I apologize if this has been discussed on this forum, but I couldn't find much info when I tried a search.

I have a Dell Inspiron 600m, and I've been using Suse 10.0 with no problems for almost a year. My ethernet card (broadcom 570 integrated) died recently. I'm pretty sure it's a hardware issue, since it doesn't work with windows anymore either. It does occasionally show up and work in either OS, making me think there is probably a loose pin somewhere or something like that...The problem is that it is integrated to the motherboard, and fixing it will probably be expensive, and I'm not capable of doing it myself. I do have wireless working flawlessly (intel2200), but I need the 'wired' connection too to be really productive at work...

So I guess my best solution is a PCMCIA card. I did get one from US Robotics, but couldn't get the driver to work (it is very old and couldn't even compile) with linux. Any suggestions/experience which brand/model of such a card works well with linux? Or installing any of them is a pain? There seem to be not too many on the market...

Thanks a lot!

Milos

I sold the laptop I used this card with, but at the time it worked with Mandrake, Debian, SUSE and Fedora with no config from me, it just worked. It was a D-Link DFE-670TXD. Worked with Gentoo once I think too, so I figured the driver is in the kernel already. I bought that card years and years ago though, I don't even know if they sell them anymore.

Best of luck...

David

Thank you very much for the quick reply! I just ordered a D-Link DFE-690TXD, I guess that's a more recent version. A reviewer of this one had the same issue as me and says it works...

I got the card yesterday and it works flawlessly, I only needed to detect it using YaST and set it up to load at boot. No need to install any drivers (I'm using SuSE 10.0). Thanks for the helpful advice!

Just one advice to anyone, this may be obvious to most people...if you have my problem and you're on say a school network, this card will have a different MAC address than the one you are registered with (the one built-in to your laptop) so you may need to contact your IT department and change it in your records, depends on the university policy I guess...

I also have a Dell Inspiron 600m and cannot establish an internet connection with ethernet cable hookup which is necessary from the college dorm room since there is no wireless signal available. The system has a Broadcom 570 controller. How did you install your US Robotics PCMCIA card in the Inspiron 600m?

Thanks for any suggestions that you can offer.

I also have a Dell Inspiron 600m and cannot establish an internet connection with ethernet cable hookup which is necessary from the college dorm room since there is no wireless signal available. The system has a Broadcom 570 controller. How did you install your US Robotics PCMCIA card in the Inspiron 600m?

Thanks for any suggestions that you can offer.

I returned the US Robotics card and got a D-link one which worked, as you can read from my other posts...I have switched to a Mac since then by the way, although the Inspiron is still alive and the D-link ethernet card still works.

Milos