Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!spool.mu.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!emory!gatech!mcnc!wolves!chatham!octogard!graham From: graham@octogard Newsgroups: comp.sys.novell Subject: Re: MSDOS 5.0 with novell problem Message-ID: Date: 20 Jun 91 05:55:34 GMT Article-I.D.: octogard.BZsT46w164w References: <6344@mindlink.bc.ca> Organization: The Octopus's Garden BBS Lines: 35 Ullrich_Fischer@mindlink.bc.ca (Ullrich Fischer) writes: [description of problem deleted] > We are on 2.15c netware using SMC Arcnet adaptors. > Any clues as to what might be going on here would be greatly appreciated. As I recall, SMC Arcnet adaptors have a default port address of 0x2E0. It has been a while since I configured a system with an SMC Arcnet card, but I use DTK Arcnet all the time, and DTK Arcnet is generally a very close clone of SMC. I encountered all sorts of interesting problems using port 0x2E0, and eventually tracked it down to a conflict with the 0x2E8 address of COM4. It seems that many programs 'touch' all the COM ports during initialization, even if the ports aren't installed, and in some cases even if the program has no obvious use for COM ports. This makes for some rather flaky and difficult-to-track-down problems. My solution has been to use port adress 0x300 for all my Arcnet. I have not yet found any mainstream hardware which conflicts with 0x300 in its default configuration, though there are many cards which can be configured to use that address. The only problem is that the NetWare RX-Net drivers don't support all available IRQ and memory address settings in combination with port 0x300. My preferred settings are IRQ5, memory buffer at 0xD000:0, and port address 0x300. This is not a setting which is supported by the Novell RX-Net drivers, and I'm not sure of Novell's policy on reverse engineering and modification of their drivers. It's trivial (though I do not necessarily admit guilt :-), but I expect it is unsupported at best. Are there any Novell people qualified to comment? --- UUCP: [backbone]!duke!wolves!chatham!octogard!graham The Octopus's Garden BBS +1 919 876 7213