"RosalieM" said in
Anyway no place to pile up motherboards if i put ethernet nic in each
one that's why usb.
Since you'll need a video card to boot the systems anyway, you'll
already have to account for the height of that card above the
motherboard, so the height of a NIC (Network Interface Card) won't
change the height requirement. Also, many motherboards now come with
onboard network controllers and onboard video but then onboard video has
been available for longer than onboard network controllers. However, I
suspect what you meant to ask is that you have 17 *old* and existing
motherboards that you are somehow trying to connect but not in a
standard Ethernet network. That probably means you'll need video cards
in each one which will incur a height penalty from the motherboard, and
you incur no additional height penalty in using a NIC.
Regarding Alien's suggestion to use the product at his/her provided
link, that only has 2 connectors, both of which go to a USB port on a
computer. The bulge in the middle of the cable is an inline hub. Since
you can only connect 2 computers with this product, and since there are
no other connections to this cable, the "networking" of 17 PCs is
dubious, especially since the page referred to provides no decent
information or documentation. What Alien's link shows is a USB bridge
(
http://www.usb.org/faq/ans5#q6), not a USB-to-Ethernet adapter. I
suppose you could try their other product at
http://www.bona.com.tw:8888/pc/usblan-20.htm which is a USB-to-Ethernet
adapter. You would then connect it to a switch or hub. You could
connect together as many motherboards using USB-to-Ethernet adapters as
there were ports in the switch or hub, but you can also cascade switches
or hubs together in a hierarchical tree to up the number of ports.
However, this company can't figure out the specs for its own hardware.
They claim it is USB 2.0 compliant (480Mbps) and will support up to
100Mbps Ethernet yet they also claim the max USB transfer rate is only
12Mbps which means it is only USB 1.0/1.1 compliant. It may be USB 2.0
protocol compliant but it is only USB 1.1 hardware compliant. Look for
a product from someone else who can at least keep their specifications
matched. From
http://snipurl.com/usb_to_ethernet, you'll spend almost
as much on a USB-to-Etherner converter as you will on an Ethernet 10/100
NIC (
http://snipurl.com/dlink_nic).
If the motherboard already has an onboard network controller, you won't
need the USB-to-Ethernet converter. Just connect the motherboard's
RJ-45 connector to the Ethernet switch or hub.
