m1330 and gigabit ethernet.

I upgraded my router to a dlink that has wireless-n and it also has gigabit. Since the majority of the time I use my 1330 at home in my office hooked up to an external monitor, I wanted to get gigabit ethernet on it. The best option I found was to get an expresscard with gigabit, I ordered one the other day for $29.99 and it should be here soon. I'll let you guys know how well it works when it comes in, but I just wanted to check and see if anyone else is using a gigabit expresscard?

So, any gigabit expresscard users? If so, what brand of card do you have and how well does it work?

 

I thought the Broadcom Fast Ethernet was already gigabit?

 

Nope, fast ethernet is only 100Mbps. Sucks to have to get a card to handle gigabit, but I'll only be using it at home in my office, so I can handle unplugging it whenever I need to go on the road.

 

The M1330 by design wasn't meant to be chained to a tabletop. Dell likely assumed that an owner would use Wi-Fi network connectivity thats speed tops out at around the one hundred mark if you're lucky. So why would they incorporate a GigE port at extra expense when most of the userbase wouldn't use it?

No doubt it would have been a nice addition for those that do, but the M1330 isn't intended to be a desk jockey. The wired ethernet port that does exist on the machine is largely obligatory in my opinion.

 

I've had my m1330 for about 7 months now and I have yet to use the wired Ethernet port.

 

IM going to use the ethernet jack until I go to college... too lazy to buy a wireless router ....

 

For anyone who's tried to administer and troubleshoot a network, a wired ethernet port is quite useful. It is much more convenient to bring in a 4 lb machine into a server room, rather than having to leave a computer there.

The M133O is, anyways, perfectly suited to part time desk use with primary road use, and since there is no docking station for the M133O, Dell could have spent the extra $3 and made it Gig-E.

 

You raise an interesting and perfectly valid point, but I must comment that I have yet to meet an IT professional who uses a stylish XPS machine to do just about anything with a network. Come to think of it... I've yet to meet a stylish IT professional!

In all seriousness however, I entirely agree that for what little it would have cost they should have added it regardless.

 

I use an m1330 at work.....although I prefer to use my Eee when running to the server room as it's easier to carry with me / prop up to use.

 

whats the point of Gig E with a laptop anyway ?

Given the performance of the average laptop you wouldn't see any difference.

But of course the other big question is what are you connecting the laptop to?

A router?

To a DSL ? or Cable ?

Max performance 2-10Mbs ?

Pointless....

and I work for a networking company.....

 

Oi! I'm a stylish IT professional! I take offence at that

I was pretty annoyed that the M1530 didn't come with Gigabit. At Lans and in 6 months when I get my NAS idea sorted, gigabit will be a requirement unless Wireless N manages to surprise me

 

The reason I want Gig E, is because at home, I use the wired network to connect to my media center computer. My laptop only has the 64GB SSD, so I put all my downloads, videos, music, etc... on the media center in my den. It already has a Gig E card, so why not get Gig E on the laptop?

My Gig E card got here today, I'm trying to get it to work in Vista Ultimate x64 right now, I'll post back in a bit.

 

Sounds interesting. I'd want Gb-e as well if I were wired, though I can't imagine that 100Mb ethernet isn't sufficient, you could probably stream an HD movie to 3 different locations with it, depending on how it's encoded.

I'm going to do the same thing with the wireless N, that is keep user data on my server. That way I can wipe it clean whenever I feel like it and not worry about losing anything. I don't use more than 30GB or so of my current HD anyway, so I could keep it local if I wanted.

I'm going to do the Wireless N at 5GHz with 40MHz channel. I'll let you know how it goes if you're on the forum in a few weeks.

 

wait?!?!?! does that mean my m1530 has an ethernet port too?

 

bad news on the gig E card I got. It's a STLab Gigabit Expresscard, model C-341. I can't get it to work in Vista 64bit, keeps getting a code 10 (device couldn't start). I tried about 5 of the last drivers I could find, including the latest that mentioned Vista 64bit drivers, still code 10 everytime.

I guess I'll have to return it and research to see if the belkin can handle 64bit, or if a new docking station comes out that has GigE built in. I know there is one out already, but it's got bad reviews and it's around $200. This card was only $30, so I figured it was worth a shot.

Also, I normally have my Wireless N running and I hook up my 100Mbs wired and I noticed that both of them have a good bit of traffic when I monitor them. It looks like it's doing a good job of splitting the traffic between the 2. If anyone tries another gig E card let me know.

 

And what if you work with a large number of, and or sized, files on a Gig-E file server on a Gig-E LAN? Oh, and, since you travel often, your machine is an M133O and you are not assigned a desktop.

I certainly do see a point in having gig-E in a laptop like the M133O.

 

Great news, I installed SP1 tonight and the card is now working fine. I had to upgrade the drivers for the fingerprint reader to install SP1, so I'm not sure which change fixed it, maybe it was the fingerprint reader conflicting that was the whole problem. Either way, I'm happy to say that I now have a working gigabit expresscard on vista 64 bit edition.

For anyone that's looking for an inexpensive card, this http://sewelldirect.com/stlab-gigabit-ethernet-expresscard.asp is the card I got, it shipped fast also.

 

oh yeah, I forgot to mention the main reason I wanted it was to transfer movies and music from my media center to the laptop, the speed increase so far is huge. It transferred a 1.5GB movie from my media center to the laptop in around 30 seconds. I might play around with transferring the same files with each card just to test out the speed increase.