Give me your advice about the best NIC for my A2000

[Xanxi]

Hi my friends.

I am in the process in rebuilding my mighty A2000 for good. It will be eating electricity again in a few days now and will be full of rare and expensive boards (pictures to come)

I need advice about the best choice for a network card.
I have here:
- an HydraNet rev 1.1 zorro board
- an untested ARIADNE 1 which also comes with a parallel port
- a Deneb board that could be hooked to an USB-RJ45 adapter but obviously in Zorro 2 mode only (it would at least free a zorro slot for a VLab board)

Which solution would perform the faster and the better (i am thinking of a multiboot system with 3.1 and 2.04)?

Thanks for your help on that matter.

[tone007]

I've never had any problem with HydraNets.  Easiest if you've got one with an AUI connector though, unless you've got BNC connectors and terminators lying around and a hub/converter to go with them. The AUI to RJ45 converters are cheap.

The Deneb, since you already have it, would probably be the most cost effective if you felt like selling off the HydraNet.

[cv643d]

I would use the Ariadne 1, it is a stable, well known card.

Deneb solution I never managed to try, but if it is as fast as Ariadne 1 then no need to keep Ariadne 1 anymore.

[bbond007]

Hi my friends.

I am in the process in rebuilding my mighty A2000 for good. It will be eating electricity again in a few days now and will be full of rare and expensive boards (pictures to come)

I need advice about the best choice for a network card.
I have here:
- an HydraNet rev 1.1 zorro board
- an untested ARIADNE 1 which also comes with a parallel port
- a Deneb board that could be hooked to an USB-RJ45 adapter but obviously in Zorro 2 mode only (it would at least free a zorro slot for a VLab board)

Which solution would perform the faster and the better (i am thinking of a multiboot system with 3.1 and 2.04)?

Thanks for your help on that matter.

I had the Hydra back in the day. You'll need a AUI-> BNC adapter or I used a hub that had both RJ45 and one COAX.

I don't find an extra parallel port to be that useful. "untested", what if the parallel port is the only portion of that card that works?

I would go for the Deneb because its useful for other purposes as well. With  usbparallel.device, you could have dozens of USB parallel ports and a USB rocket launcher.

I don't think the Poseidon stack will work with 2.04. Maybe I'm wrong.

[save2600]

Even if you didn't already have a Deneb, I'd have recommended that anyway. Get yourself a cheap USB Ethernet adapter and you're all set. I use a similar setup in my A3000 and have used it in ZII mode on an A2000. Either saw little difference at all or might have even been a little bit faster vs. using a dedicated ethernet card and I had the X-Surf, which I gladly sold shortly after I discovered how slick Deneb handled networking  

[Xanxi]

Thanks for those advices.
As save2600 says the Deneb in zII mode is as fast as a real ethernet card, i will give it a try then.
About the transceiver, indeed i have a RJ45-AUI transceiver with the hydranet as it was the board i used some years ago.
I have not tested yet the Ariadne that i got last year but i though a parallel port could come handy for some ZIP drive or anything that wouldn't work with an amiga parallel port.

[mechy]

Hi my friends.

I am in the process in rebuilding my mighty A2000 for good. It will be eating electricity again in a few days now and will be full of rare and expensive boards (pictures to come)

I need advice about the best choice for a network card.
I have here:
- an HydraNet rev 1.1 zorro board
- an untested ARIADNE 1 which also comes with a parallel port
- a Deneb board that could be hooked to an USB-RJ45 adapter but obviously in Zorro 2 mode only (it would at least free a zorro slot for a VLab board)

Which solution would perform the faster and the better (i am thinking of a multiboot system with 3.1 and 2.04)?

Thanks for your help on that matter.

The ariadne1 is a excellent board, use it. Some hydra's had problems,but early ones mostly in some z3 machines(they are a bit slower than others). Deneb is a good investment regardless. Realise using ethernet thru the deneb on z2 is probabaly going to have some overhead. I've used the linksys mm200 dongles with deneb with no troubles.I seem to get roughly the same thruput as the true zorro card but it uses a bit more cpu. if u have the ariadne use it.add a deneb for everything else.

stick with 3.1 roms and workbench,i cant see anything 2.x would be needed for? if anything 1.3 for compatibility of old old old stuff might be more usefull.

mike

[magnetic]

xanxi

If you want to sell the Deneb, i'm in the market for one. Paypal ready!

[Damion]

I've used the Ariadne, Ariadne 2, A4066, and DENEB (with a Linksys USB 200M) the last few years. I'd recommend the Ariadne WRT the Zorro cards. If I already had a DENEB, I would say the 200M works great here, really no need to buy anything else. Here's a quick tcpspeed run between my A2000/060 and PC, with a wireless AP and router in the middle. CPU use was measured with Executive. (Miami is my preference for the Ariadne, but it doesn't work too well here with the DENEB - hence the lack of results.)

MiamiDX

Ariadne Send: 883 kB/s, 95% CPU
Ariadne Recv: 739 kB/s, 70% CPU

Genesis:

Ariadne Send: 826 kB/s, 80% CPU
Ariadne Recv: 817 kB/s, 75% CPU

DENEB Send: 926 kB/s, 90% CPU
DENEB Recv: 777 kB/s, 70% CPU