New PCI card on old motherboard

[larry moe 'n curly]

Doh! I wish I woulda read this thread Yesterday!

I bought a Netgear WG311 Wireless PCI card (PCI2.2) for Asus P2B-F
mobo (PCI2.1).. and it wouldn't even Boot!
..tried flashing mobo Bios.

I hope BestBuy takes it back, I opened it and everything.

So any folks here with Older motherboards... what solution worked for you?

I couldn't find any PCI wireless cards that worked with PCI 2.1 mobos
(every Socket 7 and Socket 370 mobo I tried), only PCI 2.2 or later.

I'm thinking of exchanging for a USB 802.11g Wireless adapter.
My mobo is only USB1.1 so transfer rate will be ~12Mbps ?
I think that should work.. since i only have the $14.95 Verizon
768/128 DSL.

12 Mbps won't hurt Internet speed at all, but transfers between your
computers are another matter, and USB 2.0 could help them a lot. Among
USB 2.0 cards, the best, least troublesome are based on one of the NEC
chips (large & square), and some PriceWatch.com dealers have them for
$10-15, delivered. However some dealers advertise NEC but deliver
something else. The next best cards are based on the VIA VT6212 chip
(oblong). VIA's older VT6202 chip isn't as fast and doesn't seem to
be as compatible. BTW, AFAIK only the VIA and NEC USB chips support
USB 2.0 with Windows 98 first edition; everything else requires at
least Win98SE.

If you live near a Fry's, you may want to consider a new mobo because
their CPU/mobo deals can be really cheap. For example, for the next
few hours they're offering a Socket 754 nForce3 mobo with retail boxed
AMD Sempron64 3100 for $60:

http://newspaperads.mercurynews.com

BTW, contrary to the documentation from nVidia, nForce chipsets don't
require Windows 2000 or XP for support of USB 2.0.

 

[max]

If you live near a Fry's, you may want to consider a new mobo because
their CPU/mobo deals can be really cheap. For example, for the next
few hours they're offering a Socket 754 nForce3 mobo with retail boxed
AMD Sempron64 3100 for $60:

http://newspaperads.mercurynews.com

A lot of those bottom-feeder Frys combos have PCChips MBs and similar.

If you don't mind using MBs like that, the price is right.

max

 

[larry moe 'n curly]

A lot of those bottom-feeder Frys combos have PCChips MBs and similar.

If you don't mind using MBs like that, the price is right.

Their cheapest advertised special usually includes an ECS mobo, but
once when it was for a PC Chips integrated mobo, I bought one, and it
failed after running MemTest86 for a few hours. The MOSFETs seemed to
run hotter than those on other mobos.

Even though ECS makes PC Chips, the mobos differ slightly, the most
important factor being the capacitors in the CPU voltage regulator,
with the ECS getting the better ones (not that OST brand is that good).

 

[tony22r]

thanks for the replies : o

At first I tried Belkin's (F5D7050) USB Wireless G Adapter.. it worke
but had some annoying quirks.
-USB wouldn't recognized on bootup sometimes, had to unplug/replu
USB
-the Belkin Wireless Monitor Utility wasn't very usefu
-sometimes it would roam around and connect to my neighbors' wireles
networks! Couldn't set a default network

Yesterday I exchanged for a D-Link (WUA-1340) USB Wireless G.. seem
to be working out

hmm.. $60 ain't bad for that.. ~1.80 GH

this is a 3rd/guest computer.. so was just trying to get it up w
minimum $ & hassle