D-Link DFE-910 10/100 Network Kit

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.