The only major complaint I have about my lovely Empeg is how long it takes to synchronize a large number of files. I've been wondering how difficult it would be to replace its ethernet controller with one capable of 100Mb speeds. Is there anything close to a plug-in replacement chip? Drivers would have to be upgraded, of course.

To be honest, I haven't yet peeked inside mine to check on which chip is used...

-Oscar

I'm pretty sure Tony will come around telling you it's in teh FAQ. In any case, as far as I can remember, the empeg layout lacks the DMA necessary for 100baseTX solutions.

Bruno

It's not just the chip. The player completely lacks the necessary PCI data bus to make 100mbps a reality.

Synch times have never been an issue for me. Any new album I get takes only a couple minutes to upload. The only time I ever waited a long time is when I first got the unit and I filled it with my entire collection.

Ah yes, I remember the discussion now. A shame, really. Still - it's not just an ISA/PCI issue, as there are ISA 100-BaseT adapters availabe. Has anyone found the thread that discusses this in more detail?

The reason synch times are an issue for me is that I usually send mass updates, not single albums, up to my empeg. With over 100GB of MP3's, I have a hard time choosing what should be on and what shouldn't at any given time. Definitely looking forward to bigger laptop harddrives...

Yes, you can get ISA ones; the problem is that ISA ones can't saturate the bus, so you don't get much benefit. There is no DMA (apart from for audio) in the empeg due to CPU limitations so *everything* is programmed IO. That includes ethernet *and* IDE transfers.

If we'd spent 3x the amount on a 100mbit chip with local ram, plus magnetics, etc, we would maybe get 2x the current performance.

Hugo

Well, that makes sense. And I can certainly see why the extra expense of a better-yet-only-partially-usable chip doesn't make sense for you, but what about for those of us with money to burn??

They're not pin compatible. It's seriously not worth the hassle!

Hugo