All of us know that the mainstream network interface card chip in today’s market is mostly Realtek 8139D chip, which is produced by Realtek Corporation for network interface card. When running under 32-bit bus mode, this chip consumes little CPU resources or can access the memory directly without going through CPU control. In this case, the host “CPU“ can use all its resources to run applications and manage network operations well.
Advantage:Have absolute advantage in term of price, usually you can buy such chip for dozens of RMB. Besides, it has wide application and can be used to various low end workstations.
Disadvantage:This chip is easy to grind, and the quality varies significantly. This is particularly true with network interface card composed of inferior quality chips, which does not support 100 meters communication distance and has very short life.
Because of its outstanding advantages of low price and great performance, Realtek 8139D has won the appreciation of producers and users in no time, found applications in mainstream network interface cards of various brands, and obtained the recognition of multitude consumers. In the mean time some unlawful businessmen are also making fake Realtek 8139D chips and using them in some network interface cards of low price and no brands, which jeopardize the interests of consumers. I hereby show you how to identify fake Realtek 8139D chip and how to find out these fake products with ease.
Fake Realtek 8139D chip we talk of is usually grinded. The so-called grinding means an approach of taking inferior quality product as good quality product by removing the text in the surface of some low price and inferior performance chips with various methods and spraying paint or carving chip logo and chip particle again.
There are not a small amount of grinded chip Realtek 8139D in the market, and most of them are grinded with chips such as AN983 (ADMTEK), MYSON803 (MYSON), MX, etc. This kind of chip usually has 128 pins while RTL8139D chip has 100 pins. Therefore, if a chip has altogether 100 pins in four sides, it is real. Fake chip, even grinded or pasted with paper for whatever reason, still has 120 or 125 pins. Besides, this kind of chip has different driver, which can not be automatically identified under WINME, WIN2000 and WINXP operating systems like RTL8139D.
There is further a 8139D chip which is grinded from 8100, the specific difference is that the network interface card using 8100D chip has only one indicator while real product has 2 indicators, the second difference is that the bios socket in the 8100 network interface card and set for the disc-free boot is not good to use, and is soldered on it like a deaf ear. There is also rather obvious difference when you look at the surface of the grinded chip.
- The text of grinded master chip is rather coarsely printed, strokes are thick, texts are white, and there is strong convex and concave sense. The text of real master chip for REALTEK 8139 network interface card is clearly printed, strokes are thin, and feels smooth when you touch it with fingers. If you observe closely, you will find the trace of having been grinded in the chip.
- A comparatively obvious trace is that the 2 round small concave grooves in the corner of the chip become 2 small round holes after grinding.
- Below the REALTEK logo in the left side of the chip, R and C letters are missing in the grinded chip. The grinded chip model is marked as “REL8139D”, rather than “RTL8139D”. Besides grinded chip, some sellers sell second-handed chip as new chip. Although not fake, nobody will feel good when he knows it is a second-handed product.
I will teach you how to verify brand new vacuum package chip and old chip: 1. Inspect the appearance: The IC pins of a vacuum package chip are evenly distributed and contact points are flat, while the pins of old chip are chaotic and of different heights. 2. Inspect the serial number: Choose and compare a few network interface cards, the 2nd line of network interface card chip is production serial number (also called as Part No) and the 3rd line is production date and place of origin. The production serial numbers of vacuum packaged chips are consistent and the production dates are the same, while the production serial numbers and production dates of old chips are different.
What introduced above are some differences of real and fake Realtek 8139D chips, however, because fake technologies today make fast progress, the grinded fake Realtek 8139D can be made very hard to identify. Henceforward we advise you to buy network interface card of major producers so as to ensure the quality of network interface card, such as NETCORE’s 3260NE, etc.
Netcore has just released a 7004NET 1000M network interface card, whose price is close to 100M network interface card. It is promotion time now. You need only to give an old 8139D chip network interface card and 48 RMB to have this model of 1000M network interface card. This model of network interface card employs Realtek 8169 chip and supports disc-free boot. It is a great choice for either common users or Internet cafe users.
