# internet slow..Realtek sucks...Opinions for new PCI NIC?



## Dru (Oct 13, 2009)

Hi all,

Finally got DSL to my house, and was able to get FreeBSD online finally, but Im noticing my internet seems kinda flaky and slow, I have a cheap DSl plan, so I dont expect it to be blazing fast though.

Id boot to another system, and try it, but FreeBSD is all I have anymore, lol. Just a week ago this thing booted Server 2003, Vista, OSX 10.4, and FreeBSD.







Pings on the LAN arent very fast, so that also makes me think its my Realtek.

Im using the (rl) driver.

Did some searching online last night, and I found lots of people having problems with Realtek and slow speeds in FreeBSD 7.0 +

ex:
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2008-June/177689.html

Im having a hard time trying to find just a plain old PCI NIC in the selection, thought I found one, but it used the (re) driver.

Think I wanna just stay away from anything using (rl) or (re).

http://www.freebsd.org/releases/7.2R/hardware.html#ETHERNET

Anyone happen to have a recommendation or a couple, on well supported, and smoothly working PCI NIC adapters listed there?

Usually I wouldnt even bother to ask, and do some more searching, but I picked up a Belkin F5D7000...I think it is, a couple weeks back, that the version 3 was supposed to have a Ralink chipset, but it turned out the stinking version 30001 that I bought ended up with a unsupported Broadcom shipset, so I figured Ill just ask and quit wasting time this go round, if I can. 

Thank you.


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## Dru (Oct 13, 2009)

bah nevermind, DutchDaemon..could you delete this thread please, its my sucky DSL speed, not the sorta sucky Realtek.


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## SirDice (Oct 13, 2009)

I figured as much.. Yeah, the realtek drivers aren't the best but they do work. 
I've got a 20Mbit ADSL2+ connection and nine times out of ten it's my internet connection that's acting up, not my realtek cards.

Ayway, probably the best supported cards (I could be wrong though) are the Intel cards. But they are somewhat more expensive compared to realtek. Having a great network card (or cards if you have multiple machines) won't do you much good if you connect those to a cheap $10 switch :e


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## Dru (Oct 13, 2009)

SirDice, yeah I got to checking after I posted, and realized .33Mb is around 330Kb, and thats about right, I should get more, but never expect advertised speeds. It was a late night last night building FF3, and deinstalling the supplied Linux compat, and installing the f10 version.

Thanks for the info about the Intel cards, I just have a Netgear modem router combo, and this one pc at home here, but over in the basement, I run a Gigabit network, with Milan Network Transition switches, those are all Windows servers running an Exchange cluster and load balanced front end, gotta have that sweet pushmail goodness for Windows Mobile phones.

Kinda babbling on, but hey..this might get deleted, and I dont get to talk about this stuff with many people, most I know in person just give me a blank stare.


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## Dru (Oct 13, 2009)

I guess I should note, that I was just pinging the router, when I mentioned LAN. It sure will be nice to be able to edit posts someday.


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## SirDice (Oct 13, 2009)

Dru said:
			
		

> I guess I should note, that I was just pinging the router, when I mentioned LAN. It sure will be nice to be able to edit posts someday.



You can, once you get past 10 posts and 10 days.


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## SirDice (Oct 13, 2009)

Dru said:
			
		

> Kinda babbling on, but hey..this might get deleted, and I dont get to talk about this stuff with many people, most I know in person just give me a blank stare.


The only stuff I've seen deleted here is spam, most will just stay. Someday there may be someone else with the exact same problem (or lack there off) and it'll pop up.

That's how things work on forums 

And I know all about those blank stares :OO


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## aragon (Oct 13, 2009)

SirDice said:
			
		

> Ayway, probably the best supported cards (I could be wrong though) are the Intel cards. But they are somewhat more expensive compared to realtek.


Yes, Intel NICs are nice.  The cheapest way of getting one is probably by getting an Intel motherboard, which IMHO happen to be the most dependable motherboards too.


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