Can an old netbook + network card handle gigabit?

I've been having issues with my current router (R7000 + xwrt-vortex), and I've been itching to try OpenWrt. As far as I could see, OpenWrt on R7000 would cap my speed at less than 500MB, and I'd like to max out my 1Gbps line.
I have an old HP Mini 110 lying around, and I was wondering whether I could open it up, buy a PCIe v1 x4 network card, and get the 1Gbps? As far as I could see, this is the chipset on the netbook, which advertises a 4 lane PCIe v1: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/47610/intel-nm10-express-chipset.html
I have an unmanaged switch, so just a couple of Ethernet ports in the network card would be fine.
If multiple clients are exchanging data in the LAN simultaneously at 1Gbps, how quickly would the router become a bottleneck?

Hi,

I think it should work. I'm running OpenWRT in a Celeron J1900 and I can handle more than 600 Mb. internet speed with no problems.

I recommend you Intel ethernet, perform better than Realtek.

Thanks,

1 Like