Broadband forum: Cable Modem: USB Or Ehernet

I installed a USB 2.0 card on my PC and I have no problems with it.

I am using Windows 98 SE.

I have had a resource problem since I installed Norton Anti virous 2004 and the cable modem. I was previously using DSL.

I have as much ram as my motherboard will allow. I decided not to upgrade to Windows XP because I have almost the bare minimum ram for it.

I use adaware, spybot, pest patrol and the aol spy protection. I also use spymaster to protect my browser (firefox which seems to be a resource hog as well).

I have checked out the site you linked a while back. I wil look to see if there is anything new I added.

Thanks

It sounds like Norton is the biggest issue for you here. I agree with R. Proffitt's oservations about Norton. All the big virus scanners are resource hogs. Try PC-Cillin by trend micro. They've got the Cnet editor's choice for two or three years running. You can get it off of Neweg.com for like $7 after a rebate for trashing your Norton. I got it a few weeks ago, and I swear by it today. No performance drag that I noticed whatsoever. Plus it gives you spyware protection. Having said that, I've got a bit more powerful computer than yours, so you may notice some performance drag over having no software running, but I guarantee it will be much better than either Norton or Symantec could ever hope to be.

You won't go wrong using an ethernet cable. Even if you have to add an ethernet card, the cost is still very low.

Technicaly, ethernet is 10 times better, but like you said the fastest cable modems are only 5 Mbps. But I'm using ethernet for a dsl connection and its only 300 Kbps when its supposed to be at least 1.5 Mbps. And Verizon promises you 3 Mbps (I have Verizon DSL). Well, ethernet or usb, it shouldn't matter, and it's still a lot faster than dial up.

Ok, ethernet supports data transfer of up to 100 Mbps, while USB 2.0 supports transfer of up to 480 MBps. So when people say that ethernet is better than usb, I'm gonna yell at them.

I think your question is a bit wierd.
'Which is the better way to connect for a USB Modem. USB 2.0 or Ethernet.'

As far as I know a USB modem can only be connected to a USB port. If you mean ADSL modem, than the ethernet option is better because of resources and speed. The speed is not that big an issue because the USB 2.0 speed is (at this moment anyway) way above the ADSL speeds.

Yes I too had to think about this, as my cable modem can use either. I thought ethernet was the way to go, but I found out that I could not swap my laptop over to use occasionally without telling my ISP what I was doing.
I then found out that if I changed to USB its hot swappable. So I told my ISP that I was changing to USB,and thats cool. Now I can plug and unplug both computers to my hearts content The speed is the same.

You should not be plugging in your cable or dsl modem directly into the computer..... one of the easiest ways to get hacked, viruses and spyware. You should be hoooking modem up to a 4 port routerthat will give you basic protection from the outside world and in addition will let you hook up multiple computers.

In doing so, ethernet is the way to go.

Now days nearly all modems have at least a basic firewall if you want to bother configuring it. The firewalls in most routers are a little better than in the modems but again you have to configure it to get basic protection. True hardware firewalls do provide the best protection but then again you still have to configure it for it to be of any help.

The hardest part no matter which one you use is knowing what you want to protect, and then how to allow all your software to access the internet while still offering protection and not just the illusion of protection most people now have from improperly configured firewalls. Properly configuring a firewall is pretty tough for the average user, but not impossible if the want to spend the time to learn a few things. A software firewall like Zone Alarm should still be used to give you better ability to monitor internet traffic in and out or your machine.

If all a person wants is a connection to the internet with a modem it makes no real difference which option is used because the speed between the computer and the modem far exceeds the connection speed between the modem and the ISP with either USB or Ethernet.

If they plan to connect several computers together in a home network, USB2 runs about 480 Megs while Ethernet runs 10/100 Megs unless they went with Gigabit Ethernet cards which are generally 100/1000 Megs. So in theory file sharing between several computers on a network would go in this order of speed.
100/1000 Meg ethernet (Gigabit) fastest
USB2 Second fastest
10/100 Meg Ethernet thrid fastest
USB1 slowest

Now I do know that at times configuring a USB network can be more difficult depending on the computers, operating systems and whether the ports are USB1 or USB2 standard on each connected computer.

Ethernet is the defacto standard for setting up a network and because of this, manufacturers have built more devices for ethernet networking than USB networking and the configuration of each computer is likely to be easier reguardless of the platform. One final consideration to think about is the likelyhood that you may someday want to take your system and hook it up to someone elses network, for gaming, file sharing or whatever, in which case Ethernet is the most likely way they will be set up.

My choice to not elaborate.

The reason why most cable/DSL modems come with both a USB and an Ethernet connection is simply because both can be useful depending on the situation. There is no preference regarding speed, as modems use USB1.1 and Ethernet 10Mbps conections (not FastEthernet) wich are both way faster than the actual internet connection. Using USB2.0 ports or gigabit ethernet and such will not have an impact on your internet connection...

Most ISPs require you to register the MAC address of the equipment you're connecting. If you register your modem's 'USB' MAC, then you can swap your modem amongst different computers with no problems. If, however, your choose the ethernet option, you will have to register your 'ethernet' MAC and your computer's NIC MAC.

If, as most people are doing nowadays, you connect your modem to a router, or plan to share your internet connection on a LAN, then Ethernet is the way to go.

As far as resources go, USB shares its bandwith with other devices connected to that bus, hence it's better to use Ethernet. If your computer doen't have onboard USB or Ethernet, it is still better (and cheaper) to purchase a network card... Hope this helped...

Hi Kreet2004! I only came back to these posts today, as a coincidence... Well I have had several problems with my 2108, specially regarding data buses. Apparently the computer's chipset is uncapable of handling a big dataflow (notice how slow it goes when burning CDs, moving large files, using add-on devices, etc). I haven't connected a USB2.0 cardbus, as I use my wired network whenever I need to move large files. However, I did purchase an Adaptec Firewire card (my computer didn't have built-in firewire) to transfer video from my camcorder. No avail. The system freezes/slows down when trying to communicate with the device. I once connected an iPod via firewire and also remember encountering issues. I finally had to buy a new desktop and leave the presario for simple, simple tasks...

I'd like to thank all for their help.I decided that I will check out the ethernet option. The cards seem to be around $10-$15. If all goes well, I'll get a router with a firewall and use the virus protection that was suggested. This will allow me to get rid of Norton & ZOne Alarm Professional.

I wish I would have known this before I purchased Norton and Zone Alarm and USB 2.0 card though!