Generic PCI Network Card in PowerPC Macintosh

[froggytreafrogg]

Hi, I own a PowerPC 6400/180 Desktop Macintosh. It does not have an Ethernet port and I cannot connect to the Internet. The computer does have two PCI slots and I would like to install a typical PCI 10/100 network card to the Mac. I pulled this card working from a Compaq PC. Would this Ethernet card work in my Mac? Thanks. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[madog]

The drivers for network cards would be limited with the version of the OS you are running. Also, even if you had ethernet on that machine, your options for browsing would be very limited. The browsers are very old and don't support many of the features web sites use today. No YouTube, for example.

Anywho, here's a card from We Love Macs for the 6400: WLM: 6400 Ethernet Card.

Here's the main page for 6400 networking adapters: WLM: 6400 Networking.

Maybe if the card you got from the PC matches the options that WLM's has for the 6400, then you could try it.

 

[Fishrrman]

RE: Generic PCI Network Card in PowerPC Macintosh

RE:
"I would like to install a typical PCI 10/100 network card to the Mac. I pulled this card working from a Compaq PC. Would this Ethernet card work in my Mac? Thanks. Any help would be greatly appreciated"

Does the card have any kind of markings on it as to who was the OEM manufacturer?

What OS are you using?

There are some 3rd-party PCI/Ethernet cards that had drivers available for OS 9 (the RealTek card comes to mind, and D-Link had one called the "DFE-530TX+" (the "+" on the end is VERY important, because they also sell one with no "+" that is NOT Mac-compatible).

I was using a D-Link in my old PowerMac 9600 with OS 9.2.2, worked fine.

The D-Link and RealTek cards _may_ be usable with OS X, not sure on that. You'd have to check around to see if a driver was available.

- John