Netgear's older Entry into the all-in-one Ethernet Home Networking Kits.
Written: Jun 29 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Reliable name. Good manufacturing.
Cons: Could pay a little more for a kit with a Switch instead of a Hub.
The Bottom Line: Not worth buying when the upgrade costs much less for a lot more performance.
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| grimjack2's Full Review: Netgear DB104 Network Starter Kit |
I bought this kit almost 2 years ago (August, 1999) and was only moderately pleased with it then. Today there are much better versions out. Yet, I'm surprised to see that this is still available at my local CompUSA. It's not necessarily a bad purchase, but with much better offerings sitting next to it, for only a little more money ($20), I'm surprised that they can still sell this at all!
Although there are a number of different ways to link computers together for your home, I prefer Ethernet. This is the fastest and most reliable connection available. The wireless networks do work, but the level of frustration with trying to keep a good signal, and their relatively slow transfer speed, overshadow the advantage of a lack of wires. The USB networks also have a slower speed then Ethernet, and have what I'm told is a safe limit of only 20' per cable. Ethernet can go over 300', which is long enough to connect machines in any home. Even if you go through the walls, or along the ceiling.
Many people want to build a small home network these days. The primary reason to connect your home computers together is usually so that all the machines in the home can share a broadband connection. Some people are probably sharing a regular phone line connection through their modems as well. Other people build the home network simply to share a printer, share files, or just to play games against one another.
The DB-104 comes with a Hub. Up until the beginning of this year, the majority of these kits didn't come with Switches, but instead only Hubs. Hubs look almost the same, and most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference in transfer performance with just two machines. Switches used to be much rarer, much more expensive and usually wouldn't come in anything less than 8 ports. All that seems to have changed sometime last year when I wasn't paying attention. Now, the performance difference is worth the very small price difference. The equivalent Netgear Switches seem to be only $20 more than this hub. A Hub takes all the information in and out through one channel (the uplink port can be the exception). If you have four machines on your hub and they are all transmitting data, the 100mb speed is divided among the machines needing the bandwidth. With a switch, each connection has a separate 100mb connection, so it is a much cleaner transfer of data, with fewer collisions.
The Netgear DB-104 kit comes with the following:
One Netgear DS-104 Hub
Two F-310 10/100mb network cards with driver disks
Two 25 foot Cat 5 cables (now they only come with 10 foot cables)
The entire package only costs $80 at my local CompUSA. If I were to buy the parts separately, the hub would cost $50, each network card $25 (upgraded to the F-311), and the cables are usually very overpriced at about $10 each. The saving for getting them all together in this kit is at least $40. You basically can get the $50 hub for only $10! This seems well worth it, and this setup is exactly what most people would usually need. However, for only $20 more, you can get the same thing with a Switch instead of a hub. In the long run, this is money well spent.
At home, I really only need maybe three foot cables, and both machines already had a network card, but only one was a 10/100. The other one was an older 10mb card with a BNC as well as a RJ port, and it worked fine when I tried the connections. Regardless, the whole kit was still a deal rather than buying the individual parts.
The DB-104 hub has four ports. There is a toggle button that will let you switch the far right one between being an uplink port or a standard 10/100mb port. The other three are just your standard 10/100mb ports. There are lights letting you know when a connection has been made between the switch and a computer. There is a different light depending on whether or not it is a 100mb or 10mb connection. Since these sit over the ports very close to one another, and the text is so incredibly tiny, you really won't be able to tell which one you have unless you are very close, and have the different speed light lit up to compare. The hub will autosense 100mb speed if the network card will allow it.
There are also two rows of lights that represent send and receive bandwidth usage. The lights represent 1%, 10%, 20% and greater than 40% usage. These are helpful, but I doubt that average person can read the tiny letters, or realize what they mean. They will probably assume that each light represents 25% each.
Some of the larger hubs have an internal fan. The DB-104 has a metal case that acts as a heat-sink. This means that it gets very warm, very fast! This is actually uncomfortable to touch after about 15 minutes. I'm not kidding. It doesn't even seem to matter how much I'm using it, or how much I've transferred. It gets to a certain temperature and stays there for days. It makes me a little uncomfortable even leaving it sitting on top of my cable modem, or lying floppy disks on it! I wish the Hub had an on/off switch. Instead I have to unplug it when I want it to cool off.
I have been using this hub for almost two years, primarily by transferring files between my old machine with a CD burner on it, and my newer machine that has the cable modem attached. I don't like to keep the cable modem on the hub, because I don't need to access it from my other machine. Also, for security reasons. For just transferring files between two machines, I actually now use a cross-link Cat-5 cable. This works great, and I don't need to use the Hub until I need a third machine on the network.
The kit comes with F-310 network cards, which had an improved F-311 available at the time I purchased the kit. Actually, the F-311 cards are still in use today, so the one's I have aren't too different from Netgear's newer offerings. However, the F-310 had at least one out of the box problem, that I cannot believe the testers missed. What you don't want to do is have the network card in the computer, and a Cat-5 cable is plugged into the card, but then into a hub that is turned off, or else not plugged into anything. If you do this, the card will hang for about 90 seconds when you are booting up, and then you will get the NIC removed from the Control Panel System section. When you plug it back in and re-boot the computer, the operating system will 'detect new hardware' and you will have to let it re-install the drivers if you do not cancel. As soon as I saw this the evening that I installed them, I looked on their web site, and downloaded the newer drivers that fixed this exact problem. I'm glad it was fixed right away, but I'm angry that no one caught it right away!
The network cards do come with drivers for about a dozen operating systems, including Dos, Win 3.11, and various Unix versions. They install into any PCI slot and will use a single IRQ. They only have a port for a Cat 5 connection, having no BNC connector.
If I ever get another machine, or want to connect a laptop to my network, the extra two ports on the hub make this very easy. If I ever need more empty ports, I can always get another hub or switch to connect through the uplink port.
The reason that I find it almost impossible to recommend the DB-104 is because both Netgear and D-link have a competitive product that are each only $20 more, but give you much more in return. Both the D-link DFE 910 and the Netgear FB-105 come with Switches instead of hubs. The Netgear has one more port, and the D-link two more ports than the DB-104. The D-link has a lifetime warranty, while Netgear only offers five years (which should actually be well more than enough!). Either one is a worthy improvement over this Hub.
One interesting note is that the Netgear package only comes with two 10' cables now, instead of this kit's 25' ones.
If you see various version of this starter kit, here is the key to their product names:
D is a 10/100mb hub
S is a 10mb speed only hub
F is a 10/100mb Switch
The 3rd number represents the total number of ports on their Hub/Switch.
Here is my review of the Netgear FB-105:
http://www.epinions.com/content_28398489220
Here is my review of the D-link DFE 910:
http://www.epinions.com/content_27151470212
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
grimjack2
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Location: San Rafael, CA, Marin County
Reviews written: 181
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About Me:
Film is my favorite art form. I live a life of constant amelioration.
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