You've just brought back an old memory there. We used to do LAN parties at the weekend, and none of us has network cards, but one of our friends worked in the IT department of the local university. So he would bring a stack of cards with him and we'd spend hours setting them up and getting each PC on the network, often with great failure if he couldn't bring a batch of same branded cards.
We did learn over time which cards hated connecting with each other, and if he could bag a full batch of 3com we knew we'd likely be in for some early gaming.
We did learn over time which cards hated connecting with each other, and if he could bag a full batch of 3com we knew we'd likely be in for some early gaming.