Intel PRO/1000 GT Desktop Network Adapter PWLA8391GT

I'm always leery when upgrading computers, especially when you're going to replace an original component. Especially older computers where one component doesn't meet the latest standard that you weren't aware of, or upgrading one component doesn't help because there's another bottleneck with one of the other components. You know the drill - all of a sudden you're up a creek without a paddle and nothing works, you can't connect to the internet, can't even boot sometimes. What should be a 10 minute upgrade in many cases turns into 4+ hours, in many cases because of some little issue that wasn't clearly explained or documented.In this case, upgrading to the Intel Pro/1000 GT Gigabit NIC in my 2004 era Dell Dimension 4600 REALLY WAS only 10 minutes. Very easy, no hassles. Well, actually 30 minutes because I'm paranoid and read these reviews for advice before actually pulling the switch.Here's the drill (Dell Dimension 4600 with original on-board 10/100 NIC, running XP Pro):1.) Make sure you have the driver CD that came with the package ready.2.) Unplug the power from your computer (and disconnect all other devices so you can open the box).3.) Open the computer, remove the back cover plate from 1 of the empty PCI slots (you do have 1 empty PCI slot right?), and then shove this network card (firmly) into the PCI slot. Screw it down with the screw from the cover plate (that you can now throw away).4.) Close the computer and plug everything back in (remember to plug your ethernet wire into your brand new Gigabit NIC (not the old one), LOL.5.) Turn on your computer. After Windows has loaded, etc., insert the driver CD that came with the package and let it do its thing. It will automatically find the new hardware and install the appropriate driver.6.) Voila, you're done!*NOTE: I did NOT have to de-activate, disable, or do anything with the original on-board 10/100 NIC.Now I surf at noticeably faster speeds! I noticed an improvement in internet performance when I upgraded my router and switch to Gigabit, and now a big jump in speed as soon as I installed this Gigabit NIC. Next step is to upgrade my internet service from 25 Mbps to 100Mbps now that my infrastructure is ready! I suspect once I upgrade all my computers to 2012 era machines I'll see even greater speeds.If you have doubts like I did about whether this upgrade can help speed up your internet, don't worry it definitely makes things faster. Even with 2004 - 2006 era PC's, as long as all of your other components are Gigabit ready, you WILL notice a definite improvement when surfing the net. In fact, for $30 I'm going to upgrade the NIC in all of my older computers.NOTE that my current network includes a Gigabit router, Gigabit switch, and Cat 5 (4 pair) cabling. So everything is Gigabit ready. And yes you do get Gigabit network speeds over Cat 5 cable - as long as you have good 4 pair Cat 5 and all connections are terminated properly. You may not get quite as good performance as Cat 5e or 6 if you have a lot of electrical interference or very long runs, but for almost all home applications your Cat. 5 wire will give you a Gigabit network just like Cat 5e or Cat 6.

Bought this for my Dell XPS 7100 that had onboard Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet that was not working well with Win7 all of a sudden, it was taking 1-2 min. to connect by cable. Because of Dell's limited slots, I had only 1 PCI slot left, and it was a bear getting this card seated because my video card was flush against it. When it finally did seat, it worked 1st time and Windows installed a driver.Wanting to update the driver, I went to Intel's site and tried to use their software to detect the card, but it didn't work well at all (as a matter of fact, it caused my computer to crash with a blue screen and memory dump 3 times, and since I have a dual boot system, I tried it there with the same results) and for this particular card, it appears they haven't updated it for a long time and I couldn't find it listed on their website.I use DriverMax to keep all my drivers up-to-date, it's free and you can download 2 drivers per day, but you must do your homework cuz they don't always have the EXACT driver you need, sometimes its close but thankfully their rollback feature works well. I also use [...] (also free, but don't use the MediaGet feature cuz it installs a program for downloading torrents) for some drivers that I feel DriverMax doesn't always get right, but they don't always get the latest drivers for a few weeks. Case in point: I have a PCi 3.0 USB card by Iomega for extra ports and bought 2 external USB 3.0 storage drives. DriverMax has the correct driver for it, but because of the way it installs using their software, it does not always work correctly, but usually X-Driver.com will get the driver from Renesas 2-3 weeks later and it installs flawlessly.Well, anyway, back to the Intel driver, DriverMax had an update (V 8.3.15.0), but I checked with x-drivers.com, and they had a completely different set of drivers for the Gbe or PRO 1000, but not the GT specifically.

Very easy installation, quality looks good, Windows 7 recognized it instantly and installed the drivers without issue. However this adapter would not connect to our router, a fairly new router at that. After hours of checking and rechecking every possible problem, I stumbled across the answer. This LAN adapter will not work properly with a Windows 7 64bit PC with more than 3gb memory. Once I pulled 1gb of memory, viola! We were up and running.We are returning this one and trying a different manufacture. Sadly becuase quality on this Intel LAN looked good.This review is in case anyone else is experiencing the same problems.