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Home / Other I-Appliances / MSN Companion Ethernet Header The blank spot between the USB ports and RJ-11

Ethernet Header (modified 1 times) Chase Profile Has anyone else noticed that the spot between the USB and the RJ-11 ports appears to be a header for an ethernet port? Also, that gray piece of plastic in the back seems to indicate a network port in that spot. There are the correct number (8) of pads (missing lingo here) for a port to be added. I have another IA-1 waiting for me at work. I may take this apart and trace the connections back. Perhaps there is a missing semi-conductor that could be added to the board. Chase 12-28-2001 16:07:49

RE:Ethernet Header (modified 0 times) Garfield Profile here's some info that was mentioned awhile ago... Adding RJ45 modular jack to motherboard - is it possible (modified 0 times) ranman Profile Going from the pictures on http://www.linux-hacker.net/ipaq/ is it possible to add the following part http://catalog.fciconnect.com/fci/red/datasheet/datasheet.asp?ProductNumber=53509-501XXX to the motherboard and have network capabilities built in? Or would little capacitors and other things have to be added. From the pictures, it looks as though the trace elements are there, maybe? Would it be possible to just pop the adapter in there without any extra work? Weren't there some IA-1s that had the RJ45 in them? Let me know, if you guys think it is possible or ludicrous. ranman 08-28-2001 15:56:49 RE:Adding RJ45 modular jack to motherboard - is it possible (modified 0 times) Ender Profile I suspect it is possible, but it is likely to be very, very difficult. Since there are traces and pads for an RJ-45 jack, it stands to reason the board is designed to have built-in ethernet. But if the jack is not there, then I can't imagine they would have put the ethernet controller chip and associated hardware (surface-mount capacitors, resistors) on the board. It would increase their production cost without accomplishing anything. Cheaper, easier, and safer to use a USB ether adaptor, I'd say... 08-28-2001 21:46:56 12-28-2001 16:55:03

RE:Ethernet Header (modified 0 times) erroneus Profile Is it possible? It's hard to know for 100% certain, however, it would take much more than an RJ45 added to the board! It would take at least one chip for interfacing to the PCI bus, possibly more, various line drivers and the ethernet controller chip. We would have to know what the intentions were initially before we could think about populating the board. But suffice to say that it's a project best left to the highest order of the techy geek elite. It's way beyond my ability unless someone gave out some very precise instructions. But the number of solder joints alone would be enough to give me a 90% kill rate on the system board. :) Those are parts best left to installation at the point of fabrication. I did see where all of the chips go, however... ethernet support was more than a casual thought and was probably ruled out because of manufacturing costs for this virtually "Free" network appliance. What was it? A $300 rebate on a $300 device with MSN contract? Something like that. I guess they figured that broadband would not be a feature most people would be interested in because if they had broadband already, why would they want MSN? A reasonable notion. 12-28-2001 21:41:03

RE:Ethernet Header (modified 0 times) Garfield Profile i guess one place to start would be to take a look to see what other compaq laptops use for an ethernet controller and go from there. maybe, just maybe we could get our hands on an ia-1 or an ia-2 with native ethernet support and open it up to take a look see... 12-29-2001 01:08:27

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