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Combo / Multi-Connector Board
A wide selection of Ethernet cards offers more
than one connector, the boards can be used via a BNC-connector
for Thin Ethernet
(10base2) or via an RJ-45
connector for Twisted
Pair Ethernet (10baseT/UTP) (some
boards even offer a connector for the 'original' Thick-Ethernet (10base5), which is now only used in large networks to create
Long-distance backbones.
First: although the card has 2 (or more) connectors, it has only
ONE set of electronics, so ONLY ONE
connector can be used (it is NOT
possible to connect BOTH a BNC/Coax cable and a RJ45/TP-cable and
to communicate over both connected network cables).
The question is now: is the board 'smart' enough to work it out
itself, in which of the plugs you connected your cable ?
If the board needs to be configured,
but is NOT configured for the plug, where you have connected the
network cable, there will be no communication !
There are quite a number of boards, where this is NOT configured
automatically, but you as the user have to define it.
1) Jumpers: some boards still used jumpers to define port-address and IRQ, and a few of them have also a jumper defining, on
which connector to use (some of the popular NE2000 compatible
boards have such jumpers).

Search for something like above, and set the
jumper properly.
2) Softset-boards: Some boards have no jumpers, but require to be
configured via a special software configuration utility. If you
have such a "Soft-Set" configurable board, have a look
to see, if one of configuration parameters define the connector
to be used (I think, the 'original' INTEL EtherExpress requires this type of configuration)
Example: 3COM Etherlink III 3C509B:
using the setup/diagnostic program 3C5X9CFG.EXE:

look for "Transceiver Type": on new boards, the factory default
should be "Auto Select" (so the board will detect
itself the type of connected network).
But when you get used boards, it may have been pre-configured:

Put is then back to "Auto-Select" or define your type
of network cable.
3) Win95 adapter properties: Some boards (like the on-board AMD-network
adapter on some older HP-models) are configured via the "properties"
of the "Network adapter", accessible from the
"Network applet" in the "Control-panel".
Example of an Intel Ether-Express: "Transceiver Type:"

Example: 3COM Etherlink III PCMCIA 3C589:
Windows95:
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Windows NT4:
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