Alternative(s) to onboard LAN / NIC when WIRED ethernet is not working.

[DarfWeder]

This thread would not be to solve your problems with specific KEXTs, or with specific network interface devices, but rather to list alternatives known to work.

In my case I was experiencing some issues and just could not get a stable network connection in the sense that sometimes it would work when the system booted, at times it gave up during the internet browsing, and sometimes it wouldn't work at all. Renew of DHCP lease gave me all kinds of strange IP@ like 169.xxx.xxx.xxx and that meant to me it wasn't talking to my router.

Troubleshooting network for the lay man can be rather impossible. The MAC OS X app to troubleshoot the network does its best but I think that it doesn't reach the right conclusion in all cases. So, I was looking for more than one reason for an alternative, to work out of the box.

I decided to buy the Apple USB Ethernet dongle, by which one end is connected to your USB port, and the other end is a female RJ-45 standard network terminal, where you can connect your LAN cable to that eventually goes to your router or network.

The good thing about this dongle (originally meant for MACBOOK AIR without a RJ-45 socket) is that it does not need any driver, it works straight out of the plastic. (In my case I think the LAN cable I used had a fault in it and I have since then swopped it out and rewired the Ethernet terminal in the wall)

At least now you are able to see whether your internet works. Problem us that it is not your EN0 device, and most likely will not work in App Store, but for getting basic internet to work this should be fine.

I did delete the RTL81xx.kext etc., and updated the BIOS to disable the network onboard, but the USB Ethernet would still not be EN0, maybe there is something you can do to trick that out, but for me this was not the main point. If anyone knows the workaround here I'd be interested to know but I know I have a backup, just in case ....

Other alternatives I know of that are supposed to work, but I had no chance to verify are the Sonnet Presto network card and the HP 3960 network card. To me those were alternatives once the Apple USB Ethernet dongle didn't work. The Presto is twice the price from the USB dongle though. (Please remember we are talking wired ethernet here, not wireless) and the HP card I've seen stated to work in Lion but I've not seen reports it to work on ML.

In my experience the USB Ethernet is equally fast as a real LAN Interface however I can only test it for my (pathetic) download speeds (1000mbit...)

Here some URLs to get the device:

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC704ZM/A/apple-usb-ethernet-adapter

and on Amazon it is

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00486070K


If anyone has any other experiences with OOB working wired ethernet devices on ML, pls let us know.

 

[DarfWeder]

As an alternative to the onboard, a PCI, or PCI-Express (PCIe) card can work. The thing to watch out for is a compatible chipset. It can be a little tricky as manufacturers sometimes change their chipsets (like I found out) and then you can face a situation where you have to return your card as it doesn't work in OS X. So make sure you shop at a decent return policy shop.

In any case I did order an Intellinet Networks, Gigabit PCI Express network card. Although the reseller did advertise deep down in the documentation translated from English, that it did work under OS X, on the manufacturers web site there was no such information. I initially thought the card to have a Yukon2 chipset but it had not, mind you even in bright light you can hardly make out the print on the chip, but it turns out to be Realtek 8168B.

In OS X make sure you delete your old kexts if you had to install or tried some. In my case I removed the lnx2mac rtl81xx.kext from S/L/E.
After that I disabled the onboard LAN in the BIOS and stuck in the new PCI card. You can then use the official kext included in MultiBeast for ML, and install it, which goes into the IONetworkingFamily.kext.
Reboot, and go to System Preferences, unlock it if needed, add the Ethernet card/device to the list, and renew the DHCP lease to get a IP address.
You should be ready to go.

This card was a mere 12 euros so really it is a cheap solution if you have extensive issues with the onboard card or due to a motherboard revision etc.