ABIT IS7 with "crippled" 3C940 Gigabit Ethernet?!

[FDTzeng]

I have an ABIT IS7 Regular NOT the IS7-G but the 3COM chip on my board has 940-MV00 printed on it which is the same chip used on the P4C800 for Gigabit Ethernet. The IS7 Regular is not supposed to have Gigabit Ethernet though...

However, when I install the drivers off the ABIT CD, it says 3COM Gigabit NIC. Also if I use the drivers off the ABIT site (version 42) - it shows up as a 3C940 which supposedly has Gigabit functionality. (I also tried the version 44 from ASUS's site and got the same result. Could it be possible that they just somehow disabled the Gigabit ethernet function of this chip? Is there some way for me to "cheat" ABIT and get Gigabit functionality?

Also if I CAN get it, how do I know if I have Gigabit ethernet enabled? Windows Task Manager>Networking Tab says that the connection Speed is only 100Mbps...

Intel P4 2.4C @ ???, ABIT IS7, Stock Intel HSF, 2x Kingston HyperX PC3000 256MB, Radeon 9700Pro<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by FDTzeng on 09/01/03 03:59 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[5eraph]

Head over here - <A HREF="http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/techspec.php?categories=1&model=79" target="_new">http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/techspec.php?categories=1&model=79</A>

If thats your mobo, then it doesnt have onboard gigabit ethernet

 

[grafixmonkey]

You'd need to have more than one computer on your network that has a gigabit card for starters, and assuming you want to connect to the internet too you'll need a gigabit switch. You can test if you have gigabit by connecting a normal Cat5-E or Cat6 cable between the two cards - they should connect that way since gigabit ports auto-sense the crossover status of the cable and set themselves accordingly. You should get "1Gb/s" if they are both gigabit.

Secondly, you'd need to have some way of transferring files that can even take advantage of gigabit... A single Raptor hard drive can transfer at 600 Megabit, so that's close... A typical normal hard drive can only transfer at 280 megabit or so, not a whole lot over 100 megabit, so don't expect things to go blazin' fast.

You'd also be extremely lucky if your internet connection could even transfer at 2 megabit. So don't expect your downloads to be uber fast just because you've increased your LAN's internal transfer time. You won't even find a cable modem or DSL modem that has a gigabit port on LAN side.