Cheap Macbook Air USB Ethernet LAN Hub Review

Macbook On A Budget: Episode 1

Welcome to my latest series, exploring how you can stretch your wallet after you have sold your kidney for the latest Mac. 

One thing you will notice sorely lacking when you buy your Macbook Air, is that there is no Ethernet aka LAN port. It's all great, if you don't need it, but when you are in the office fighting for WiFi connectivity with 50 other colleagues, this can be a lifesaver. There are two options for you to add an Ethernet port to your Macbook Air, either through USB or through the Thunderbolt port. Both will set you USD29 if you are to buy an original Apple accessory. 

Let me now show you how you can get not just an Ethernet port, but another extra three USB ports for 6 times cheaper!

Not All USB Ethernet Adapters Are Made the Same

When I first set out to find the cheapest USB Ethernet adapter for my Macbook, I thought it would be a piece of cake. Little did I know, that there are actually a few kinds of adapters out in the market. When I bought mine, it came with a little CD which was pretty useless since MBAs don't come with a CD drive. Plugging it into the USB port allowed the USB hub to work (my USB mouse was functioning), but not the Ethernet adapter was not recognized.

I tried to find for some drivers online, thinking it would be a easy, but none of the drivers worked. It was then did I find out that there are actually two different kinds of "non-Apple" chipset used for these kinds of adapters. The first is the AX88772x chipset made by a Taiwanese company called ASIX and the other the RD9700 by a dubious sounding Chinese company called Core-chip. The RD9700 was the one that my adapter used, and the driver was found in the CD (had to borrow my colleague's PC to copy out the darn driver).

It WORKS! Sort of

After installation and a reboot of my MBA, the Ethernet adapter is now recognized by Mac OS. I then plugged in my Ethernet cable and waited for something to happen. Nothing. Oh, my company has some network configuration, so I did that. It worked! However, after the MBA goes to sleep, or the USB or LAN cable gets plugged out, the network cannot be reestablished after it's awaken or plugged in.

While I'm not sure if this is everyone's problem, here is what I did to "fix" it. Every time the network gets disconnected that way, I would manually change the IP (e.g. to 192.168.0.141) and press Apply. The network will be then reconnected. Changing it back to 192.168.0.143 would work too. Apparently, after a disconnect, the adapter "forgets" it's IP setting and needs a manual change to allow it to go back. My colleague tried the adapter on his PC and it was the same issue (p.s. driver installation is also required on a Windows machine).


Summary

Yes, I have this ritual every morning on my MBA, but I still save a lot of money and get myself another 3 additional USB ports! However, I do suggest you get a network adapter with the ASIX AX88772x chipset which is known to be more stable but would cost a bit more (but still cheaper than an original MBA USB adapter).