out it works on my A1200 :)

[Frog]

Originally posted by jmmijo




Good info frog, now, does this little app also work on other Amiga models?

Well, the CardReset.readme tell it need an A600/A1200.

Oh and about the network card itself, you can find useful (?) info on cnetdevice archive. Here is a link with latest cnetdevice : http://adsl-100-156.kymp.net/~p/sw/cnetdevice-1.7.lha

[Akira]

Here goes an advice and a request for help, at the same time :)

3Com cards wont work. They have plastic thing on their borders that wont make it fit onto the lsot. Seems they dont like to follow PCMCIA2.0 standards :P

Any other card you guys can recommend me?

[fiath]

Originally posted by Frog
if it's NE2000 compatible then it should works. BTW no need to do hardware modification to get a reset card. Just grab CardReset on aminet.

Or you can just pull the PCMCIA Card out and put it back in again after booting up for the first time like I do. :)

Originally posted by ElectroBlaster
So what your saying is it should be 16bit and when stocks of these cards dry up! the amiga 1200 is dead in the water as far as ethernet goes :( unless you buy an add on board like the AmigaOne etc...


I bought my PCMCIA ethernet card on eBay for £20 - they are tons of them about - don't worry about them drying up - mine was brand new! (16-bit ones are cheaper I guess)

Originally posted by Akira

Any other card you guys can recommend me?

The card I bought is a "Kingston KNE-PC2T", and it works flawlessly!

I can not recommend it enough - basically because it works :)

[Bloodwych]

How fast is the connection using these cards and a 020 A1200 on read/write?

EDIT: I've just read speeds are around 350K/s. Sound right?

[fiath]

Well, I currently only use Amiga ethernet to FTP CAPS dumps over to my PC. Therefore I only use FTP programs.

System config (and the only one I have tried):

Amiga 1200 /w Blizzard 030@50Mhz
Genesis TCP/IP (the one that comes with OS3.9)
Transferring off a 3.5" 540Mb HD

In SimpleFTP I get about 40 Kbytes/s (!!!)
In GUI-FTP I get 250Kbytes/s

So you see the speed very much depends on your software as well as your hardware. However it would probably be a lot faster transferring from RAM.

Problem is - GUI-FTP does not support transferring multiple files stupidly enough. Can anyone recommend a better FTP program?

- Aha! I just found "ncFTP" for the Amiga... I use this at work - it rocks - and is meant to be the fastest Amiga client... I will test this soon.

Anyway believe me, once you have tasted even 250 Kbytes/s - you will never be able to go back :)

[RetroMan]

@fiath

How about installing SMB-Connect on your Amiga and mount your PC Drives on your Miggy :) Then you won´t need ANY ftp programm anymore and can even use your PC´s CDRom :D

[Bloodwych]

Well, for those of you interested the compatible card (kingston) mentioned above can be found on ebay:


Link (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2015011302)
Link 2 (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2014294609)
Link 3 (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2014294606)

:)

[fiath]

Originally posted by RetroMan

How about installing SMB-Connect on your Amiga and mount your PC Drives on your Miggy :) Then you won´t need ANY ftp programm anymore and can even use your PC´s CDRom :D

Samba? Yeah, I thought about doing that. But I could not be bothered to configure it - if it is the same as the Linux samba anyway - have you used it?

[fiath]

Originally posted by Bloodwych
Well, for those of you interested the compatible card (kingston) mentioned above can be found on ebay:


Link (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2015011302)

:)

FYI: This guy (david@ukmemory.com) is where I bought mine from - very professional (I think they are actually a shop) so they come recommended from me! :)

Shame it has ended - I think they must sell them quite regularly though...

[RetroMan]

Originally posted by fiath
Samba? Yeah, I thought about doing that. But I could not be bothered to configure it - if it is the same as the Linux samba anyway - have you used it?
Nope :) Not Samba !! It´s really called SMB-Connect and is used to mount your shared PC Drive on the Miggy, if you would install Samba on your Amiga, it´s the other way around, you could then read your Amiga HD on your PC ;)

[fiath]

Ah! I see! Right, I will have a look into that - thanks!

[Bloodwych]

Electroblaster, did you win the auction above?

Can't help but notice you've just started a thread saying you’ve acquired a compatible card! :) :laugh

[ElectroBlaster]

Hi blood!

no i went to my local Pwee Cee shoppe and bought an Apollo MQ4EC2T card....but it wont talk to the pc???? cnet.device reports the card ok aswell?

it trys to but fails.. and the plug part that fits into the card is a bit dodgy :( i will have to take it back!

[Bloodwych]

Well if all else fails there are 2 more Kingston retail cards up for grabs at the following links on ebay:

Link 2 (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2014294609)
Link 3 (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2014294606)

Plus that david@ukmemory.com probably has more lying around. :)

Only £10 + £4 P&P. Not bad! PCI ethernet cards are about £7 + £4 P&P so overall a cheap network option. Might get round to doing it myself sometime, but for the moment PCtoAmi is just fine. :)

EDIT:david certainly does have a big crate of these cards! He's put up another lot:

Link 4 (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2016207900)

[fiath]

Originally posted by ElectroBlaster

no i went to my local Pwee Cee shoppe and bought an Apollo MQ4EC2T card....but it wont talk to the pc???? cnet.device reports the card ok aswell?

it trys to but fails.. and the plug part that fits into the card is a bit dodgy :( i will have to take it back!

Silly questions maybe, but what do you mean by it fails to connect to the PC?

What TCP/IP stack are you using?
Have you set up your network parameters right?
What have you set up as your IP's Net Masks, etc.

If your card is working okay, I doubt you will need to take it back...

(oh - and those plugs are *always* dodgy :) One of the most badly designed things ever IMO.)

[tomcat666]

I use SMB-Connect to connect my amiga to the PC and it works about 1 out of 10 times I try... Whatever settings I use it is almost cetain to Guru on me ... even on the totally clean boot. But when it doesn't guru it works VERY well :) Luckyly I only use it to backup stuff from amiga->pc.

Anyone knows what might be wrong ? I would use it more if it wouldn't guru so much.

Ah, the TCP/IP stack that I use is MIAMI (latest).

[RetroMan]

Well, I use MIAMI too with SMB-Connect and I never had any problems with Guru or anything like that :confused

[Bloodwych]

Is all this software free and on Aminet Retro? Do you get drive access of the PC for transferring files?

How fast is your connection?

[tomcat666]

Retroman, could you send me your version of SMB-Connect (if it is not the one on aminet) ? I think the problem might be the PCMCIA card though, I need to find another one to test this.

[ElectroBlaster]

Just to update on this network! its been running 100% ever since I set it up! I love it :D

I got a kingston KNE-PC20 10mbit card running sweet, never get any crashes and its fast! I also bought one of those hub's and now we have 2 main pc's linked up with a third that can be plugged in when its needed or for when my m8's drop round wanting amiga games :)

[stainy]

Nice.

I`m going into my local shop on Saturday to see what they got in the way of pcmcia cards..

Now all I need is someone toput another monitor or tv.. for my A1200 ! hmmppfff

as a last resort, I could use the rf in on my tv card, and use that!

[ElectroBlaster]

Funny enougth i have been using my tv-card for that exact purpose m8!

it works great for me :) but dont use the RF output! use the composite plug instead.... the picture is cleaner :)

[stainy]

Yes, well done man... I have one of those too :)
ok it`s settled then :)

[stainy]

oops

[stainy]

hmm thought I`d get a cleaner picture with the composite out from the A1200..


any way of getting it better?

[ElectroBlaster]

suppose you could try the RF instead! just i found the composite signal better on my setup!

the only real way is to get a monitor for the amiga.