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Home / I-Opener Areas / I-Opener Technical Stuff 3Com USB Home Network Phoneline Kit $50 Clearance at Best Buy

3Com USB Home Network Phoneline Kit $50 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile My local Best Buy has a pile of these (3C420KIT) for $49.50, no rebates involved. Up til today they were clearance priced at $99. They contain 2 units with all cables, no power supply required. The units themselves are about twice as big as a warplink...about 6"x4"x1". I'm in the process of setting them up now....if they work I'll probably go back and get the rest of the pile. They had three more kits. I don't remember hearing anything about them, but according to specs they can connect at about 8Mbps. Hope they work.... 06-12-2001 17:28:14

RE:3Com USB Home Network Phoneline Kit $50 (modified 0 times) hamsterpants Profile Let us know how it works. I just purchased FriendlyNet Partyline Home (made by Asante) networking using phone lines from computergeeks for 9.99 plus shipping; probably similar to what you have. So you are networking your i-opener with your other pc? This will be interesting! 06-19-2001 07:52:53

RE:3Com USB Home Network Phoneline Kit $50 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Sigh....You'd think I was a Newbee at networking....I'm not. My whole house was wired with Cat5 cables (by me). All the computers are networked using Linksys Pci cards, one large hub in the main computer room. It works....Two rooms aren't wired...kitchen and master bedroom. These are the rooms where my I-Openers are used. The warplink wireless was a bust....so is the 3com home network. I have been unable to get any computer in the house to see any other using these devices. The software crashed one I-Opener (win98) bigtime. All the others I tried (5), just won't work. New drivers wouldn't load....I'm fed up with these crappy devices.......These 3com things are currently selling on many sites for $250+. Go figure...... 06-19-2001 17:04:11

RE:3Com USB Home Network Phoneline Kit $50 (modified 0 times) Kudzu Profile My whole house was wired with Cat5 cables (by me). All the computers are networked using Linksys Pci cards, one large hub in the main computer room. It works....Two rooms aren't wired...kitchen and master bedroom. These are the rooms where my I-Openers are used. The warplink wireless was a bust....so is the 3com home network. I have been unable to get any computer in the house to see any other using these devices. How are you connecting it? Do you have a HPNA to Ethernet bridge, or are you using ICS or something similar, in order to integrate the HPNA into your traditional ethernet network? Also, are you using DHCP or static IP's? I'll assume you have the same domain & workgroup across the network. The software crashed one I-Opener (win98) bigtime. All the others I tried (5), just won't work. The other 5 you tried this on, I'm assuming they're all i-openers? Have you tested your HPNA devices on one of your main boxes? New drivers wouldn't load....I'm fed up with these crappy devices.......These 3com things are currently selling on many sites for $250+. Go figure....... Have you tried calling 3com technical support yet? They may have solutions or beta drivers to address the problem. If not, there's always Ebay. 06-19-2001 23:10:44

RE:3Com USB Home Network Phoneline Kit $50 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Kudzu....I never tried to get the 3com system to interface with my main network....I just wanted to see how it worked between the two units I bought. I moved them around the house, and they could never see each other on any setup (Win98 and ME), 3 I-Openers and 2 other std computers. They came with Win98 and ME drivers. As far as tech support goes, my experience with all types of so-called tech support has been miserable. Most tech support people are kids making $8 hr....what kind of support can they give you? I figure if I can't get the things working as delivered....there's little hope of ever being satisfied. 06-20-2001 03:31:42

RE:3Com USB Home Network Phoneline Kit $50 (modified 0 times) Kudzu Profile I never tried to get the 3com system to interface with my main network....I just wanted to see how it worked between the two units I bought. I moved them around the house, and they could never see each other on any setup (Win98 and ME), 3 I-Openers and 2 other std computers. And they can ping themselves just fine? Well, were it me in this case, I'd try this. Setting both HPNA devices to use static IP's. 10.0.0.1, 10.0.0.2, no gateway. Connecting both through 1 jack with a duplexer, to see if the HPNA devices are the problem, or the way the phone lines are set up. As far as tech support goes, my experience with all types of so-called tech support has been miserable. Most tech support people are kids making $8 hr....what kind of support can they give you? They can bump you up to the next tier of support. ($20 an hr.) IME, 3com's networking support has always been good, and I've found that they usually have some sort of beta software, firmware, or drivers available, even if they don't post them. (They'd just have you sign up for the testing program.) 06-20-2001 12:33:40

RE:3Com USB Home Network Phoneline Kit $50 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Ok...I'll try that way this weekend. I never did plug them into the same phone jack. They do see themselves (ping) ok. They have an alternate way of connection....you can run a standard phone line between two units, not hooking into the wall outlet. I did try that ...no go also. Thanks for the help. 06-20-2001 16:18:50

RE:3Com USB Home Network Phoneline Kit $50 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Success at last.....I followed Kudzu's advice and specified an IP address, rather than the default auto setting. No go. Then I uninstalled Zone alarm on one I-Opener and Black Ice Defender on the other. That did it. It works ok finally. I transfered some 5mb files back and forth between the two I-Openers....no problems, no crashing. It streams MP3s very well, no skips(won't stream a video however). There were big stickers on each unit about not using these adapters by plugging into a USB hub....of course I tried anyway without difficulity. It seems somewat slower through the hub. Anyway I'm pleased so far......FWIW: I have the VIA USB filter installed, as well as the MS USB fix. Never used Programmers fix. I'll try to transfer a big file next...too bad I didn't buy the rest of those units when I had the chance. 07-01-2001 14:53:21

RE:3Com USB Home Network Phoneline Kit $50 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile More info....Best Buy still has a few of these left at $50, so I got one more. I got my Compaq working with two I-Openers....The I-Openers can now share files and the two printers attached to the Compaq are now available to either I-Opener. I went back and changed the IP addresses to "auto"....modems wouldn't work until I did this. The three computers network with the firewall "Black Ice Defender".....Zone Alarm shuts the whole thing down....probably the cause of my initial problems. Haven't tried internet sharing yet...probably won't because all the modems are hooked up and work ok. So far so good....I think the ability to share printers alone makes this worth-while. 07-02-2001 11:27:22

RE:3Com USB Home Network Phoneline Kit $50 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile More info on this phoneline LAN setup....I went back to BestBuy to find a PCI card to integrate another computer to the network. No 3-coms available, so I got a Linksys Phoneline 10m Network card #HPN200 ($25). Amazingly it setup easily, found the network with the I-Openers and the Compaq....everything works. FWIW....I was snooping around CompUSA. They have the 3-Com USB adapters $100 each. BestBuy still has some two for $50 in the kit. Pays to shop around. Going through a USB hub really slows down the 3-Com adapters....I guess I can route the 3-Com adapter on the I-Opener through a manual switch, bypassing the hub completely when needed. This should bump the performance up to normal. 07-03-2001 19:13:05

RE:3Com USB Home Network Phoneline Kit $50 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile FWIW....In case anyone doesn't understand the benefits of this Phoneline Network, here's what I can do with it: Here's a standard I-Opener sitting on a table, only a power cord and a phoneline connected to it. If you attach the 3-com adapter by a USB cable, attach the phoneline to the 3-com, run a short phoneline to the I-Opener(to get the modem working), you now have access to all the hard drives, cdroms, any removable drives, all the printers attached to any other computer on your network. All this without running any other wires around the house. Want to add some software on a cdrom to the I-Opener...no sweat. You can now do that on your I-Opener over your LAN, using your already installed phonelines. You can play mp3s stored on a remote computer. Someone else in the house can be using the phone, or the internet, your phoneline LAN still works. This is a very easy setup. You can also use the modem over your LAN, by the internet connection sharing software included on Windows 98/ME. I haven't tried it on Win2k yet. This means one internet connection on your fastest modem can be shared by any computer attached to this LAN. And this one connection can be shared by multiple computers at the same time. Note this LAN is a second generation...there is an earlier version of the Phoneline Network which operates much slower. This version operates at 10Mbps max.....the earlier version was about 1.6Mbps or so. Apparently any hardware, pcmcia, usb, pci, that adheres to this HPNA standard, can be made to work on the same LAN. There may be some exceptions.....I haven't tried to get this Phoneline network to integrate with an ethernet setup....that's next. 07-04-2001 08:34:01

RE:3Com USB Home Network Phoneline Kit $50 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile More stuff on this system....If you want your phoneline LAN to work with your eithernet 10/100 system, it is possible. You'll need a device called a HPNA/Eithernet bridge. It's like a 10/100 hub but also attaches to the phoneline. Cost about $100....CompUSA has one (D-Link I think) for $150. Both too steep for me.... 07-13-2001 18:57:27

RE:3Com USB Home Network Phoneline Kit $50 (modified 0 times) Programmer Profile you could always get a REALLY cheap computer and put one card of each type in it and set it up as a router. 07-16-2001 10:44:08

RE:3Com USB Home Network Phoneline Kit $50 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile I've been trying to get some remote control software to work over this phoneline LAN....Laplink, PCAnywhere, VNC (a free program). After many hours of configuration, I finally got PCAnywhere to work, sort-of anyway. I couldn't get the other two to see the network. Anyway, from another room, with the I-Opener setup as a "remote", I was able to see the screen, and take complete control of the main computer. This is pretty neat, all kinds of possibilities......however, the screen refresh rate on the I-Opener is very slow, and unless you move the mouse very slowly, it's hard to tell what's happening on the remote computer (the "host"). I'm still working at it......... 07-16-2001 16:28:47

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