Is this even possible?

Avder · Post by **Avder** » Wed Mar 17, 2004 11:04 pm

I might be picking up an old, old, OLD P-120 sometime soon. It has only one PCI slot and two ISA slots. In order to make it useable as say, a router, I'm thinking of putting a USB 2.0 Card in it so I could connect USB Wireless and 10/100 Devices. Would it be able to use a USB 2.0 Card effectivly if I got one for it? The reason I ask is because I seem to remember that the PCI Bus was revised at one point, and I'm not sure that this comp would have compatibility with the revised PCI spec, whichthe USB Card would undoubtedly use.

Warlock · Post by **Warlock** » Thu Mar 18, 2004 12:03 am

it might not work cause i think they require a 2.2 or 2.3 pci slot and that MB might be to old

but i could be wrong

also the system speed would cap u to much if the card works cause i installed a gigabit nic in my dual 400 server and its not fast enough to run it at full speed

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Thu Mar 18, 2004 12:59 am

PCI 2.1 is most likely needed.

I just bought a USB 2.0 card for work, it said it required a PCI 2.1 slot.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Thu Mar 18, 2004 1:20 am

I think there are 10baseT NICs with two RJ45 plugs on them. I'm not sure.

Admiral LSD · Post by **Admiral LSD** » Thu Mar 18, 2004 1:32 am

I be surprised if that motherboard didn't have at least PCI 2.1 slots. Hell, I have a 486 motherboard here with 2.1 compatible slots. So assuming that's what your card supports it should all work together nicely.

Avder · Post by **Avder** » Thu Mar 18, 2004 5:59 am

Well, the comp is reportedly an HP C110. As for the 10base card with two slots, that wouldnt be a problem, as I have a 10/100 PCI at my disposal, as well as a few ISA 10BaseT's. What I want USB for is the versatility in networking devices. Specifically, I want to be able to have two NIC's, a wireless device (802.11b for now, 802.11? in the future) as well as a v.9x Modem in it somehow (altho I bet I could still find a serial port version if I wanted to). If I cant get USB in this comp, I'd be limited to a 10/100, a 10, and a modem. I suspect that any PCI Wireless devices would also require the PCI 2.1 (or is it 1.2? A few tech-knowlageable friends on kali think its 1.2) spec.

I've looked up and down HP's site, even found a tech manual regarding the Cxxx series of HP computers, however I cant find any documentation regarding wether or not the PCI Slot in this comp is 2.1 or 1.2 or 365.247 or whatever. Should I go for this? If I cant get the USB2 card to work in this comp, I have another comp I could stick it in, altho I have another purpose for that comp and would rather not make my router of it.

Avder · Post by **Avder** » Fri Mar 19, 2004 7:00 am

*bump* Anyone have any further thoughts on this? Or is it essetially an "at your own risk" thing?

Warlock · Post by **Warlock** » Fri Mar 19, 2004 8:24 am

i say get the ubs card at a local stor so if it doesnt work u can just take it back.

it never herts to try

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Fri Mar 19, 2004 2:05 pm

See if you can find out what chipset that board is using.

Capm · Post by **Capm** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 6:33 pm

Alot of those old p120 systems support USB 1.0 and even have the pins on the mb for the connector. But don't use 2.0, it won't work, too new. The old usb is the best you are gonna do, if at all... There may or may not be an option to turn it on in the bios, also, if it has the pins

Avder · Post by **Avder** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 9:23 pm

It wouldnt really need an option in the BIOS if it was on its own self-Contained PCI card, right?

Anyway, I'm actually looking at a different solution. What kind of speed can an ISA 10/100 Pull? I'm thinking of getting a multi-mode Access Point that can function as a bridge (see other thread, comment on AP to use there please). So, what kind of speed can be expected from such a networking card? Surely one of you old fossils used and benchmarked an ISA 10/100

KompresZor · Post by **KompresZor** » Tue Mar 23, 2004 8:17 am

Vader.... the ISA 10/100 would pull either 10 or 100Mbps the same as any other 10/100 card

Warlock · Post by **Warlock** » Tue Mar 23, 2004 9:26 am

the card will hit that speed but the system speed will slow it down.

i have a dual P2 400 Server well it had a 10/100NIC in it and i upgraded it to 10/100/1000, well my point is this even though its running at 1gigabit it cant hit that high high speed cause the cpu and bus cant keep up with it. so the slower the system is the slower the enet will be.

Tricord · Post by **Tricord** » Tue Mar 23, 2004 11:54 am

What is your question in the end, then?
Can you use it as a router? Yes. I use a 486 33MHz with slow ISA nics as a router. Due to bandwidth limits on the ISA bus, I'm limited to 450k/sec transfer, but I'm happy with that. You don't need more to route a broadbandconnection either.

However, if you want more bandwidth, you need newer hardware. Seems pretty logic to me.

KompresZor · Post by **KompresZor** » Tue Mar 23, 2004 1:41 pm

KompresZor wrote:Vader.... the ISA 10/100 would pull either 10 or 100Mbps the same as any other 10/100 card

Duh... I was thinking a 16-bit ISA @ 8.33Mhz would be 133.28 Mbits/s, but that would be the max theoretical throughput. In real life you would be lucky to get half of that.
I'll go sit in the corner now.......

Avder · Post by **Avder** » Tue Mar 23, 2004 7:53 pm

My question was related to the perormance of a 10/100 nic trasnmitting THROUGH the old ISA Bus.

Theoretically I've got 100 megabits through the card....how many of those megabits do I have going through the ISA bus supposing the 10/100 is the only Device on he ISA bus?

DCrazy · Post by **DCrazy** » Tue Mar 23, 2004 8:07 pm

As K-man says, you could theoretically fit 133 Mbits through the pipe, which is greater than the 100 Mbits of bandwidth the network has. However, the machine is so slow that it will never be able to keep up with all that data, so you'll never truly get 100 Mbits going through the machine.

If you're trying to use it as a router for cable or DSL, that might not exactly be an issue, because the highest bandwidth I've ever seen on a residental connection is 8 Mbits/sec, and that was my own.

Tricord · Post by **Tricord** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 3:15 pm

I already gave you an answer:
450k/sec for two cards (the traffic passes twice on the bus). If you have only one ISA card (e.g. the other is PCI) you are looking at 900kbyte/sec max.