[Jachin] sent in his network port tester built from a network card, wake on lan cable and a battery holder. Three AAs supply 4.5v DC just like the motherboard would to the card via the WOL cable. Nice ...
A modern normal network card will have onboard an Ethernet controller which, of course, is a pre-programmed microcontroller. Not only does it do the things required to keep a computer on the network, ...