Netgear FA-310TX 10/100Mbps Fast Ethernet PCI Card

Other products by Netgear

Product Details

Supplementary Guide [556kb PDF]

• Item Weight: 3.5 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00000J4L8
• Item model number: FA-310TX
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: January 16, 2006

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

Whether you're putting together a new network or just need to add a computer to your existing setup, 10/100Base-T Ethernet network interface cards (NICs) are the way to go for home and small-businesses use. The Netgear FA310TX skimps on a few advanced features we've seen with competing cards, but offers a low price that anyone on a tight budget will appreciate.

This NIC connects to a PCI slot on the motherboard, so it's quite easy to install. You just turn off the computer, seat the card in the PCI slot, connect the card to your network hub via a cable (not included), and turn on the PC. Windows will recognize the card and ask for drivers, which are supplied on an included floppy diskette. Customers with experience installing modems, video cards, or nearly any other internal PC device should have this card installed and working in under 20 minutes.

The FA310TX is a very basic card. Wake-On-LAN is not supported--there isn't even a connecter if you have an extra WOL cable lying around. There are five status lights that show various types of network activity and also let you know when collisions are happening. We didn't have any trouble with this easy-to-install card, and it would make a good choice for anyone looking to expand their network without breaking the bank. --T. Byrl Baker

Pros:

• PCI interface
• 10/100Base-T support at a reasonable price
• Easy installation
• Many status lights

Cons:

• No WOL support

Product Description

The NETGEAR FA310TX is an auto-sensing, 100BASE-TX Fast Ethernet PCI adapter designed to support the next generation multimedia power-applications. The NETGEAR adapter is like 2 products in 1 while it supports the 100BASE-TX 100 Mbps high-speed standard, it also runs in the pervasive 10BASE-T 10 Mbps mode. Moreover, the FA310TX is priced at a level comparable to many 10BASE-T only adapters removing any reason to buy 10 Mbps -only adapters even if there is no immediate plan to upgrade to 100 Mbps.Install the adapter once, and it will operate with either 10 Mbps 10BASE-T or 100 Mbps 100BASE-TX hubs or switches. Single network connection works at either speed - the FA310TX can be introduced in a 10 Mbps environment and later upgraded to 100 Mbps with no changes to the desktop. A graphical interface guides the user through the installation of software drivers and support files for all popular network operating systems. Plug-N-Play compliance enables the adapter to be automatically configured.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great performance, good variety of platforms supported, January 22, 2000

By	M. Gleason (Omaha, NE USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is Bay Networks (Netgear is their consumer line) implementation of the venerable DEC "Tulip" PCI ethernet chipset. There are many manufacturers of 10/100 cards that use Tulip, so you can go by price since they are all pretty much the same. That's what makes this card good -- it's one of the lower priced cards from a respected industry vendor.

Tulip cards are known for their low CPU utilization, high throughput and their ability to run on a variety of platforms. I have personally used this card with great success on Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris x86, Windows 95, 98, and NT.

I did dock one star however, and that's because their have been some minor problems with the drivers included on the driver diskettes. Those seem to have been fixed with subsequent releases, and the card itself wasn't to blame. If you do have problems, and you can use one of the other Tulip drivers included with your OS, such as the Digital DE500. In fact, Windows may autodetect it as an "Intel 21140 Fast Ethernet" or some such.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome Price, Great performance, September 12, 2000

By	Bryan S. Sampsel (Colorado Springs, CO United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have been using these little babies for the last couple of years...and they perform as well as 3COM 905's, fraction of the cost.

I'm a Systems/network Admin type--hardware, software,etc. I do most of it.

I have yet to run into problems I could peg on the card. I've run it under WinNT Server and Workstation 4.0, Win 2000 Pro, Windows 9x, and Linux. For a brief time, bad drivers were shipped with them, but Netgear corrected it.

These little babies are dual mode (10/100 speed) and Full Duplex (this is a good thing for you non-geeks out there).

The naysayers are blaming the wrong part of their PC with the criticisms I've read so far. I've run them in everything from Pentium Class TX motherboards up to PIII BX boards. No problems.

Buy it, you'll like it.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Netgear FA310TX is the best NIC on the market..., May 30, 2000

By	"bikerspade" (Franklin Park, Illinois) - See all my reviews

I would never recommend another network card... this card was perfectly detected by 2 verisons of Linux I have, as well as a copy of UNIX without any installation. The card is extremely reliable and my company has bought 20 without any problems, especially good for retail machines like COMPAQ's. PCI card requires no assigning IRQ's. Fast 100Mbps, and great support. Comes with a driver disk with any driver for any OS. Fully supported in Win2k as well... even better than the classic NE2000!