a:\release.not 07-FEB-1997 Version 2.6 Release Notes for Digital EtherWORKS TURBO PCI 10 and Digital EtherWORKS TURBO PCI 10 TP This file contains detailed technical information regarding known anomalies. Use this file to help solve specific installation issues. CONTENTS: Driver Versions on this Distribution Driver Diskette Changes Since Previous Release Installation Troubleshooting Notes on Configuring PCI Adapters Installation of Windows NT Installation of Novell Netware Server Installation of Novell DOS ODI Client Installation of the NDIS2 Driver Installation of the SCO LLI Driver Driver Release Notes **************************************** * DRIVER VERSIONS ON THIS DISTRIBUTION * **************************************** EZWORKS EZWORKS.EXE V2.22 01/15/97 2:35p 206,518 bytes compressed file, automatically expands in memory when run, memory needed is approx 375,000 bytes EZWORKS Diagnostics TLPDIAG.EXE V4.03 01/13/97 1:22p 46,297 bytes compressed file, automatically expands in memory when run, memory needed is approx 91,000 bytes NDIS2/DOS DE450.DOS V1.13 05/17/96 1:13a 43,976 bytes NDIS2/OS2 DE450.OS2 V1.13 05/17/96 1:13a 43,878 bytes NetWare ODI DOS Client DE450.COM V1.14 11/04/95 10:38p 52,068 bytes OS/2 Client DE450.SYS V1.11 11/01/95 9:01a 30,576 bytes Server DE450.LAN V3.01 07/02/96 1:18a 17,696 bytes PathWORKS Native DLL DLLDE450.EXE V5.0.157 08/14/96 4:20p 20,018 bytes Packet Driver DE450.COM V1.04 09/10/96 8:25p 52,715 bytes SCO MDI (dcxe) CUSTOM.DST V1.0.2 11/18/96 1:33p 75,776 bytes SCO LLI (dcx) DEXXX_DD.Z V2.4.4 02/04/97 1:48p 73,503 bytes WFW 3.11 DC21X4.386 V4.02 05/30/96 9:54a 55,385 bytes Windows 95 DE450.SYS V1.10 12/06/96 1:02p 24,576 bytes Windows NT alpha DE450.SY_ V1.10 12/06/96 3:01p 22,235 bytes intel DE450.SY_ V1.10 12/06/96 1:02p 13,763 bytes mips DE450.SY_ V1.10 12/06/96 2:43p 22,508 bytes ppc DE450.SY_ V1.10 12/06/96 3:57p 20,356 bytes ------------------------------------------------------------------- Driver # adapters supported shared interrupts ------ -------------------- ----------------- EZWORKS 4 N/A EZWORKS diagnostics 4 not supported NDIS2 (DOS and OS/2) 4 not supported NetWare DOS ODI client 4 not supported NetWare OS/2 ODI client 16 supported NetWare Server 8 supported Pathworks Native DLL 1 not supported SCO (LLI and MDI) 4 supported WFW (NDIS3 driver) 4 supported Win95 (NDIS3 driver) unlimited * supported WinNT (NDIS3 driver) unlimited * supported * unlimited by the driver, but may be limited by the operating system - contact the OS vendor for more information ************************************************** * DRIVER DISKETTE CHANGES SINCE PREVIOUS RELEASE * ************************************************** V2.6 changes since V2.5 ----------------------- SCO MDI driver: changed driver prefix from dcx to dcxe. Removed support for 100Mb (DE500 series) cards from driver. Systems relying on the dcx driver to support both 10 and 10/100 cards must use new 10 and new 10/100 driver at the same time. The 10/100 driver can be obtained from the DE500 driver diskette, or electronically from the DE500 release sites (see readme.txt). NetWare server NLM files updated to reflect newer releases from Novell. Updated SCO LLI driver to correct bug in fast systems. Updated EZWORKS and diagnostics. Remove Windows NT support for NT 3.50. Windows NT 3.51 and 4.0 are the only versions supported by this kit. Fixed driver bug that could cause hang during driver initialization. Also changed keywords to match the next release of DE500. The installation file for Windows NT (oemsetnt.inf), was updated to correct a bug during unattended installations (those relying on using the file unattend.txt). ******************************** * INSTALLATION TROUBLESHOOTING * ******************************** Below is a list of frequently encountered installation problems and their solutions. * Network has poor performance. - Check the latency timer value on the network adapter's slot. If settable, this number should be above 32. - If the poor performance is due to transmit underrun or CRC errors, the problem may be due to the EtherWORKS adapter not getting enough bandwidth to keep up with outgoing or incoming packets. Move the EtherWORKS adapter to a higher priority slot. Contact your system vendor to determine the relative priority of slots in your system. * System hangs when attempting to load driver when EMM386 is used. - This problem may be due to a bug in some versions of EMM386 which cause the system to hang after Dword accesses to I/O space. The problem occurs during Dword I/O reads and writes to registers of the DC21x4 chip. The EMM problem does not exist with EMM386.EXE (V4.49 and above) that is shipped with MS-DOS 6.22. * System hangs when driver is loaded or during operation. - The EtherWORKS PCI hardware supports interrupt sharing. However, not all drivers support interrupt sharing. Choose a unique interrupt if possible. * Adapter is not recognized in a PCI/EISA system. - When using in a PCI system with an EISA bus, ensure that you run the EISA Configuration Utility (ECU) to enable the PCI slot, enable bus mastering, and set the IRQ to one of the supported values. - DUAL Card Installations require you install ONE adapter at a time. If two PCI adapter cards are installed before the first is up and running you may get a network card not found error when attempting to install the driver. * Network does not start. - The adapter must be inserted into a bus mastering PCI slot. In some PCs, some PCI slots are not capable of bus mastering. Check your system documentation. - On certain revisions of Intel PCI chipsets, write back cache causes problems with PCI devices. Disable write back cache. * Adapter is not properly reset by ++ sequence. - The ++ key sequence does not do a hardware reset on the PCI bus. If you require a hard reset to any PCI device, ensure that you power cycle the PC, or press the reset button. ************************************* * NOTES ON CONFIGURING PCI ADAPTERS * ************************************* PCI controllers are designed to be auto-configured through a system PCI BIOS. Some systems include a system configuration utility either built into the BIOS or run as a standalone utility. These utilities may offer configuration options for PCI slots. For those systems that include user-configurable options for PCI slots, some of the options offered may include: PCI Slot Enable/Disable This option selects whether the PCI slot is enabled or disabled. For the Digital PCI Adapters, the PCI slot must be enabled. Bus Master Enable/Disable This option selects whether PCI Bus Mastering is enabled or disabled for this PCI slot. Digital PCI adapters must be installed in a Bus Mastering slot and must have Bus Mastering enabled. Interrupt Level (IRQ) Select This option selects which interrupt level or IRQ value is chosen for this PCI slot. Digital PCI adapters must have an interrupt selected. Interrupt sharing is supported by the NetWare 3/4 ODI Server Driver, SCO driver, and NDIS3 drivers (WinNT, Win95, WFW). Other drivers do not support interrupt sharing. Latency Timer Select This option selects the Latency Timer setting for this PCI slot. This value affects the amount of time that the adapter may master the PCI bus per ownership. For most configurations, the default Latency Timer value is appropriate. The following rules may prove useful in resolving PCI configuration process problems: - Install the Digital PCI Adapter in a Bus Mastering capable PCI slot. - If the system offers user-configurable PCI options, configure the PCI slot as follows: 1. Enable the PCI slot. 2. Enable Bus Mastering. 3. Select a non-shared interrupt level. 4. Use the default Latency Timer value. - If it is impossible to set a non-shared interrupt level, you may select a shared interrupt for the NetWare 3/4 ODI Server Driver, SCO driver, and NDIS3 drivers (WinNT, Win95, WFW). Select an interrupt level that is shared with other controllers that also support shared interrupts. Note: Even though a driver for the Digital PCI adapter supports shared interrupts it does NOT mean that other controllers in the system support shared interrupts. It is ALWAYS safer to select unique interrupt levels for each device in the system. - All of the drivers require either 64 bytes of memory mapped or I/O mapped space for the adapter registers. The addresses for these mappings should be automatically set by the PCI BIOS after enabling the PCI slot and installing the Digital PCI adapter. ****************************** * INSTALLATION OF WINDOWS NT * ****************************** * If Windows NT has poor performance, due to excessive transmit underruns or CRC errors ... - This problem may be due to the EtherWORKS adapter not getting enough bandwidth to keep up with outgoing or incoming packets. Move the EtherWORKS adapter to a higher priority slot. Contact your system vendor to determine the relative priority of slots in your system. * If Windows NT will not boot with EISA SCSI controller ... - If you are installing in a system with an on-board or add-on Adaptec 1740 controller, save or note your EISA configuration information *before* modifying any ECU parameters. After installing and configuring any EISA based module in the system, ensure that the SCSI controller settings have not changed. Windows NT "WILL NOT BOOT" if your SCSI controller settings change from the default settings. Windows NT requires the SCSI controller to have the same settings as it had when when Windows NT was built, in order to boot correctly. If your system is unable to boot, verify your EISA configuration settings for your SCSI controller. If your system is unbootable and you do not know the original settings, use your repair disk to fix your boot problem. * If Windows NT will not boot after using REGISTRY EDITOR ... - The Windows NT registry editor is used to modify the Windows NT registry database. DO NOT MAKE CHANGES TO THE REGISTRY unless you are absolutely sure of what you are doing. You could render your machine UNBOOTABLE. Registry values can be edited interactively through the Registry winnt\system32\regedt32.EXE ***************************************** * INSTALLATION OF NOVELL NETWARE SERVER * ***************************************** This version of the driver corresponds to Novell's V3.3 ODI Server Driver Hardware Specification and as a result will only be compati- ble on NetWare 3.12, 4.10, 4.11 and later. This is a limitation of the operating system, and not due to lack of driver support. Proper operation will not be supported on any other versions of NetWare. * If the network does not start on a 3.12 Novell Server ... - Use MSM31X.NLM, NBI31X.NLM, and ETHERTSM.NLM with a date stamp of 05-10-96 or later. * If the NetWare 3.12 server exhibits bad performance ... - A bug found in the Netware 3.12 Server manifests itself in bad performance. According to Novell, the problem occurs when packet signing is enabled and two packets arrive at the server at the same time. One packet is processed and the other is lost (along with its ECB). A patch is contained in the file 312PT6.EXE, a self- extracting ARJ archive that can be acquired through Novell Technical Support (1-800-NET-WARE). The problem is unique to Netware 3.12 and does not occur in any version of Netware 4. Among the files in the 312PT6 archive are LSTECBFX.NLM and PM312.NLM. Extract these files and place them in the server's startup directory (e.g. C:\SERVER.312). Then add the following lines to the server's STARTUP.NCF file: LOAD PM312 LOAD LSTECBFX * If the server exhibits a Transmit Underrun problem ... - The network adapter and driver are optimized for highest throughput. Under certain traffic conditions, Transmit Underruns may be caused by an older version of BIOS that limits the bus operation to non-Burst mode. The following procedure should be used: a. Update your system's BIOS b. Load the driver with the following keyword TX_THRESHOLD=3 c. Move the EtherWORKS adapter to a higher priority slot. Contact your system vendor to determine the relative priority of slots in your system. * If the driver description banner has Line Speed = 0 ... - Check to make sure the appropriate cable is attached to the port of the adapter. * If the server displays the following message when loading NBI.NLM or NBI31X.NLM: "WARNING: This version of NetWare does not support protected mode BIOS accesses. Without a loader patch, some PCI drivers may fail." - Go to Novell's Support page on the Web and pull down the latest loader patch specific to the operating system you are running. For example, if you saw the message on NetWare v3.12, install 312PTx.EXE. If you run NetWare v4.10, then install 410PTx.EXE. ************************************************* * INSTALLATION OF NOVELL NETWARE DOS ODI CLIENT * ************************************************* * If the client exhibits a Transmit Underrun problem ... - The network adapter and driver are optimized for highest throughput. Under certain traffic conditions, Transmit Underruns may be caused by an older version of BIOS that limits the bus operation to non-Burst mode. The following procedure should be used: a. Update your system's BIOS b. Add the following line to net.cfg TX THRESHOLD 3 ************************************ * INSTALLATION OF THE NDIS2 DRIVER * ************************************ * If the error message "No NDIS Interrupt Activity" appears ... - When using the driver in autosense mode with Digital Pathworks on a quiet network, the following error may be displayed by the Network Scheduler (sch.exe): No NDIS Interrupt Activity. Maybe NI_IRQ set wrong or cable not attached or hardware/DLL broken. To fix this, find the line in the Pathworks startup file (usually startnet.bat) which calls sch. Add the /N flag to the end of the line. ************************************** * INSTALLATION OF THE SCO LLI DRIVER * ************************************** 1. If the driver binds to the wrong PCI board (network) ... - When multiple PCI boards are installed, the chains are bound to the adapters in the order that the adapters are found on the PCI bus by the PCI BIOS. Thus, dcx0 will bind to the first adapter found by the PCI BIOS and supported by DEXXX, dcx1 to the second, etc. Removing or adding boards without changing the configur- ation in netconfig can cause a shift in the order that chains are bound. Also, mis-identifying the order in which the adapters are found by the BIOS can cause wrong bindings. This is especially true when using boards with PCI-PCI bridges. The adapters on such boards are located on a PCI bus with a number higher than 0 (bus #1, #2 etc) and will be found by the PCI BIOS after all the devices on bus zero. Currently, bus numbers higher than 0 are not supported. 2. If the driver recognizes adapter at boot time, but there are no network connections ... - Check that the 'DC21X4 EISA/PCI Ethernet Adapter' driver is not installed in the system. The DCXXX driver will not work with the DC21X4 driver. 3. Attempting to FTP a large file (more than 4096 bytes) causes the FTP process to hang after transferring 2920 bytes under SCO 5.0 ... - A kernel parameter needs tuning when running LLI drivers under SCO 5.0. Get into the "System Administration" folder under SCO DeskTop and double click on the "Hardware/Kernel Manager" Icon. Select the "Tune Parameters..." button and choose the STREAMS parameters option (this can also be selected from the scrolled list on the left side of the "Hardware/Kernel Manager" window). Press ENTER to answer all questions except for the parameter "STRMAXBLK". The default value will probably be set to 524288. Change this to 4096. Relink the kernel and reboot (follow Hardware/Kernel Manager instructions). Note: Unless you have patches to get you to SCO 5.0.0d, some X clients may break with the low STRMAXBLK value. ************************ * DRIVER RELEASE NOTES * ************************ * NetWare DOS ODI Client Driver - This driver conforms to v4.0 of the Novell ODI Specification: 16-Bit DOS Client HSMs dated August 1, 1994 (P/N: 107-000054-001) - You may load the DOS driver in upper memory to free up conventional memory in a system. - A change in the DOS ODI specification requires that a current version of LSL.COM be used with the NetWare DOS ODI Client Driver. Use version 2.11 or later of LSL.COM * NetWare 3/4 ODI Server Driver - This driver conforms to v3.3 of the Novell Open Data-Link Interface (ODI) specification. * NDIS 2.01 DOS Driver - You may load the DOS driver in upper memory to free up conventional memory in a system. ***TRADEMARKS*** EtherWORKS, DEC, Digital, DECpc, PATHWORKS, and OpenVMS are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation. Intel is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation. Microsoft, MS, and MS-DOS are registered trademarks and Windows, Windows NT and Windows95 are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. MIPS is a trademark of MIPS Computer Systems, Incorporated. Novell, NetWare, and LAN WorkPlace are registered trademarks and NetWare Loadable Module, NLM, and NetWare SFT are trademarks of Novell, Incorporated. OS/2 is a registered trademark and PowerPC is a trademark of International Business Machines Corporation. OSF/1 is a trademark of Open Software Foundation, Incorporated.