RTL8169 GB Ethernet Card in Beige G3 with OSX?

[trag]

Anyone have a RealTek 8169 based gigabit ethernet card working in the Beige G3 under OSX? Specifically, 10.2.8?

The OS 8/9 drivers work great, so I know the hardware is good, but I just can't get the OSX drivers to work. They seem to install fine, but the card never shows up in "Network" panel of "System Preferences". The card appears in System Profiler just fine.

Thank you for any helpful or humorous advice or just entertaining maundering.

 

[coius]

It depends on the driver. most of the drivers for it was made for the intel mac (say what? PCI in an intel mac??)

Try the 10.3 drivers if it's there. I might have them so I could send those or put them up on my server. but that should get you started. Let me check my FTP server and send you the link. that should get it working (I have used a 8169 PCI Realtek card for a while in my machines, and I KNOW it works in OS X)

 

[coius]

try this:

http://www.realtek.com/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=13&PFid=4&Level=5&Conn=4&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false&Downloads=true

Down at the bottom is the 10.3 and 10.2 driver, You will need 10.2.8 minimum. So do the upgrades to 10.2.8

 

[trag]

try this:http://www.realtek.com/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=13&PFid=4&Level=5&Conn=4&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false&Downloads=true

Down at the bottom is the 10.3 and 10.2 driver, You will need 10.2.8 minimum. So do the upgrades to 10.2.8

Thank you, Coius. I didn't mention it, but I have those drivers, and those are the ones that I tried. And the machine has 10.2.8 installed. That's what I've been running.

It probably wouldn't hurt for me to download them again...

When I install them again, or install the later version, will the installer just write over the older version?

The other night when I was trying this, I tried reinstalling probably about a dozen times, but even though the installer never hiccoughed, the question in my mind was whether it was actually overwriting the previous installation attempt. I tried the 10.2, 10.3 and Tiger drivers, but they all had the same effect, which is to say, nothing. There is a rtl8169.kext in the extensions folder, but other than that, no apparent effect.

I see that you got the 8169 to work in OSX. Have you ever gotten it to work with 10.2.8? Maybe their 10.2 driver worked with earlier versions of 10.2, but not with .8 and then when they wrote their 10.3 version, maybe that didn't work with 10.2.n. It seems unlikely, but it would explain why I can't get this stinking thing to work.

My main goal is to get a bunch of files off of the Beige G3, so since the OS9 installation is working, I think I'll just use that. There is a part of me that wants to argue with the machine until the 8169 works under OSX, but for my immediate needs, it just isn't necessary.

 

[bibilit]

Did you ever have a try at 10.3 ?

I did and solved a lot of problems i used to have under Jaguar.

My own beige seems to be more responsive now.

 

[trag]

Did you ever have a try at 10.3 ?
I did and solved a lot of problems i used to have under Jaguar.

My own beige seems to be more responsive now.

No. I didn't want to mess with going beyond the officially supported OSs. And, really, my main goal here is to transfer the files off of this Beige prior to not using it any more. So I'd rather not go through an OS install, although, arguably, I've been through more headache than that already.

My Beige does seem very sluggish to respond to mouse clicks on menus and such under 10.2.8. I'm not in the habit of thinking of a 500 MHz G3 as slow. Perhaps I should be, but for just responding to mouse clicks in the menuing system?

I checked CPU and Activity Monitors, and nothing is eating up more than a few percent of CPU (the two monitors are the biggest users), but the thing is still sluggish under Jaguar.

The machine has just been acting as the iTunes server for the house, so sluggish response to the mouse was never a problem.

I'm still trying to decide whether to keep it or eject it from the house. It's my only Beige, but I don't really need a Beige...

 

[bibilit]

No. I didn't want to mess with going beyond the officially supported OSs

I can understand that, but arguably is just a way, for Apple, to sell new computers instead of giving the opportunity (for still usable ones) to keep it going.

my main goal here is to transfer the files off of this Beige prior to not using it any more

Will it be possible to use an enclosure for your HD and recover your files ? or use a Pci usb card to do the same.

I'm still trying to decide whether to keep it or eject it from the house. It's my only Beige, but I don't really need a Beige...

In last resort, can a school be interested ?

I collected a Beige a couple of weeks ago, don't needed a Beige either and was collected mainly because was loaded with 3 x 256 Mo sticks.

I probably will keep it now, as Panther was quite easy to install with the help of Xpostfacto, Panther is far superior to Jaguar for many things (including hardware compatibility)