sofasurfer wrote:
Motherboard Manufacturer MSI
Model MS-7325

I'm going to get cable internet. I need to have an ethernet card. I
have a LAN connection on my pc.
Is the LAN connector the connector to an onboard ethernet card? Or do
I need to purchase a card?

I see no reference to an ethernet card in my motherboard manual, only
the LAN connector which is siad to be for a LOCAL network.

Please explain.


The first ref to MS-7325 gives:

http://www.directron.com/k9n4slif.html

"LAN: Supports single LAN jack:
Single LAN supports 10/100/1000 Fast Ethernet
by Vitesse VSC8601

RJ45 LAN jack"

In these picture, the Ethernet RJ45 is the jack at the top of the stack
which is just to the left of the six audio jacks. The two tiny
plastic things just above the RJ45 jack are status LEDs. At least
one of the LEDs will blink when packets are going on the cable.

http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggIma...130-071-03.jpg
http://www.msicomputer.com/product/m...K9N4-SLI-F.jpg

Your cable internet will have a "cable modem" and with any luck,
they'll have an Ethernet cable provided. It will have a male RJ45 plug
on either end of the cable. Just plug it in to the cable modem and into
the computer, and you're ready to go.

In terms of Ethernet drivers, you've probably already installed
the driver from your motherboard CD. The Ethernet driver would be
from Nvidia, because as far as I can tell, the guts of your
Ethernet are inside the motherboard chipset. The Vitesse VSC8601 is
the "dumb" part of the Ethernet (the PHY), and the "smart" part (the MAC)
is inside the Nvidia chip. So if you haven't already, get the Nvidia driver
off the motherboard CD and install it.

In Windows, you can probably look in the Device Manager, under "Network adapters"
and see an entry there for the Nvidia Ethernet.

Paul