Trick to using old ethernet cards on new switches?

[johnklos]

Many older NuBus / LC ethernet cards work fine with 100 Mbps and gigabit switches with auto negotiation. However, certain cards seem to not want to work. Some have a jumper which causes the link to stay on regardless of the physical connection.

Does anyone know how to make these cards work with standard 100 Mbps / gigabit switches?

For instance, I have a couple of Asante "MacCon LC-A" version 1.1 cards. I prefer to use them because they have a socket for the m68881 or m68882 FPU. However, I can't get a link on anything. Without the jumper, it gives a blinking link LED, and with it, it gives me a solid link LED, but nothing on the other end either way.

In the past I used to keep around 10 Mbps hubs just for connecting older machines with cards like these. Is this still the most straightforward way?

 

[cheesestraws]

I use a cheap managed switch for my network, which lets me have a block of ports where autonegotiation is turned off and the port is forced to be 10mbit.  It seems to work for me but I don't have any *really* abstruse network cards.

 

[Bolle]

I have an old Cisco 1800 for that. Let's me set port speed and duplex manually and worked with anything I could throw at it so far.

It makes some other fun stuff possible as well because it can still do AppleTalk with the correct IOS version installed.

For example I am running a MacIP gateway on that thing to get Macs online that are sitting behind my Asante Localtalk/Ethernet bridge.

 

[beachycove]

I think a dumb hub is still the smart way to go.

 

[olePigeon]

I have my trusty old blue Netgear 10/100.  Works as a great intermediary.

 

[MJ313]

I have my trusty old blue Netgear 10/100.  Works as a great intermediary.

Me too-- I have a little 5 porter that I got on sale eons ago. It has survived multiple purges so now it's just considered a rightful member of the family.

 

[olePigeon]

@MJ313  Ditto, but 8 port.  What's funny is that I have stacked on top of it an 8 port Netgear Gigabit managed PoE switch.  The cases are identical, they haven't changed them in all these years.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

[uyjulian]

If you connect to another computer using a crossover cable or network card that supports MDI-X, you can disable auto negotiation to allow the link to work.