more questions about upgrading to cable

i have a four year old HP running Win98. ive been using dial-up and im about to upgrade to cable. i know i will need a 10-100 base-t ethernet card, but is there a certain kind i should or should not get? i was lookin on ebay and saw one that plugs into a USB port, will it be as good/fast as an ethernet card? the service im getting can and will give me 3MB/sec connection speed, so i want to get hardware that will allow that.

thanks for the help

Many cable services offer the modem and net card for a small additional fee (about $3.95 a month) over your basic monthly cable fee.
The net card itself can be gotten for under $20.00 at most computer sales outlets. The cable modems range in price from $25 to over $100.00.
What I might suggest is to take the cable service and pay the additional fee for a couple months before investing in your own modem and net card to see how it works out for you.

Ok dude you need a 10/100 PCI NIC. They sell them pretty cheap nowadays. Here are some links for recommendations from newegg.com. Dont look anywhere else if you want computer hardware. This is the place.

TRENDware/TRENDnet 10/100Mbps PCI Ethernet Adapter, Model TE100-PCIWN

D-Link 10/100Mbps PCI Ethernet Adapter w/Wake on LAN, Model DFE-530TX+ - OEM

NETGEAR 10/100Mbps PCI Ethernet Adapter, Model FA311

LINKSYS EtherFast 10/100Mbps Ethernet Adapter Ver5.1, Model LNE100TX

3com 10/100Mbps PCI Ethernet Adapter, Model 905C-TX-M - OEM

Any of the above should work fine. All You need is a free PCI slot in your machine to install it in and that's it. Shouldnt take you more than 10 mins to install and have it up and running.

Good luck

much thanks. one more ?
will plugging the modem through the USB adapter the cable company provides instead of the card, slow down the connection?

Originally posted by chrisnolefan
much thanks. one more ?
will plugging the modem through the USB adapter the cable company provides instead of the card, slow down the connection?

it works that way but I would recomend using a NIC.

Me too. Use a NIC card (10/100) and you should do real well.

It's even worth a extra $80 or so to get a router, which will also give you some basic security.

all hardware can go 3mb dont worry youll never max out a iethernet/nic/modem on the internet