My MB onborad Ethernet quit working and the only other card I had came out of a 1999 Dell.
(the card 3Com EtherLink 10/100 NIC 3C905C-TX)). Is there a difference between the cards
they have out now a days to the older cards. I have been with Comcast for 5yrs and have been
using this card for about 6 mounth and my bandwith has gone up the last few mounths from 1200kb
down 800kb up to 8700kb down 4000kb up even with this card. Will the card I have be limiting my
speed for future speeds? Could I be getting enen faster speeds with a newer card?

Other question on settings
In Device Manager/Network Adapter/Advance Tab

802.1 suport: Disable
DoubleNego: Enable
Down Poll Rate: Value: 8 other setting: 64
Enh Lan Power Mgmt: Off
Flow Control: Enable
InitDelayCount: Value: 0 other settings: 0-60
LnkChk: Disable
Media Type: Hardware Defalt other settings: 10 Mb, Full Duluex
10 Mb, Half Dupex
100 Mb, Full Dupex
100 Mb, Half Duplex
AutoSelect
PHYCompat: Enable
RWU ARP: Disable
RWU Magic Pkt: Enable
RWU Ping: Disable
Rx Checksum Offload: Enable
Software Cable Detect: Off
Stdby RWU Magic Pkt: Enable
Stdby RWU Pattern: Enable
Tx Checksum Offload: Enable

would changing any or all these settings help in gaining more speed? I am not expirancing any
problems. But would like to know a little more about these settings and what if anything they do.
My Ethernet card is for internet only, I do not have a network and don't plain on having one in the
future.

Well in the future until we go fiber or something else 100 mbps should be fine considering most people max out at 10 mbps. You'll prolly have to upgrade your modem before your ethernet card. If you have a home network and wish to transfer files between computers quickly gigabit 1000 mbps is faster but you need two computers with those cards and a gigabit switch which can be pricey. In short I would just stick with what you have.

Thanks for the reply.

Only problem with gigabit routers, switches, NICs is that you will not get that kind of throughput. Your pipe is bigger and would allow more traffic but you're limited to our PC system hardware.

I have gigabit NIC and a gigabit switch however I can only transfer data across my network at the speed my Hard Drive controller and Hard Drive will allow. It's no way near a gig. However, when we play games across the LAN we don't get lag and network problems like we use to.

Just my 2 cents ....

The ethernet protocol hasn't changed since 1999. I am using an even older nic on my download computer with no problems.