3Com USB NIC Gripes

This is a 3Com Ethernet Network Adapter that plugs into the USB port

3Com USB Ethernet Network Adapter

The 3Com model number for this network adapter is 3C460B. It supports both 10 and 100 Mbps Ethernet speeds. The 3Com part number is 09-2054-000. The supplied floppy disk with drivers is from 2001 and labeled 3C460B. I used this network adapter on a computer running Windows 2000 SP2.

Windows XP

February 9, 2005. This network adapter pre-dates Windows XP and a driver for XP was never issued by 3COM. There are also no instructions on their web site about using it with Windows XP. In my experience, this worked: 1) Copy or download the Windows 2000 drivers 2) Right click on the Windows 2000 driver (file 3C460B.INF) and select "Install". 3) Insert the network adapter, wait a few seconds and Windows XP will auto-detect it.

Installation and Configuration

March 2002. Installation of the drivers was pretty painless as Windows 2000 did everything automatically. The name of the driver used by Windows 2000 was 3C460b.inf. It is from November 20, 2000 and the version is 1.0.1120.2000

After the driver was installed, I plugged the network adapter into my LAN. Interestingly, the icon for this LAN connection disappeared from the system tray. That is, before I plugged into my LAN, my system tray had two icons, the other one being for a PCMCIA network adapter that is always in the computer. After I plugged into the LAN the icon representing this USB network adapter disappeared.
Before: After:

At this point the 3Com documentation says the installation is complete. Not quite.

The icon for the network adapter and its live network connection can be displayed in the system tray by changing a parameter. From My Network Places, get the properties of the network connection that uses this adapter. Turn on the checkbox for "Show icon on the taskbar when connected".

While looking at the properties I came across a bunch of advanced configuration options for this USB network adapter. They are shown here on the left. 3Com provides no documentation at all about any of these advanced options.

Browsing my LAN with Network Neighborhood is slow compared to the PCMCIA based network adapter. Even browsing the shares on the same computer is slow.

I know the network adapter is working because I print to a printer that is linked to a print server on my LAN. However, when I try to PING another computer on the LAN it fails with a "destination host unreachable" error message. Both computers have TCP/IP installed, configured and enabled. They have communicated via TCP/IP using the PCMCIA network adapter. The print server though is talking NetBEUI. An ipconfig command on my computer yielded an auto-configuration IP address of 169.254.195.88. I have no idea where this came from. On my LAN, all computers use IP addresses in the range 10.x.x.x. The problem turned out to be with the 3Com documentation.

I followed the directions from 3Com to run the ipconfig/release command and then an ipconfig/renew command. The release did not work. The error was "All adapters bound to DHCP do not have DHCP addresses. The addresses were automatically configured and no not be released". The documentation fails to mention that you should only do these commands if you are using DHCP. I don't use DHCP on my LAN, instead my IP addresses are statically assigned.

The 3Com documentation did not say anything about configuring the network adapter with static IP addresses. I went to the properties of the LAN connection and then to the properties of TCP/IP. I added a hard coded IP address that conforms to my local standard and this fixed the problem, I can now ping the other computer.

Registration

March 2002. The URL in the documentation for registering the network adapter is invalid. The web page does not exist (as of March 24, 2002).

It was not obvious at all where to register this thing on the 3Com web site. I ended up at support.3com.com/registration/frontpg.pl The choices for the type of product to register were numerous and confusing. I guessed at Network interface cards, then at Network jacks, both wrong. Then I guessed at Networking kits, even though it is not a kit, its just a single item. That was it.

In filling in the registration, the web page said that a mailing address was only required for business users and not required for personal users. I said I was a personal user. Despite this, I could not submit the registration information because the client side validation requires a mailing address no matter what.

PXE and MBA

March 2002. The installation guide starts with this paragraph:

3Com offers Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) software for this product. PXE allows a system administrator to manage the PC remotely...PXE support for this product is available with 3Com's MBA on Disk. To download MBA on Disk for free and to obtain more information on PXE, go to www.3com.com/managedpc then click Managed PC Boot Agent on Disk (MBA on Disk).

Am I the only person in the world who does not know what PXE and MBA are? I went to the managed pc web page and found nothing about MBA on disk. In fact, there was also nothing there that was free at all. The I did a search for "mba on disk" which returned nothing relevant.

FYI: Tech support for this adapter should be at support.3com.com

FYI: At the home page for this adapter, you can download drivers and documentation

Page last updated: February 9, 2005