Mac SE/30 network problems

[tommijazz91]

Hello everyone!

I recently acquired a CNET technology cn470e PDS card, which I installed some days ago.

I wrote another post about it, but unfortunately no-one replied (https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/57586-se30-cnet-network-card/).

Probably the post is too dense and full of useless things... .

I am trying to surf the internet with the SE/30, but I am completely stuck.

I installed OT 1.3 and AppleShare 3.7.4, Netscape 2.02 and iCab 2.99 (freezes at startup).

The red LED is on (connection is good) but the greed LED is off (data being transmitted).

What do I do from here?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks a lot.

 

[nglevin]

Just standard questions for diagnosing a problem. Both your earlier post and this one don't say much about the exact errors that you're seeing:

What exactly is Netscape telling you when you try to connect to an http(not s) website? Don't expect much from trying to connect to any reasonably up to date website, https won't work with any old browser and even a standard website over http will likely be trying to send more data than you have the RAM allocated to Netscape to hold.

Judging by the screenshot, I assume this is System 7.5? The Apple community support forums say that 7.5 and later had some support for this card without third party drivers.

The switch in the back of the card (mentioned in the previous post) is probably for switching between the type of connection, usually something like industry standard Cat5 or coax.

 

[tommijazz91]

Thanks for replying!

At startup Netscape says: "Netscape was unable to create a network socket connection. There may be insufficient system resources or the network may be down (Reason: ) Try connecting again later or try restarting Netscape."

Then I press OK and whatever HTTP URL I type it comes up with the same phrase.

 

[Bolle]

What are your settings in the TCP/IP control panel?

 

[tommijazz91]

I manually entered 192.168.1.13 as IP, and 255.255.255.0 as subnet mask. As for the rest, I really don't know what to insert.

 

[nglevin]

If you have OpenTransport you are probably slightly better off using DHCP rather than manually entering an IPv4 address, then restarting the Mac to save your networking settings and get a new DHCP lease. That lets your router handle automatically configuring the Mac on your local network.

From that point, you can check your internet router (through its configuration settings? check the manual it shipped with) to see if the router can see the classic Mac. Anything from a Google Wifi to a Netlink router should have some control panel in the apps or software that it shipped with to see what devices are currently connected to it.

 

[tommijazz91]

Thanks! I'll do it as soon as I can! 

 

[Bolle]

Switch to DHCP. If your SE/30 gets an IP address assigned you know that the connection is working.

Ethernet does show up in the dropdown in TCP/IP control panel, correct? That would indicate that there is a driver for the network card loaded at all.

Keep in mind that most modern home networking gear does not play nicely with devices that don’t support auto-negotiating the connection speed.

Check if your router/switch has the option to manually set it to 10MBit/s half duplex on the port your SE/30 is connected to.

 

[tommijazz91]

Thanks @Bolle, I followed your instructions and I managed to connect to the internet with Netscape - evviva (as we say here  ). But unfortunately it crashed soon after, it's very buggy and same happens with iCab (it doesn't even start).

I had some luck with MacWeb, but that's it.

But in the end something works, and I'm very happy with the results so far, thanks to everyone here!

 

[nglevin]

It does help to give the browsers more RAM (highlight the apps in Finder, select "Get info" from the "File" menu, adjust the memory allocation as desired) and to have the very helpful Netscape Defrost extension installed.

The stability is a bit typical of iCab and Netscape. Though I find with the extension, more RAM allocation, disabling JavaScript, and configuring Netscape to not download images by default*, Netscape 2.02 works well enough.

I believe Netscape 2 is also a version that requires you to explicitly save your preferences through one of the menus.

 

[tommijazz91]

Thanks a lot @nglevin! Where can I edit the preferences about JavaScript and pictures? I can't seem to find them in Netscape 2.02.

 

[tommijazz91]

Oh, found them a second later 

 

[tommijazz91]

I tried again some hours later - Netscape works very few times, while MacWeb always works. But if I open Netscape as soon as I close MacWeb, it works more often. Could it be that Netscape likes to have an already transmitting connection?

The problem occurring is the same as before: "Netscape was unable to create a network socket connection".