3COM 3CSOHO100B-TX

by HP

Product Details

Product Manual [1.33mb PDF]

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Data Sheet [120kb PDF]

• Item Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• ASIN: B00006HY9Z
• Item model number: 3CSOHO100B-TX
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: January 18, 2006

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

The 3Com OfficeConnect 10/100 NIC helps give small offices the competitive advantages that large corporations get from their networks. Designed for Windows-based networks of up to 50 PCs, it delivers fast, reliable desktop connections for a price that fits small-business budgets.

Create powerful peer-to-peer or client/server LANs for sharing databases, sending e-mail, and supporting business applications. This Plug-and-Play NIC automatically senses and connects to 10 or 100 Mbps networks. The included 3Com Connection Assistant software is designed to ensure easy configuration and optimal performance.

Product Description

3COM 3CSOHO100B-TX Network Interface Card 100 Mbps 100 Base-TX PCI Office Connect Network Adapter Plug in Card

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Good card, works with XP, and great WOL, March 2, 2008

By 

Richard DeMar "mad scientist" (SW Florida, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 3COM 3CSOHO100B-TX (Electronics)

I am somewhat of a wannabe professional networking person, so I tend to get into situations like the following, which just happens to have earned this NIC about 1000 brownie pts as far as I am concerned:

I have two PCs and a laptop, all getting Internet and LAN via a Motorola cable modem fed into a WRT54G Linksys wireless router. I was all fine and happy with this system until I got to thinking how much I could do if I had the two PCs set up to make use of WOL (Wake on LAN) from S3 standby in Windows XP Professional. For those now totally lost, S3 standby puts a PC into a very low power state, but it can quickly be woken up to where it left off because the computer's memory remains powered. All you have to do is press a key or click the mouse, and in a few seconds your PC is right where you left it. This is GREAT for two reasons - one, it saves on your electric bill if you run your PC a LOT like I do, and two, it saves wear and tear on your components.

What caught my interest is that a PC can also be woken up from afar by sending a data packet to the PC over the Internet or LAN, which is great for me because I often use both my PCs remotely over the Internet (Do a search for Remote Administrator or z2 R2PC which is great for PDAs) and using the Wake on LAN method I can keep both PCs in S3, consuming less than a few watts each, and wake them up quickly with my cellphone to do whatever I need to do on them while away from home.... or so I thought.

The first problem was that Windows XP didn't like my plans at all, and the results were completely unreliable just in terms of placing the machine into standby and returning to normal use. The second problem was that the onboard Realtek NIC didn't want to wake the machine up half the time, and under certain conditions would stop trying totally until a reboot... which is kinda impossible remotely when you can't wake the machine up to start with. SO, a war began. I had 7 other PCI NICs in my parts boxes, believe it or not (preparedness is the key, you know), and I went through them all before I found one that was completely reliable for the purpose. The winner? Yes, you're right! The 3Com OfficeConnect 10/100 PCI networking card, or more appropriately, the 3CSOHO100B-TX. After resolving the Windows XP issues with a small app called MCE Standby Tool, and after disabling the onboard LAN interface, and after making sure all the BIOS settings were just so, I now have perfectly functional S3 standby with WOL. Sure, I had to cable the NIC to the router, but we all knew that was coming before we drove up so I accept that. I'm just really happy that my PC doesn't have to run all day when I only need it to run for a few minutes to access a file or a webcam feed.

Out of all seven cards I tried, only this one worked. Four of the others didn't even support WOL, and the two that did wouldn't wake via LAN at all. The drivers worked fine for me, the NIC is fast, it's PCI, it's reliable as hell, no problems so far except that if I ping the machine as it is going into standby, it goes into S3 and WOL won't work anymore. This was also a problem with the onboard LAN, so it's at least a common problem apparently. No other problems at all, period.

Oh, one more quick comment or two... this card is very low profile, so it may have a hidden benefit if you have to mount it close to another card that has a fan on it like modern video cards. It won't obstruct airflow nearly as bad as a larger card. I also should mention that I have used this card successfully with Windows 2000 and Windows 98 as well as Windows XP Pro SP2 (my current OS).

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My summary? I've always respected 3Com for their networking products, and rightly so. They always made great cards, and once again they've saved my butt and once I get another of these cards for the other PC, they'll be saving me a lot on my electric bill. Thank you 3Com!

Rick NightRunner417

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Watch Out!, November 20, 2003

By 

Ryan Kuester (West Point, NE United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 3COM 3CSOHO100B-TX (Electronics)

Watch out for this card. It does not have any Windows 9x drivers included, nor does it have drivers for any other OS. Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft... must have been some handshaking going on at the session layer when this card was made!