I agree that USB-Ethernet is something very unstable depending basically what chipset is used. We should always preffer onboards an/or PCI cards rather than USB Ethernet.
I've tried 10 or more different chipsets, from the cheapest USD 0,99 chinese-unknown-brand like this one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-to-RJ45-Card-Lan-10-100-Ethernet-2012-Network-Adapter-very-good-quality-/110890960582?pt=US_Internal_Network_Cards&hash=item19d19dc6c6 to the great Linksys USB300M for USD 50,00 http://www.ebay.com/itm/CISCO-Linksys-USB300M-USB-to-Ethernet-Adapter-/230817307246?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35bdc89a6e It's funny, but i have some chinese 0,99 working great since 2009. The same adapter, phisically identical to eachother, bought all togheter from the same seller have 3 different chipsets inside. Two of them are not recognized by PFsense, the other chipset works only when you have a single USB-Ethernet adapter, if you plug a second one, the link status start to cycle up/down and the temperature goes very high. My conclusion is: It's ok if you use only one USB_Ethernet with a good chipset, but never use more than one. I found a stable and good one that costs USD 15,00 from Trendnet, it appear to be a good brand, good build quality and works well enough to use with multi-wan setup when you only need low speed for DSL/Cable links. I don't know exactly the speed you can get from those adapters, but don't forget that USB 2.0 can only achieve 420Mbps. http://www.amazon.com/TRENDnet-USB-100Mbps-Adapter-TU2-ET100/dp/B00007IFED My two cents. Seko ----- Original Message ----- From: "Scott Lambert" <[email protected]> To: "pfSense support and discussion" <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2012 12:57:59 PM Subject: Re: [pfSense] Low(ish) cost pfSense platforms On Mon, Jun 25, 2012 at 09:25:32PM -0400, Chris Buechler wrote: > On Mon, Jun 25, 2012 at 8:55 PM, Jim Thompson <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > It strikes me that if you only care about 10/100 Ethernet, you could also > > use a USB - Ethernet adapter. > > Not sure there are any with reliable drivers, though I haven't > experimented much at all with them, just going by user feedback. Those > who try them seem to consistently report they should be supported but > don't work (do things like constantly cycling NIC link), or they cause > kernel panics. Or they just aren't supported, they seem to be amongst > the hardest at finding something supported, thanks to vendors who > change chipsets without changing card model #s. I used a Linksys USB 10/100 ethernet adapter to talk a 6Mbps DSL connnection in a Multi-WAN setup on pfSense 1.2 for 2 years, 4 or 5 years ago. The machine no longer exists. We didn't notice any problems with it. YMMV. -- Scott Lambert KC5MLE Unix SysAdmin [email protected] _______________________________________________ List mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pfsense.org/mailman/listinfo/list
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