Asante Technologies 10NIC-PCITM Using the Asanté Ethernet Options Control Panel, Full Duplex Mode

Using the Asanté Ethernet Options Control Panel

Using the Asanté Ethernet Options Control Panel

The Asanté Ethernet Options Control Panel allows you to set the Asanté 10NIC-PCI adapter to full or half duplex mode.

After power-up initialization, the Asanté 10NIC-PCI adapter automatically connects at 10Mbps in halfduplexmode. On Power Macintosh computers, you can change the default mode to full duplex operation.Asanté is the first manufacturer to also include a Macintosh Control Panel called Asanté Ethernet Options, which allows you to view and change the Asanté 10NIC-PCI adapter’s duplex mode (this control panel will not work with other manu- facturer’s adapters or built-in ethernet).

Full Duplex Mode

Full duplex mode generally allows faster performance, especially on data- base or file servers.The term “full duplex” refers to the capability of your networking system to support simultaneous transfer of data to, and from, the computer at the same time.To use full duplex, your network’s switch, your adapter card, the adapter card’s driver, the computer, and the com- puter’s operating system must allsupport full duplex. If any one of these components cannot fully support full duplex operation, you must instead use half duplex operation.

The Asanté 10NIC-PCI adapter and its driver are designed to support full duplex operation on PCI Power Macintosh computers. In addition, all PCI Macintosh computers and their MacOS support full duplex if they are used with the Asanté 10NIC-PCI adapter and driver.

▲Important! Full duplex mode only works when your com- puter is connected to an Ethernet switch. Ethernet hubsdo not support full duplex. Therefore, if you are connecting to an Ethernet hub, set the adapter to halfduplex.

Half Duplex Mode

In half duplex mode, the computer transmits or receives traffic on a stop- and-wait basis.Therefore, networking performance suffers somewhat if you are trying to send and receive large amounts of data at the same time (for example, on a server). If you are just performing normal, simple, one-way file transfers from a client, you will not notice this performance degradation.

The Asanté Ethernet Options Control Panel

To open the control panel while the Asanté 10NIC-PCI card is operational:

1 Open the AppleMenu and select Control Panels.

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