a:\release.not 04-AUG-1997 Version 2.90 Release Notes for Digital Fast EtherWORKS PCI 10/100 Adapter (DE500-XA, DE500-AA, DE500-BA and DE500-FA) This file contains detailed technical information regarding known anomalies. Use this file to help solve specific installation issues. CONTENTS: ICRACK Virus Detection Reported on SWEEP Driver Versions on this Distribution Minimum Driver Revisions Required for DE500-BA Minimum Driver Revisions Required for DE500-AA 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 ******************************************** * ICRACK VIRUS DETECTION REPORTED ON SWEEP * ******************************************** SWEEP 2.99 (July 1997 release) reports a false positive identification of 'Icrack' virus for the dllde500.exe driver (and many other files not on this diskette). The fix is to create ICRACK.IDE text file in the same directory as SWEEP and using a text editor place the following text into it: --- cut here --- 0eab 1ab0 9a6b 9e5c d0ab 1afb f9ad 12 6a --- cut here --- When SWEEP is next started, it will 'learn' the new identlty and not report the false positive. ICRACK.IDE works on all SWEEP platforms. The false positive will be fixed in SWEEP 3.00 (August 1997 release) when it will not be necessary any more to use ICRACK.IDE. **************************************** * DRIVER VERSIONS ON THIS DISTRIBUTION * **************************************** Note: Any DE500 drivers and utilities prior to the revisions listed do not support the DE500-FA adapters. For operation on DE500-FA adapters, the below revisions are a minimum. For minimum revisions for other DE500 adapters, see the information in the appropriate section below. EZWORKS EZWORKS.EXE V2.23 07/24/97 1:48p 206,568 bytes compressed file, automatically expands in memory when run, memory needed is approx 375,000 bytes EZWORKS Diagnostics TLPDIAG.EXE V4.10 07/25/97 4:02p 46,867 bytes compressed file, automatically expands in memory when run, memory needed is approx 100,000 bytes NDIS2/DOS DE500.DOS V1.32 07/31/97 12:14p 49,624 bytes NDIS2/OS2 DE500.OS2 V1.32 07/31/97 12:14p 49,510 bytes NetWare ODI DOS Client DE500.COM V3.16 07/09/97 12:19p 57,230 bytes Server DE500.LAN V3.26 07/03/97 4:49p 30,704 bytes Packet Driver DE500.COM V2.01 01/30/97 4:59p 62,391 bytes PathWORKS Native DLL DLLDE500.EXE V5.0.162 07/17/97 11:30a 13,347 bytes SCO MDI (dcxf) CUSTOM.DST V1.0.6 06/03/97 10:50a 51,712 bytes SCO LLI (dcx) DEXXX_DD.Z V2.4.5 02/25/97 3:26p 73,595 bytes WFW 3.11 DC21X4.386 V4.15 01/06/97 2:35p 71,769 bytes Windows 95 DE500.SYS V1.13 06/19/97 2:02p 26,944 bytes Windows NT alpha DE500.SY_ V1.13 06/19/97 2:43p 27,390 bytes intel DE500.SY_ V1.13 06/19/97 2:02p 16,156 bytes mips DE500.SY_ V1.13 06/19/97 3:24p 28,082 bytes ppc DE500.SY_ V1.13 06/19/97 5:39p 24,981 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 Server 8 supported Packet Driver 4 not supported Pathworks Native DLL 1 not supported SCO (LLI) unlimited * supported SCO (MDI) 4 supported WFW (NDIS3 driver) 4 supported Win95 (NDIS3 driver) unlimited * supported WinNT (NDIS3 driver) unlimited * supported Note: The number of adapters supported may be limited by the system hardware, due to physical slot limitations or configuration limitations. Contact the system vendor for more information. * unlimited by the driver, but may be limited by the operating system, contact the OS vendor for more information ************************************************** * MINIMUM DRIVER REVISIONS REQUIRED FOR DE500-FA * ************************************************** EZWORKS V2.23 (ezworks.exe) Diagnostics V4.10 (tlpdiag.exe) NDIS2 (DOS and OS/2) V1.32 (de500.dos and de500.os2) NetWare ODI DOS client V3.16 (de500.com) NetWare ODI Server V3.26 (de500.lan) Packet Driver V2.01 (de500.com) Pathworks Native DLL V5.0.162 (dllde500.exe) SCO MDI (dcxf) V1.0.6 (custom.dst) SCO LLI (dcx) V2.4.5 (dexxx_dd.z) NDIS3 (WFW) does not support DE500-FA NDIS3 (win95 and winnt) V1.13 (de500.sys) ************************************************** * MINIMUM DRIVER REVISIONS REQUIRED FOR DE500-BA * ************************************************** EZWORKS V2.22 (ezworks.exe) Diagnostics V4.05 (tlpdiag.exe) NDIS2 (DOS and OS/2) V1.20 (de500.dos and de500.os2) NetWare ODI DOS client V3.12 (de500.com) NetWare ODI Server V3.18 (de500.lan) Packet Driver V2.01 (de500.com) Pathworks Native DLL V5.0.161 (dllde500.exe) SCO MDI (dcxf) V1.0.4 (custom.dst) SCO LLI (dcx) V2.4.5 (dexxx_dd.z) NDIS3 (WFW) V4.15 (dc21x4.386) NDIS3 (win95 and winnt) V1.12 (de500.sys) ************************************************** * MINIMUM DRIVER REVISIONS REQUIRED FOR DE500-AA * ************************************************** EZWORKS V2.15 (ezworks.exe) Diagnostics V3.87 (tlpdiag.exe) NDIS2 (DOS and OS/2) V1.14 (de500.dos and de500.os2) NetWare ODI DOS client V3.00 (de500.com) NetWare ODI Server V3.07 (de500.lan) Packet Driver V2.01 (de500.com) Pathworks Native DLL V5.0.157 (dllde500.exe) SCO MDI (dcx) V4.1.5 (custom.dst) SCO MDI (dcxf) V1.0.4 (custom.dst) SCO LLI (dcx) V2.2.7 (dexxx_dd.z) NDIS3 (WFW) V4.02 (dc21x4.386) NDIS3 (win95 and winnt) V1.05 (de500.sys) ************************************************** * DRIVER DISKETTE CHANGES SINCE PREVIOUS RELEASE * ************************************************** V2.9 changes since V2.7a ------------------------ Added DE500-FA support to readmes and installation files. Updated SCO MDI CUSTOM.DST to add DE500-FA support (change to config file within CUSTOM.DST - not a change to MDI driver). Updated NetWare server and client drivers to include DE500-FA support. Also updated LDI file. Updated EZWORKS and TLPDIAG to fix a diagnostics bug in the external loopback test. Updated NDIS2 driver to add DE500-FA support. Updated Pathworks Native DLL driver to correct broadcast problem. New WINNT and Win95 driver which set cache alignment size to 8 longwords to help performance. V2.7a changes since V2.70 ------------------------- WINNT and Win95 Drivers updated to correct cable disconnect bug on DE500-BA. V2.70 changes since V2.60 ------------------------- RELEASE.NOT Added section detailing minimum driver revisions required for DE500-AA and DE500-BA support. EZWORKS and Diagnostics Updated to support new DE500-BA hardware. NDIS2 Updated to support new DE500-BA hardware. Corrected protocol.ini file in mslanman.dos subdirectory. Disable memory access to adapter (driver has always only used I/O space). No longer check if memory space is configured; we don't need it. NetWare ODI DOS Client Updated to support new DE500-BA hardware. NetWare ODI OS/2 Client Removed from this diskette, to make room for other more widely used drivers. This driver is no longer supported for DE500. NetWare ODI Server Updated to support new DE500-BA hardware. Updated to use Early Transmit Interrupt for DE500-AA and DE500-BA (DE500-XA hardware does not support early tx interrupt). NLMs updated. \novell\srvodi\odide500.txt updated to enhance installation instructions for Client32 for Windows 95. Packet Driver Added packet driver supporting DE500-BA, DE500-AA, and DE500-XA. Pathworks Native DLL Updated to support DE500-BA hardware. SCO MDI Changed prefix from dcx to dcxf. Removed support for 10 Mb adapters (DE425, DE434, DE435, DE450) from the driver. This new dcxf driver supports DE500-BA, DE500-AA, and DE500-XA. Systems relying on the dcx driver to support both 10 and 10/100 cards must use new 10 Mb drivers (dcxe) and new 10/100 Mb drivers (dcxf). The 10 Mb driver can be obtained from the 10 Mb electronic release sites (see readme.txt). The 10/100 Mb dcxf driver supports DE500-BA, DE500-AA, and DE500-XA. SCO LLI DE500 software kit V2.6 contained LLI driver V2.2.7 2.2.8 fixed a DE450 BNC connector problem 2.4.0 added DE500-BA support 2.4.2 keyword changes 2.4.3a fixed a DE435 cable disconnect problem 2.4.4 fixed DE500-BA receive overflow errata, DE435 cable disconnect fix not in this version 2.4.5 added DE435 cable disconnect fix NDIS3 (WFW) Updated to support DE500-BA hardware. NDIS3 (WinNT and Win95) Updated to support DE500-BA hardware. Fixed bug that would cause a crash during initialization if an interrupt occurred. 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). Updated Windows 95 installation file, some keywords have changed. Uninstall old driver, then install according to win95\readme.txt instructions. See win95\readme.txt for more info about keyword definitions. Updated Windows NT installation file, some keywords have changed. Uninstall old driver, then install according to winnt\readme.txt instructions. Removed support for Windows NT 3.50. Windows NT 3.51 and 4.0 are supported. See winnt\readme.txt for more info about keyword definitions. ******************************** * 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) 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 with date stamp of 05-10-96 or later, and ETHERTSM.NLM with date stamp of 05-10-96 or later, and NBI31X.NLM with 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. ************************************************* * 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. May be 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*** 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.