Another network card

NetGear FA311 10/100 PCI RJ-45 NIC

There are only a few practical ways to evaluate a network card. And for most people the only concern is "Does it work ?". Combined with the fact that no same person is actually going to conduct test on multiple cards.

Installation
The FA311 is a half length PCI card, and it is not as tall as the PCI slot. This means the card can probably be placed in a slimline PC. The form factor makes it easy to get the card into and out of the expansion slots, it also makes the card a good neighbour in said expansion slots. The card does not require any special mounting hardware, nor does it come with any. The card also does not ship with any network cables, but that is to be expected. The card also did not ship with any screws which is kinda expected, but quite stupid. Most people do not have PC screws knocking around, I didn't.

After getting the card into the machine the next step is configuring the drivers that support the card. On my linux box this required compiling a kernel module to support the card, but the kernel source includes support for the card so this was not a problem. On Windows 2000, the card is automatically detected. I cannot recall if Windows includes the drivers, but the card does ship with a driver floppy. So installation is completed with a minimum of fuss. I did not check for or read any of the installation instructions, so I wont comment on them.

In my estimation installation should not be a problem for anyone who is comfortable opening a PC. Newbies I can't comment on.

On Windows 2000, and presumably higher, the card is installed without any manual reconfiguration of resources. Under linux, the card also went it without any fuss.

Reliability
I have used my FA311 for more than 6 months without any problem. It is attached to an old desktop that runs Linux and is used as a desktop and as a file server. I got the card for my cable internet connection and it is a reliable performer in that capacity

Performance
Maybe some day, I'll hook up IOMeter and give this card an IO stress test. But an informal test placed this cards performance as 40 % of a 100Mb pipe while copying small files.