Sonnet Presto Gigabit PCI card vs. Realtek 8169S-32

[Schorschinjo]

Just to share an experience from the last days:

Last year I bought a Sonnet Presto PCI-Card to upgrade one of the PCI Macs to Gigabit.
Choosing a product from Sonnet, without prior verification, I suspected, that I will find drivers for MacOS9 more likely, than when I blindly chose any gigabit PCI card.

Unfortunately, I had to find out, that Sonnet only has drivers for MacOSX and not for MacOS9. So I put the card away.

Lately, I picked up the topic again and after some googling, I found, that cards with the Realtek chip RTL8169 will work under MacOS9 (and that a driver exists).

When the card arrived, I put it alongside the Sonnet card on my desk and found some similarities. See for yourself:


To the left is the Sonnet card, to the right is one, that was sold as "PCI Gigabit Ethernet Adapter Level One GNC-0105T, RJ-45, RTL8169S-32"

Very likely, the Sonnet card is pretty much the same as the Level One card. And even more likely, both are based on a reference design from Realtek.

So I suspect, the Sonnet card would work under MacOS9 using the drivers from Realtek (I did not yet try that myself)

BTW: Under MaxOSX, both cards work without the need for a driver.

 

[Phipli]

So the 8169 driver is available, but sometimes you have to hack it to make it work. Some companies changed the product manufacturer and device IDs so the driver doesn't recognise them. Its not too difficult to sort out. Basically most of my ethernet cards have that chip on them.

The only shame is that in OS9 they only work at 100baseT, but they do work as gigabit in Mac OS X.

See drivers here, plus instructions on how to hack them :

https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/realtek-rtl8169s-gigabit-ethernet-card-driver

 

[Powerbase]

So the 8169 driver is available, but sometimes you have to hack it to make it work. Some companies changed the product manufacturer and device IDs so the driver doesn't recognise them. Its not too difficult to sort out. Basically most of my ethernet cards have that chip on them.

The only shame is that in OS9 they only work at 100baseT, but they do work as gigabit in Mac OS X.

See drivers here, plus instructions on how to hack them :

https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/realtek-rtl8169s-gigabit-ethernet-card-driver

Are you sure? I have a 8169 card in my Powerbase and it connects to my gigabit network in OS 9. I doubt it can actually push that much data, though.

 

[Phipli]

Are you sure? I have a 8169 card in my Powerbase and it connects to my gigabit network in OS 9. I doubt it can actually push that much data, though.

A card running at 100Mbit still works on a gigabit network?

But yes, I am sure, look in System Profiler, it says the speed in there if I remember.

 

[Schorschinjo]

System Profiler does not show me infos regarding achieved link status (fields are just empty ( - ).
But when I look at the link status in the web ifc of my switch, it says, that it achieved 1000M link.

Looks like achieving link does not succeed on first try, but it seems, that auto negotiation is started over again and on second or third try, it gets a result of auto neg and keeps it.
Probably, depending on the switch on the other side of the cable, auto neg leads to different results.
Mine is a D-Link DGS-1210-24 (24 port, fan less, smart managed).

 

[Phipli]

System Profiler does not show me infos regarding achieved link status (fields are just empty ( - ).
But when I look at the link status in the web ifc of my switch, it says, that it achieved 1000M link.

Looks like achieving link does not succeed on first try, but it seems, that auto negotiation is started over again and on second or third try, it gets a result of auto neg and keeps it.
Probably, depending on the switch on the other side of the cable, auto neg leads to different results.
Mine is a D-Link DGS-1210-24 (24 port, fan less, smart managed).

In OS9 or X?

Stuff I've read and seen all says that those cards are 100Mb/s in OS9 and 1000Mb/s in OSX.

Perhaps you have a better driver than me what driver are you using?

 

[Schorschinjo]

In OS9 or X?
Perhaps you have a better driver than me what driver are you using?

With a booted OS 9.

Need to look up, which one I used...
The file/archive is called mac9x-8169(100).zip

Sorry, that I can't remember for sure, where I got it from. Likely from here:

https://everymac.com/mac-answers/mac-os-9-classic-support-faq/mac9x-8169(100).zip

which was linked here:

PowerMac G3 - One PCI slot left - Use it for SATA or Ethernet?

PowerMac G3 - One PCI slot left - Use it for SATA or Ethernet?

macos9lives.com