Ethernet card help

[Michael G. Lohmeyer]

>In article <Ic7fs1y00WBM80zIcu at andrew.cmu.edu>, cy0q+ at andrew.cmu.edu (Chad O. Yoshikawa) writes:
> 
> I was planning on buying an ethernet card in the very near future(I have a II
> ci currently), and I was wondering if anyone could give me any advice on which
> one to buy?

     I don't know much about the ethernet cards sold by companies other
than Apple for A/UX machines, but I do know that the Rev. K or earlier
NuBus cards do not work well in a Mac IIci.  I had a problem with a Rev. K
board and was told by the 1-800 cust. support people that the older 
boards have problems with the IIci.  I got a new board, a Rev. M board, and
that helped out.  I have had other problems with my machine though (I believe
related to bad memory), so I don't now for sure how much of my troubles 
were related to the ethernet board, but I do know that my machine stopped
locking up after I got the new board (a major improvement in functionality :-).  
     I believe that at this point, no one should have to worry about the
older Rev. K boards because I think that Apple has been distributing the 
new boards for well over 6 months now.  I just thought I should mention it
in case someone gets a Rev K or earlier board for their Mac IIci.

     For those who are interested, the specific problem that I had when using
the Rev. K board was that at random times (seemingly related to network
usage), my machine would appear to lock up.  It was actually still working
though.  If I moved the mouse, the cursor would move, but it would only do
so every 20 to 30 seconds or so.  I could also type characters and every 20
to 30 seconds, they would apear on the screen.  Basically, it seemed like
the ethernet board was locking up the bus for 20 to 30 seconds at a time, and
then giving the CPU about a half of a second to do something before taking
the bus again.  The only effective way to get out of this situation was to 
reboot the machine.  Sometimes I couldn't even reboot the machine because 
of a hardware problem that wouldn't let the machine boot up to MacOS even.  
I believe now that this is related to bad memory.  Between the Rev. K 
ethernet board, the possible bad memory and software problems with A/UX, 
this machine has pretty much been a lemon.  I suppose that if I am right
about the memory being the cause of my current problems, then the machine
will no longer be a lemon, but right now, I don't trust it very much.

Mike
-------------
Mike Lohmeyer				mikel at berlioz.nsc.com
National Semiconductor Corporation
(408) 721-8075