Dell ships with a 3COM card

[ddrchurch]

I'm planning to purchase 2 Dell Precision and 2 Dell Optiplex machines for a project. All of them have 3COM cards integrated. They all have Wake-up on LAN features. related to this, I have some questions that I was curious about:

1. What are the models of cards that they use? I called and left an email for a Dell sales rep to get back to me, but no one has. And since it's OEM, 3COM said they won't help me.
2. How hard is it to disable the wake-up feature?
3. Has anyone had any experience using another card in these machines in replacement of the integrated cards?

Thanks,
Don

 

[jimbopalmer]

When Dell first started this, the 100 meg side of the 10/100 did not work, It was not pronlem to add a PCI NIC. (the software issue is long resolved now, but you CAN us other cards.

Most of the Dells I see are 3c905B TX cards, no idea if that is still Current, Sorry. The one thing you can't give for your heart's desire is your heart. - Lois McMaster Bujold

 

[CharlesWMB]

All integrated NIC's in all Optiplex and Precision Dells built in the past year are 3COM 3C905B. The same model is built into Latitude laptops, but Inspirons use a different model and I don't know about Dimension. I have a network boot disk already built for them if you need one.

Disabling the wakeup feature is possible with a 3Com utility, available from their website or possibly from Dell's. Dell support should be able to help you there.

Disabling the internal NIC is done through the BIOS, or in Windows 2000 you can simply disable it from the Device Mangler. Adding a second NIC is not a problem, I have a Windows 2000 server and use the internal 10/100 NIC for VPN connections and a gigabit NIC for LAN traffic.

 

[Kurl75]

I have a bunch of Dell Latitude 810 and it comes with a generic named '3com 10/100 Mini-PCI' on the laptop itself. The docking station comes with the 3C905B. Both can be disabled with no difficulty although I have never tried to use another kind of NIC in its place (these ones work great)

If you are going to use the Network boot that Charles has made use the card on the laptop NOT the workstation. It works alot better for network authentication.

Jeremy Leasure
Systems Specialist

My suggestions are just that, suggestions.