NIC with internal cable; how to remove?

[TerryP]

If no one knew before now that hardware is not my specialty, this will probably show it <_<.


I was planning on transferring my xl (http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=xl&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=OpenBSD+Current&arch=i386&format=html) interface to a new system along with my installation when I ran into a little issue.


When I went to remove the card from it's pci slot, I noticed that there was a cable going from the 3com card to the motherboards daughter. I've never seen this before and it doesn't look friendly to being disconnected. So I plugged in a wireless adapter into the target machine for right now.


Is this cable removable without breaking it?


(see attached image)


and what the hell is it plugged into if anyone might know?


I haven't been able to find anything useful in the pdf files on the web for this computer.. It's a hand me down PC so I have no printed manuals with this system.


This is the only wired NIC I have to spare and proven to be well supported for ages, so I'm being paranoid!

[BSDfan666]

That's the WoL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake-on-LAN) connector, it's perfectly normal... basically, if you have the functionality enabled in BIOS you can "wake up" a computer on your LAN by sending a special packet.

You may notice a small LED on your motherboard stays on even when the power is "off", with ATX systems.. the power isn't ever fully off unless you have a switch on the back of the PSU.

Just pull the wire, it'll disconnect, it's an entirely optional feature. :)

(It's connected to your motherboard.)

[18Googol2]

It is power cable. Seriously, how hard to pull the cable out mate?

The card looks very old too me. Investing a few bucks on a PCI gigabit NIC is not a bad idea (should be ~$10 posted)

You should probably get into hardware a bit more mate (but not too much). It is lot of FUN :D

Edit: To my best knowledge I dont think it is WoL cable. The entire WoL feature is normally integrated within the NIC chipset. The yellow, red and black wires are typical indicator of a power cable. Also, in many laptops I see similar cable and its purely for power.

[BSDfan666]

It is a WoL cable 18Googol2, older systems did require the 3 wire special cable... only later systems/cards offered the functionality over the PCI bus.

If you read the WoL Wikipedia article, it even mentions this.

Do your research. ;)

[Nirbo]

Reading the thread name I was like, "WTF? Cable inside a computer? How does it get to the router/modem?" Then again, I drink :O

But yeah, WoL :O. I've never actually seen a machine with the cable, but I've owned a couple that had the pins on the Mobo :p

[TerryP]

> (It's connected to your motherboard.)


Haha I asked for that, didn't I :D


I know that modern systems usually sit at ACPI state G2 as long as the power cables plugged into the socket but I never thought about the machines Wake on LAN support.


The only stuff I've seen that needs a cable is stuff that draws to much to get it from the PCI bus but this is the only system I've worked on that is "old".


Just pull the wire, it'll disconnect, it's an entirely optional feature. :)

It is power cable. Seriously, how hard to pull the cable out mate?


When you don't know about that type of connector and used to $0/mo income paranoia is natural ^_^



The card looks very old too me. Investing a few bucks on a PCI gigabit NIC is not a bad idea (should be ~$10 posted)



It was free and it works well, so I ain't gonna complain about age ;-) Most NICs I've seen here start are like ~$20 to $50 and my equipment here has 100mb for the lowest common denominator. So no point in upgrading, I just spent for 3 * ral(4) cards.



I like hardware and I find it very interesting but petty cash to expand on it is a bit of a problem. I can take apart the computers I have and put them back together quite easily but I'm always careful not to damage anything !


because I usually can't afford to replace stuff lol.


Yesterday I needed to hook up a CD-ROM drive for booting Knoppix (testing). I don't have the necessary mounting parts for the new case: so I hooked it up to the secondary IDE port on the mother board, plugged it into the PSU, and sandwiched the drive on top of the PSU between the case and the lid to keep it from falling.


My brain said "bad idea but best idea for now" but it got the job done. The cd-rom drive however is a luxury because the machine only needs a floppy and the HDDs ;-)

--
about the machine, if anyone is interested in her.

The computers old as dirt by todays hardware but she was a free one. When the husband of one of our clients heard that Ma wouldn't let me repartition our (then only) computer to install FreeBSD on for learning. He gave me one of the ones waiting to be disposed off by his wifes organization. Along with the 19" Nokia I'm using as a primary monitor ;-)


He was an IT guy so he got tapped when his other half needed computer work done lol.


My guess is that the box is an 1998-1998 office PC, when I got it the machine had XP Pro and Quicken, QuickBooks, or some other Q* named accounting app.

The TEAC CD-ROM drive I pulled out of her yesterday says the drive was manufactured June 1999 and it's running off PC100 for the RAM, so close enough I guess.

[18Googol2]

Hmm, I might be wrong. Perhaps this kind of technology had existed before I was born :D . So does the NIC still work if you pull the cable out, Terry?

[Carpetsmoker]

I'm pretty sure you're wrong ;)

The card looks very old too me. Investing a few bucks on a PCI gigabit NIC is not a bad idea (should be ~$10 posted)

It was free and it works well, so I ain't gonna complain about age ;-) Most NICs I've seen here start are like ~$20 to $50 and my equipment here has 100mb for the lowest common denominator. So no point in upgrading, I just spent for 3 * ral(4) cards.

His card looks like a 3C905C (a.k.a Fast Etherlink), which are pretty good/high quality cards, all my machines at home use this NIC, and almost all our machines at my old job used them, I never had a problem with any of them (performance or stability-wise).

[ai-danno]

His card looks like a 3C905C (a.k.a Fast Etherlink), which are pretty good/high quality cards, (performance or stability-wise).


... ah beat me to it! But I must say, I'd recognize a 3C905 anywhere... and that's because Carpetsmoker's right... they are high quality cards. A few years ago they we the defacto top card to have. So there's definitely nothing wrong with it unless you were going to go to Gigabit (which it definitely does not support.)

It's OBSD man page-
http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=xl&arch=i386&sektion=4

[TerryP]

The card works fine, gave it a yank on each end of the cabling and it pulled out. I even managed to get my files (http://sas-spidey01.livejournal.com/176812.html) off the machine using the NIC (warning; some explicit language), even though that wasn't my original idea.


I'm not sure if the Dell Dimension 4500 supports Wake on LAN but I don't need it, so no point in looking it up [yet] because I wouldn't use it even if I could on that board.


I don't know if a transition is worth it or not but I hope so. The HP Vli8 has a 500Mhz Katmai and 384MB of PC100 shared with the onboard Matrox G220. While the Dell has a 2Ghz Pentium 4 (likely a Willamette core imho) and 256MB of PC2100. The brute force of the P4 alone should be helpful for my plans hehe, OpenBSD stable :-) instead of release.


My current plan?


Now that the OpenBSD install is transferred, use it's own case to construct PC #4 as soon as I can buy anohter power cord xD.