3Com Corporation ETHERDISK DISKETTE FOR THE ETHERLINK III AND FAST ETHERLINK PCI AND EISA BUS MASTER ADAPTERS This EtherDisk diskette supports 3Com's family of bus mastering PCI and EISA network adapters with a common driver set. Products included in this family are the EtherLink III PCI and EISA TPO and Combo adapters and the Fast EtherLink 10/100BASE-TX and T4 adapters. Key product features include: - Parallel Tasking architecture for highest performance - Bus mastering for low CPU utilization and optimal overall system performance - Guaranteed compatibility with PCI compliant systems, or your money back (fully operational in both bus master and slave PCI slots) - Ease of installation with AutoLink, Autoselect media type for EtherLink III PCI and Autoselect link speed for Fast EtherLink - Broad driver support, including NetWare, NDIS 2.01, NDIS 3.0, and others - SNMP manageability - Lifetime warranty - Full duplex enabled for switched 10 Mbps environments This diskette includes new drivers to support the newest member of the Fast EtherLink Family, the PCI 10/100-T4 adapter. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS AND RELEASE NOTES This file contains the release notes and answers to some frequently asked questions about the PCI and EISA environments to help you get the most out of your 3Com Fast EtherLink/EtherLink III PCI and EISA adapters. This information is updated regularly on 3Com's CompuServe forum (NetForum) and on the 3Com BBS (bulletin board service). FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Q: Do I have to configure my 3Com PCI adapter for my computer? A: PCI is a self-configuring bus architecture. Most of the time you will not need to do anything except install the board in your system; PCI then takes over from there and does the rest. However, on some PCI computers (mostly with PCI-ISA/EISA combination buses in the same machine), you may be required to manually configure the computer's BIOS after installing your PCI adapter. If you need to configure your system manually, refer to the owner's guide for your system. In addition, at the end of this document we have provided some hints on how you might go about doing this. For example, we have seen during our testing that the AST Premmia GX P90 seems to require you to run the EISA configuration utility once you install the board to make sure that the I/O base address of the device does not conflict with other devices in the system. Q: Which PCI slot is best for my 3Com PCI adapter? A: 3Com PCI adapters are designed to work in any PCI slot in the system, including "slave-only" slots. 3Com's PCI adapters will reach their full performance potential in those slots that support bus mastering data transfers. Refer to your owner's manual for information on which slots support bus mastering data transfers. Q: Which PCI slot(s) are "bus mastering" in my PCI machine? A: Generally, if you have three PCI slots in a system, one slot will be designated as a "slave-only" slot (i.e., it does not support bus-mastering data transfers). We have found slots are not always marked clearly to distinguish between slave-only and bus mastering slots. It is best to refer to your owner's manual or contact your system manufacturer for this information. Also, it is best to contact your system manufacturer and make sure that you have the latest version of your system's BIOS. At the end of this document we have included some phone numbers for leading PCI system manufacturers. Q: Which interrupt should I use with my 3Com PCI adapter? A: Unless your system is a PCI-ISA/EISA combination computer that requires manual configuration, you should not have to worry about setting interrupts. However, if your computer is not self-configuring, you will need to set your PCI adapter's interrupts manually. To do this, you may need to set a jumper on your motherboard and/or set the interrupt in the system's BIOS. In either case, you will need to assign the PCI interrupt (INTA) to any available interrupt not being used by an ISA or EISA add-in board already in your system. Keep in mind that the interrupt configuration on your computer's motherboard and in your BIOS must match each other. Since PCI supports shared interrupts, multiple 3Com PCI adapters can use the same PCI interrupt in the system (except as noted below). Q. Does my PCI adapter support shared interrupts? A. The drivers for the Fast EtherLink/EtherLink III PCI adapter support shared interrupts. However, because there is no industry-standard way to support shared interrupts, other adapters may support them differently, or not at all. If you have another PCI adapter that does not support shared interrupts (for example, a SCSI host adapter), either contact the manufacturer for a shared interrupt driver or try running the system setup program to assign it a different interrupt. Q: What interrupt should I avoid using with my 3Com PCI adapter? A: You should avoid using any interrupts used by ISA/EISA boards that do not properly support shared interrupts (level-triggered). If you do not know, or are unsure whether your adapter supports shared interrupts, then it is best to avoid using them. In addition, you should try to avoid using the same interrupt as your local hard drive (normally IRQ 14 for IDE drives and IRQ 11 for most SCSI host adapters), since not all hard drives support shared interrupts at this time. For Novell NetWare servers, you should also avoid using IRQ 7 or 15. These IRQs only support non-shared devices and may cause problems if they are shared between two devices. Q: Is my 3Com PCI adapter a 3.3 V or 5 V adapter? A: The 3Com adapter currently being shipped is a 5 V adapter. It will not fit in a 3.3 V slot. Q: My AutoLink does not work with my 3Install Account on a NetWare 4.X server. Why? A: If you do not have a memory manager installed, you will need at least 576 K of conventional memory to connect to a NetWare 4.X server 3Install volume with AutoLink. Some of the possible errors returned during AutoLink that may indicate you are running low on memory are as follows: "Login-4.084-100: Access has been denied." "Login-4.084-903: The command Line Syntax is Invalid. For help type Login /?" "Login-4.084-971: The workstation does not have enough memory to load the unicode table file" "Login-4.084-240: This utility was unable to open script file xxxx. Error executing the program update; No such file or directory." Q: When I run my AutoLink and connect to a 3Install volume, not all the files from the 3Install volume are copied to my system. Why? A: When AutoLink connects to a 3Install volume on a NetWare server, upon completion, it will indicate that your system has been updated from the 3Install server volume. What is not stated here is that when files on the EtherDisk diskette are more current than the files on the server volume, the EtherDisk files will be used to update your system, instead of the files from the 3Install volume. Q: My 3Com PCI adapter driver will not load when EMM386.EXE is loaded. Why? A: Microsoft's EMM386.EXE versions 4.48 and earlier may conflict with some PCI systems’ ROM BIOS. If you are using EMM386 version 4.48 or earlier, make sure you run your EtherDisk diskette Installer that allows you to replace your current EMM386 with an updated version. Q: The adapter works fine in DOS, but I can't execute programs loaded over the net when Windows is running. What's wrong? A: If the EMM386.EXE memory manager is not loaded by your CONFIG.SYS file, Windows loads an equivalent driver when Windows is started. The problem is that the EMM386 Windows emulator that ships with Windows 3.1 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11 is not compatible with PCI computers. To solve this problem, put the statement DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS immediately following the line DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS in your CONFIG.SYS file. Make sure you are running version 4.49 or newer. If you are not sure which version of EMM386 you have, run EMM386UP.BAT on the EtherDisk diskette. This program will update EMM386 if the update is needed. Q: If my hub port is set up for full duplex operation, should I still use my 3Com PCI adapter in half duplex mode? A: No. If a port on the hub is configured full duplex, then the port on the workstation MUST be configured to match. (Note: Full Duplex operation is only supported when running in 10BASE-T mode). Q: My ACERPOWER system indicates that I have a ROM installed, but one is not present. Why? A: The BIOS ACERPOWER (BIOS version V2.0 486/DX2 66 MHz) PCI system incorrectly indicates (via the PCI information) that there is a ROM on the adapter on the PCI adapter. Contact ACER to get an updated BIOS to correct this problem. Q: Are my Fast EtherLink/EtherLink III PCI ODI drivers "Novell Certified"? A: Yes. 3Com's Fast EtherLink/EtherLink III PCI ODI drivers are Novell tested and approved. RELEASE NOTES 3COM PCI ADAPTER INSTALLATION HINTS Installing a PCI adapter in a PCI slot: 1. Put the adapter in the computer. Refer to your system documentation. 2. Start the computer. In most cases, the PCI computer will automatically configure the adapter. If this does not happen, you may need to configure the computer to work with the adapter. See the next section for more details on how to do this. If you have problems during installation: 3Com has found that some PCI computers require additional configuration steps in order to install a PCI adapter. The steps we recommend are as follows: 1. Determine if you have the latest BIOS version for your computer. Contact your computer's manufacturer to make sure you are using the latest BIOS. Here are the phone numbers for some PCI system manufacturers: Company Phone Notes ALR* (800) 257-1230 Ambra* (800) 465-2227 AST* (800) 727-1278 AT&T* (800) 543-9935 (800) 531-2222 Compaq* (800) 652-6672 Compaq DeskPRO XL should have a BIOS dated (800) 345-1518 Oct. 1994 or later for best performance. Dell* (800) 626-4308 (800) 624-9896 Digital (800) 354-9000 Equipment* Gateway* (800) 846-2070 (800) 846-2301 Hewlett- (800) 322-HPPC Packard* (800) 752-0900 IBM* (800) IBM-3333 Micron* (800) 438-3343 Packard (800) 733-4411 Bell* Unisys* (800) 328-0440 Zenith* (800) 227-3360 ZEOS* (800) 554-7172 (800) 228-5390 In addition, here are the numbers of several popular OEM motherboard manufacturers Intel* (503) 264-7999 ftp://ftp.intel.com\pub\bios Micronics (510) 651-6837 ASUS (408) 956-9084 http://asustek.asus.com.tw * Third-party trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. 2. Make sure the BIOS is set up correctly. In some PCI computers, you may need to enable the PCI slot using the BIOS Setup program. This is especially common in PCI computers with a Phoenix BIOS. After installing the adapter, turn on the computer and enter the Setup program during system initialization (usually by pressing F1, F2, or Ctrl-Alt-S). The correct key to press is usually shown on the screen. Once in Setup, find the entry for PCI slots (it may be in the main menu, or sometimes in advanced system configuration) and set these parameters to: BIOS System Setting Parameter PCI Slot Number Slot where the 3Com PCI adapter is installed (1-3) Master ENABLED Slave ENABLED Latency Timer 40 Interrupt Choose any one of several available interrupts that Setup provides. Edge or Level Level Triggered Interrupt NOTE: The exact wording of each of the parameters will vary from computer to computer. Save the changes, exit the Setup program, and continue with the installation. DISABLING BUS MASTER Some computers do not fully support bus mastering. The driver will try to determine if bus master transfers work OK, and use bus master transfers if the tests pass. If you suspect bus master transfers may be causing problems in your system, there is a method to disable bus mastering for each driver. NDIS 2.01 DOS & OS/2 Drivers Add the line BUSMASTER=NO in the driver=EL59X.DOS (or EL59X.OS2) section of the PROTOCOL.INI file. Netware DOS & OS2 ODI Drivers Add the line BUSMASTER NO to the LINK DRIVER 3C59X section of the NET.CFG file. Netware Server Driver Add the command line parameter MASTER=NO to the 3C59X.LAN driver start line in the AUTOEXEC.NCF file. Windows NT A parameter must be added to the driver registry. Use the following steps: 1. Open the file manager 2. Under your NT base directoy (default is WINNT35), open the SYSTEM32 folder 3. Run REGEDT32 4. Under "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE". open the "SYSTEM" folder 5. Open the "CurrentControlSet" folder 6. Open the "Services" folder 7. Open the "El59x1" folder (If you have more than one adapter, you need to repeat steps 7-15 for each adapter) 8. Open the "Parameters" folder 9. Choose the "Add Value" option in the "Edit" pull down menu 10. Type "Busmaster" for the value 11. Check the data type is "REG_SZ" 12. Click on the "OK" button 13. Type "no" in the string box 14. Click on the "OK" button 15. Check the registry entry in the right screen half to verify the line "Busmaster:REG_SZ:no" was added 16. Shut down and restart the computer. To verify that bus master has been disabled: 1. Run the "Event Viewer" in the "Administrative Tools" group 2. Click on the first occurance "El59x" 3. The event detail should read "BusMaster support has been turned "OFF" for slot XX.", where slot XX is the PCI or EISA slot number for the adapter. 3COM TECHNICAL SUPPORT Please refer to your PCI or EISA user guide as appropriate for this information. In addition, this information is also available in the \INFO\SUPPORT.TXT file on the EtherDisk diskette. 3Com, EtherLink, and EtherDisk are registered trademarks of 3Com Corporation. %VER EtherLink Bus Master Family EtherDisk release notes V5.1a