Opted for a cheap USB NIC over replacing a whole board, worked out great

Had a Dell OptiPlex come in Thursday with a dead ethernet port, motherboard otherwise fine. Customer's budget was tight so instead of pushing a $200 board swap I grabbed a $12 USB gigabit adapter off the shelf. Plugged it in, drivers picked it up in like 2 minutes, and the customer left happy. Anyone else take the cheap route on stuff like this and regret it later or has it held up for you?

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matthewh2825d ago

I grabbed a $12 USB gigabit adapter" yeah, and in six months you'll be grabbing another one when that thing overheats or the driver stops working with a Windows update. I've seen those cheap adapters fail way more often than a proper board replacement, and then you're back in the same spot but with more labor hours on the clock.