Configuring MDGMPORT.SYS and MDGNDIS4.SYS under Windows NT 3.51 and 4


This page provides information about:


Configuring Parameters

To Configure Parameters for NT 4

  1. Go to Start, Settings, Control Panel and click on Network.

  2. Click on Adapters tab.

  3. Select your adapter from the list of network adapters.

  4. Click on Properties.

  5. If you want to alter the advanced settings, click Advanced.

To Configure Parameters for NT 3.51

  1. Go to the Network Settings window. To do this, go Main, Control Panel, and double-click the Network icon.

  2. In the Network Settings window, from the list of adapters, select your adapter.

  3. Click Configure.

  4. If you want to alter the advanced settings, click Advanced.


Details of Parameters

The LAA is a 12 digit hexadecimal number in the range 400000000000 to 7FFFFFFFFFFF.

Every adapter requires a six-byte node address to identify itself on the network. This node address is either the unique burned-in address (BIA) encoded on the adapter, or is a locally administered node address (LAA) that you have provided. If you do not provide an LAA, the adapter's BIA is used as the node address.

The only restrictions on the value chosen for the LAA are that the first digit of the LAA must be between four and seven inclusive and all LAAs must be unique within a LAN segment.

Normally you do not need to specify an LAA unless you are using communications software which requires one.

Use this parameter to set the ring speed as follows:


Details of Advanced Parameters

On a 16Mbps or 100Mbps token-ring network, the driver supports frame sizes up to 17839 bytes are supported. On a 4Mbps network frame sizes up to 4486 bytes are supported. Many protocols and applications do not actually use frames this large and setting the maximum frame size to a value greater than is required wastes memory in the computer. The default value of 4216 is optimal in most environments.

If the maximum frame size you choose is greater than the media supports, the driver will automatically truncate it and write an error into the event log that contains, as one of the data words, the actual maximum frame size used.

You can use all of the Madge adapters supported by this release except Presto PCI and Presto PCI Plus in 'StatisticsGathering' or 'Promiscuous' mode whereby all frames on the ring, not just those directed at the adapter, are passed up to the protocols. This options is disabled by default. Only enable this option if it is required by an application.

On some adapters there are several different ways of transferring data between the computer and the adapter. This option allows you to override the default transfer type (normally DMA) and use 16-bit PIO instead. (Note, for some adapters 16-bit PIO is the default transfer type.)

Wake-On-LAN is a feature that allows a network adapter to wake-up a PC that has been put into auxiliary power mode when the adapter receives a MAGIC PACKET(tm). For this feature to work you must have a PC that supports Wake-On-LAN, an adapter that supports Wake-On-LAN and the adapter must have its Wake-On-LAN connector attached to the PC.

If you set this parameter to Enabled, the adapter will be put into Wake-On-LAN mode when you shutdown Windows. If a MAGIC PACKET(tm) is then sent to the adapter it will wake-up the PC. If you set this parameter to Disabled, the adapter will be closed down in the normal way when you shutdown Windows and will not respond to MAGIC PACKET(tm)s. For more information about Wake-On-LAN, see Remote PC Wake-Up (Wake-On-LAN).

This parameter is designed for use with laptop adapters, such as PCMCIA and CardBus, and will prevent the system from producing an error and shutting down the driver if the network cable is not plugged in.

Some token-ring infrastructure products use Test and XID frames to identify other devices on the ring. Handling of such frames is optional in this driver, but is enabled by default. If you do not have any hardware which requires such frames to be responded to, you can disable this feature, which would slightly reduce the driver CPU utilisation.

Use this parameter to set the MAC open mode as follows:

This field will only be displayed if the adapter is a PCMCIA adapter. It lists the possible locations for that type of adapter.

This field will only be displayed for PCI adapters. The field specifies the PCI Device ID of the adapter.

This field specifies the interrupt number used by the adapter. The value can either be Automatic or a number. Automatic means that the driver determines the interrupt number being used automatically when it loads. A number means that the adapter uses the interrupt with that number.

If you choose the Automatic option, the driver reads the interrupt number to be used from the adapter.

For most adapters, Automatic is the only option available. For PCMCIA adapters, the Automatic option is not available and you must choose an interrupt number to be used. Use Madge Assist to find a free interrupt number to be used by the PCMCIA adapter.

Unused.

This parameter sets the number of transmit slots used by the adapter. Under normal circumstances, the default value will give optimal performance with minimum use of system resources, but if you need more transmit buffering you can increase this value.

This parameter sets the number of receive slots used by the adapter. Under normal circumstances, the default value will give optimal performance with minimum use of system resources, but if you need more receive buffering you can increase this value.

This parameter is a bitmask which determines the ring status events that are indicated to the protocols by the driver. If you are using the standard Microsoft protocols, do not change this parameter from its default value of 0x1D60. The events controlled by this mask and the bits required to enable them are:

Ring Recovery

0x0020

Single Station

0x0040

Counter Overflow

0x0080

Remove Received

0x0100

Auto Removal

0x0400

Lobe Fault

0x0800

Tx Beacon

0x1000

Soft Error

0x2000

Hard Error

0x4000

Signal Loss

0x8000

To vary the amount information provided about the adapter by the driver in the event log, adjust this mask. Changing this parameter will not affect the network functionality of the driver in any way. The events that can be reported to the event log and the bits required to enable it are:

Adapter Reset

0x0002

Open Mode

0x0004

Adapter Closed

0x0008

Adapter Dead

0x0010

Ring Status Single Station

0x0040

Ring Status Remove Received

0x0100

Ring Status Auto Removal

0x0400

Ring Status Lobe Fault

0x0800

Ring Status Tx Beacon

0x1000

Ring Status Hard Error

0x4000

By default this is set to 0x001c whereby the event log will contain information on the open mode and if the adapter is closed or dies. All other fatal errors will be reported in the event log regardless of the value of this parameter.

If the computer crashes, it is desirable that the token ring adapter is removed from the ring as soon as possible. To ensure this, the adapter implements a watchdog timer. If the adapter loses contact with the host computer for a period greater than the watchdog timeout, the adapter will assume that the computer has crashed and will de-insert from the ring. The default setting for the watchdog timeout is 20 seconds, but you can change this to allow for circumstances where interrupts are disabled for a long time (increase the timeout) or the adapter needs to be removed quickly (decrease the timeout).

On Smart 16/4 PCI Ringnode Mk3s, Smart 100/16/4 PCI-HS Ringnodes, Smart 100/16/4 PCI Ringnodes and Smart 100 Fiber PCI Ringnodes you can permanently disable promiscuous mode by using the Kill_PM parameter. To do this, put the clause

Kill_PM=1

in the adapter's section of the Windows NT registry. Once the machine has subsequently been restarted and the driver started on the adapter the adapter will NEVER again support promiscuous mode.

For more information, see Limiting Frame Reception - Disabling Promiscuous Mode.


Adapter Mirroring

For full details of adapter mirroring, see Mirroring under Windows NT 4.

Under Windows NT4, if you are using the NDIS 4 driver with an adapter which supports adapter mirroring, you can configure the following adapter mirroring properties from the advanced properties box:


See Also: