The need for networking has clearly expanded beyond just large businesses. Today, more and more families have multiple PC's at home and small businesses are seeing the advantages of having an internal network. Much of the motivation is the ability to share a single internet connection among multiple computers.

D-Link, the largest manufacturer of hubs in the world and second in network cards, has seen this need in the networking market and answered with a number of networking kits. Their latest is the DFE-910 10/100 Network In A Box, which is specially targeted at the home and small office markets.

Specifications

DSH-5 Hub

Uplink Port

• 1 uplink port shared with port one

Transmission Speed of Ports

• 10Mb or 100Mb NWAY auto-negotiation on all ports

Standards Compliance

• IEEE 802.3 10Base-T Ethernet
• IEEE 802.3u 100Base-TX Class II Fast Ethernet repeater
• IEEE 802.3.1d spanning Tree

Cable Support

• 10Mb connections support Cat. 3, 4, 5 UTP or STP cabling
• 100Mb connections support Cat. 5 UTP or STP cabling

LED's Per Port

• Link/Rx
• Auto-Partition
• Port Speed (10/100Mbps)

LED's Per Device

• Power
• Collision (10/100Mbps)
• EXP/FDX

Cables

• 100Base-TX: 2-pair UTP Cat. 5 (100m)
• 10Base-T, 100Base-TX: EIA/TIA-586B 100-ohm screened twisted-pair (STP) (100m)
• 10Base-T: 2-pair UTP Cat. 3, 4, 5 (100m)

Dimensions

• 171 x 100 x 28mm (L x W x H)

Hardware

With the home and small office markets in mind, D-Link has packaged two 10/100 NIC's, a 5-port 10/100 hub, two 20 foot Category 5 cables, and MidPoint internet sharing software.

The NIC's are D-Link DFE-540TX and feature the ACPI compliant DL10040 PCI busmastering chipset. A wake on LAN header and cable is included for users whose motherboards support this feature. A standard RJ-45 connector on the back of the card provides the connection to the network. These cards auto sense a 10Mbps or 100Mbps connection for the greatest flexibility. Link and activity LED's on the back of the card provide some status information that can be useful when troubleshooting a network problem. The cards are tiny - some of the smallest PCI cards we've seen - and will fit fine in any PCI slot.

The hub is D-Link's DSH-5 10/100 5-port hub. There's an additional uplink port for network expansion through connection to another hub. Note that the uplink port and port 1 cannot be used simultaneously. All ports auto sense a 10Mbps or 100Mbps connection and, unlike some other hubs, both can exist simultaneously on the DSH-5. It's powered by an average sized AC adapter and features a small and relatively quiet fan to keep things cool. Each port has two link lights - one for a 10Mbps connection and the other for a 100Mbps connection. This link light will blink whenever there is activity on that port. Two collision lights, again one for 10Mbps and one for 100Mbps, provide collision information.

The DSH-5 hub also features a fairly unique expansion toggle switch. The default setting is "10/100 Dual" but can be switched over to "EXP." for increased expandability options. Set for "EXP," the distance between hubs can be increased and more than two fast ethernet hubs can be connected. However, when set as such, only 100Mbps connections can be made to the hub.

The entire kit includes a lifetime warranty and free tech support - no need to worry about failure here.

Installation

Hardware installation worked exactly as plug-n-play should - simply plug in the card, Windows 9x autodetects the device, and after inserting the driver diskette, you're up and running. Repeat for each machine and attach the cables to the hub. The hardest part will probably be running the cables unless you happen to have all the computers in the same room or cables already run.

A single manual does an excellent job covering the entire network kit setup, including installation of the appropriate network protocols and sharing of drives. The manual should be sufficient for beginners, while providing enough information for more advanced users. Additional manuals for the network cards and hub are included as well, but probably useful mainly for advanced users.

Complete drivers are included for Windows 9x, NT 4.0, NT 3.51, Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Netware, and even DOS. A DOS based diagnostics utility is also on the driver floppy diskette. Drivers for Windows 2000 should be available for download upon the release of that OS later this year. Using the Tulip driver, full Linux support is available as well.

Software

D-Link includes Midpoint Lite internet sharing software to allow all users on the network to access the internet over a single ISP connection. It's installation also went smoothly - simply click next repeatedly until it's done advertising the full version of Midpoint

Unlike NAT (network address translation) software that is becoming increasingly popular (and is included in Windows 98 SE and 2000), Midpoint acts more like a proxy server with specific configuration of each protocol to be used. Unlike some other proxy software, it does at least include a DHCP server to help configure client machines. Unlike some other internet sharing software, Midpoint is designed to be installed on just one PC at a time, which means only one PC can harbor the connection to the internet.

Midpoint can be configured to auto dial the modem when any computer on the network tries to access the internet. An activity log can be kept to monitor what sites are being browsed and help keep an on eye on those pesky kids ;) When in use, a small Midpoint window is always in the lower right of the screen. It will go behind any windows placed on top of it. This status window actually does something useful - provide internet connection speed information.

With a modem, no degradation in performance was noticed on any of the networked machines. Of course total bandwidth is still limited to what the modem can do, but each machine has the potential to attain full modem speeds if no other machines on the network are using up the bandwidth. CPU overhead was quite low - under 5% in most situations on a Celeron 300A. With 100Mbps of bandwidth on the network, don't expect the network to limit your internet connection speed from any client machine.

The software also works with xDSL, cable, and satellite connections. Note that a standard NIC dedicated to connecting to these services is usually required in addition to the NIC connection to the network.

All in all, NAT based internet sharing software is probably a better, more transparent bet than Midpoint Lite. Fortunately Windows 98 SE and 2000 both include NAT based internet sharing that works just fine with any internet connection and any network.

Also thrown in the box is a CD with demo's of Diablo and Warcraft - not the most current of games, and only demo's at that. As such, the game bundle will likely not be a major factor in choosing the DFE-910.

Performance

Performance was typical for a 100Base-T card. Transferring a 125MB file over the network in approximately 35 seconds. This translates into 3.6MB/s or 28.6Mbps - not exactly the advertised 100Mbps. Unfortunately, this is fairly typical of 100Base-T networks and should not be looked at as a major issue with the D-Link kit. During this transfer, CPU utilization hovered between 25 - 30%, which is again fairly typical for a busmaster PCI card.

Conclusion

The DFE-910 Network In A Box from D-Link is exactly what the name implies - a complete 100Mbps network in a box. As far as hardware goes, it does everything as expected and has no major short comings. The including internet sharing software could be better, but Windows 98 SE or 2000 would essentially resolve that problem with it's built in NAT based internet sharing. Available for about $120, it provides a very cost effective solution for anyone looking to setup a standard ethernet network. With a lifetime warranty and free tech support, it's hard to pass this one up.