ThunderLAN(tm) - NDIS 3 Miniport Driver
Installation and usage instructions
CONTENTS
========
Introduction .................. Provides a brief description of the
driver and associated files.
Before Installing the Driver .. Things to do before installing the driver.
Installing the Driver ......... Step-by-step instruction on how to
install the ThunderLAN driver.
Configuration Options ......... Describes the ThunderLAN driver
configuration as seen by the user.
Driver Keywords ............... Describes the ThunderLAN specific driver
keywords.
Release Notes ................. Provides information on driver revision
history and any known driver problems.
INTRODUCTION
============
The ThunderLAN NDIS 3 Miniport Driver is desinged to provide NDIS3
functionality to Microsoft Windows 95 and Microsoft Windows NT.
Miniport NIC drivers were developed as an extension to the NDIS 3.0
specification to allow developers to write only code that is specific
to the hardware, merging the common concerns into the NDIS library
or wrapper.
This text file describes how to install and use the ThunderLAN driver
for Windows 95 or Microsoft Windows NT.
The NDIS2 driver is also provided as an option when running Windows95.
The driver files are provided on the ThunderLAN Driver Diskette in the
following subdirectories:
Directory / Files Contents
------------------------- ---------------------------------------------
\ndis3
tlan.dll Contains Windows NT setup program information
tlan.hlp Help file for Windows NT configuration dialog
tlan.sys ThunderLAN(tm) NDIS3 Miniport Driver file
readme.txt This file
BEFORE INSTALLING THE DRIVER
============================
If you are using Windows95, before installing the driver, make sure to
check the following items:
1. If you are loading "emm386.exe" in your "config.sys" file, make sure
it is version 4.48 or later. This version is shipped with MS-DOS
v6.20. If an earlier version of emm386 is used, your computer will
hang when loading the ThunderLAN driver.
INSTALLING THE DRIVER
=====================
This section provides instructions on how to install the driver for the
following Network Operating Systems:
o Microsoft Windows95
o Microsoft Windows NT
INSTALLING THE DRIVER FOR USE WITH MICROSOFT WINDOWS-95
-------------------------------------------------------
If you have a previous version of the ThunderLAN(tm) Driver installed in
Windows-95, perform the following steps to remove it before proceeding to
step 1 below:
a. Run "Network" from Control Panel.
b. Highlight the "Racore ThunderLAN(tm)" entry and click "Remove".
Then, click "OK".
c. Restart Windows when prompted.
1. On booting Win95 for the first time after the ThunderLAN card has been
installed, a "New Hardware Found" dialog box will appear stating that
Windows has detected a "PCI Network Controller". From this dialog box,
select "Driver from disk provided by manufacturer", and press Ok.
Note:
If on booting Win95, you do not get the "New Hardware Found" dialog
box, you should go to Windows Control Panel and select the "System"
icon. Under the "Device Manager" menu, under "Other Devices", you
should see an entry "PCI Network Controller". Highlight this entry
and click on the "Remove" button. Afterwards, restart your
computer and follow the installation instructions from Step 1.
2. Insert the "ThunderLAN(tm) Driver Diskette" in drive A:.
3. When prompted for the pathname of the vendor-provided network
driver disk, enter "A:\", and press Ok.
4. You may be prompted to select a device. If prompted, select the "Texas
Instruments ThunderLAN(tm)" adapter. The driver will then be installed.
5. You will then be prompted to enter the path for your Windows-95 system
files. Enter the pathname to you Windows 95 installation files, or the
disk as prompted. You will probably do one of the following:
- For the CD-ROM version of Win95, type "e:\win95" where "e:" is
the driver letter of your CD-ROM drive.
- If your Windows files are located on you hard drive, enter the
full path to these files. (e.g. "c:\windows\options\cabs")
- For floppy based version of Windows, insert the appropriate
diskettes as directed by Win95.
6. When asked if you wish to restart your computer, select 'No'.
7. If you wish to modify driver settings to change the default operation
of the driver:
a. Go to the Control Panel and select the "Network" icon.
b. Highlight the "Racore ThunderLAN(tm)" entry and press the
Properties button.
See the DRIVER KEYWORDS section below for a description of the settings
available.
8. You may wish to press the "File and Print Sharing" button to enable
sharing on your machine. In addition, you should check that the
information listed under the "Identification" menu is correct.
9. After setting all desired options, re-start your machine.
INSTALLING THE DRIVER FOR USE WITH MICROSOFT WINDOWS NT
-------------------------------------------------------
If you have a previous version of the ThunderLAN(tm) Driver installed in
Windows NT, perform the following steps to remove it before proceeding to
step 1 below:
a. Run "Network" from Control Panel.
b. Highlight the "Racore ThunderLAN(tm)" entry in the
"Installed Adapter Cards" list box and click "Remove".
Then, click "OK".
c. Close the Network Settings dialog and restart Windows NT when
prompted.
1. From Windows, click on the "Network" icon from the Control Panel.
2. Click on "Add Adapter...".
3. When prompted for the name of the network adapter, select
"<Other> Requires disk from manufacturer". Under NT 3.51, this
selection will most likely appear at the end of the list.
Under NT 4.0, click the "Have Disk" button.
4. Insert the "ThunderLAN(tm) Driver Diskette" in drive A:.
5. When prompted for the pathname of the vendor-provided network
driver disk, enter "A:\".
6. Select the "Racore ThunderLAN(tm) Adapter" adapter and click "OK".
7. After some file copying, you will see the Texas Intstrument
ThunderLAN(tm) Adapter Setup dialog box. This dialog is used
to configure the driver options; PCI slot, network interface,
network type, and network address. See the driver configuration
section below for a detailed description of these options.
Once you have configured the driver, select 'OK'.
8. You will then be prompted for the bus type and bus number where
your ThunderLAN(tm) card is installed. In most cases, the
displayed settings will be correct. Make any necessary
corrections and press 'OK'.
9. Close the Network Settings dialog and restart Windows NT when
prompted.
To change driver settings, you may run the network control panel
application at any time. Highlight the "Racore ThunderLAN(tm)"
entry in the "Installed Adapter Cards" list box and click "Configure..".
CONFIGURATION OPTIONS
=====================
Several operational parameters of the ThunderLAN driver can be specified
at driver initialization time through the use of driver keywords. These
keywords are configured through the Network control panel applet in
both Windows95 and Windows NT.
This section describes ThunderLAN(tm) driver setup options as seen from
from the network control panel applet. The section following contains
a more technical description of the keyword values.
PCI Card Slot
-------------
The PCI Card Slot option specifies the PCI card slot number where
the ThunderLAN(tm) adapter is installed. The SLOT number can be
specified to identify the specific ThunderLAN(tm) adapter to use if
more than one adapter is installed.
The value can range from 0 to 31 inclusive.
If the "Auto Detect" option is selected, then the driver will
auto select the network adapter.
Network Interface
-----------------
The Network Interface parameter allows the user to choose among a
potential variety of network interface options available on the
network adapter card. The possible settings will vary according
to the hardware used, and in some cases only a single option may
be presented. The following include the most common options:
Auto Select
-----------
The Auto Select setting instructs the driver to search all
possible interfaces in an attempt to find the currently
active interface. On NDIS2, this requires the adapter to be
connected to an active network during driver start-up.
Expansion Module
----------------
The Expansion Module setting tells the driver to use the
optional expansion module on the ThunderLAN(tm) adapter.
TLAN 10BaseT
------------
The target adapter has a built-in PHY capable of connecting
to a 10BaseT network (if the connecter is supplied on the board).
This option specifies the use of this TLAN 10BaseT PHY.
TLAN/BitLevel AUI
-----------------
In the event the adapter is using an AUI or Thinnet connector,
connected to either the TLAN built-in PHY or a BitLevel PHY,
this option is used to specify to the driver to use the AUI
connector.
Non-Managed MII Phy
-------------------
The Non-Managed MII Phy mode specifies that an MII compliant
PHY device which does not provide a management MII interface
is to be used.
Network Type
------------
The Network Type parameter allows the user to specify the type
(speed and duplex) of the target network. The available options
are as follows:
Auto Negotiate - Attempt to negotiate speed and duplex.
10Mbit - Use a 10Mbit network
100Mbit - Use a 100Mbit network
10Mbit/FullDuplex - Use a 10Mbit full duplex network
100Mbit/FullDuplex - Use a 100Mbit full duplex network
Network Address
---------------
The Network Address parameter allows the user to specify an
alternative network adapter address for the ThunderLAN adapter.
Use this option with caution. Unpredictable results will occur if a
conflicting or non-standard address is specified.
If the "Not Present" button is selected under Windows95, or if the
entry is blank in Windows NT, then the network address stored in
the ThunderLAN adapter's ROM is used.
Note: The 12 character address should be specified within double
quotes when running under Windows95.
Max Transmit Depth (for NDIS2 on Windows95 only)
------------------------------------------------
The Max Transmit Depth parameter specifies the number <n> of transmit
packet headers that can be queued by the driver. The value can range
from 6 to 18 inclusive; the default value is 12.
Each transmit header requires approximately 128 bytes of memory.
Reducing the value will save memory used by the driver, but may result
in an increased number of "out of resource" conditions, resulting in
decreased network performance. Increasing the value will reduce these
"out of resource" conditions.
DRIVER KEYWORDS
===============
TO CONFIGURE THE THUNDERLAN DRIVER, SEE THE PREVIOUS SECTION.
Several operational parameters of the ThunderLAN driver can be specified
at driver initialization time through the use of driver keywords. This
section describes the definitions of some of the ThunderLAN driver
specific keywords.
These keywords can be manually edited in the registry (or PROTOCOL.INI
in the case of NDIS2 under Windows95), but the procedure required for
this operation is beyond the scope of this document.
SLOT=<n> PCI Card Slot
------------------------
The SLOT keyword specifies the PCI card slot number where the
ThunderLAN adapter is installed. The SLOT number can be specified to
identify the specific ThunderLAN adapter to use if more than one
ThunderLAN adapter is installed.
The value of <n> can range from 0 to 32 inclusive.
A value of 32 will cause the driver to choose the first card
it finds, the same as if the SLOT keyword were not supplied.
PHYSELECT=(0 to 31, 32, 33, or 34) Phy Selection
------------------------------------------------
The PHYSELECT keyword specifies the PHY for ThunderLAN(tm) to
use in attempting a network connection. The legal values are
as follows:
PHYSELECT = 0 to 31 - TLAN PHY Bus Index of target PHY device
32 - Enables PHY Auto Select
33 - Enables TLAN or bit-level AUI Selection
34 - Enables Non-Managed MII PHY Selection
NETWORK=(0 or 1 to 4) Network Type
----------------------------------
The NETWORK keyword is used to force ThunderLAN to use the speed
and duplex settings as shown below. Note that in order for speed
and duplex support to operate properly, ThunderLAN must be
connected to a HUB capable of setting supplied. The NETWORK
keyword is ignored if a 100VG PHY is used.
If NETWORK is set to 0, ThunderLAN will auto configure the speed
and duplex settings.
NETWORK = 0 - Auto Configuration
1 - 10Mbit
2 - 100Mbit
3 - 10Mbit / Full Duplex
4 - 100Mbit / Full Duplex
VENDORID=<n> Vendor ID
----------------------
The VENDORID keyword is supplied to allow an OEM to alter the
PCI Vendor ID of the target network device. If set incorrectly,
the driver will not find the network adapter.
DEVICEID=<n> Device ID
----------------------
The DEVICEID keyword is supplied to allow an OEM to alter the
PCI Device ID of the target network device. If set incorrectly,
the driver will not find the network adapter.
PROMISCUOUS=(0 or 1) Promiscuous mode
------------------------------------
Setting this to 1 causes the driver to always set the promiscuous
bits in 802.12 training frames to 0x10 (IEEE Draft Std. 802.12,
23 March 95, section 10.6.3.2). This requests all packets be
forwarded to the driver, which keeps the driver from having to
retrain the hub when a client sets promiscuous mode. This was
added as a workaround for a bug in the Microsoft NT/Win95 driver
test suite which caused the test to timeout while the driver was
dynamically retraining. The default value is 0 (not in registry)
which means the driver will retrain the hub as necessary.
RELEASE NOTES
=============
This section describes the revision history and known problems/issues
with the driver.
Revision history
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Rev 1.03 - 10Dec96
a) Clear NetMask on power down to support MII wake events
Rev 1.03 [Beta 2] - 19Nov96
a) Added support for uLin Phy
Rev 1.03 [Beta 1] - 11Nov96
a) Changed the way negotiation in handled on autonegotiating PHYs,
where PHY searching is disabled.
b) Improved support to TLPOWER
c) Support added for the D1 power state on Tlan 3.1
Rev 1.02 - 15Oct96
a) Added OID's for TLPOWER support
Rev 1.01 - 11Mar96 [2nd Production Release]
a) Added driver resource information
Rev 1.00 - 19Jan96 [1st Production Release]
a) Improved response to retrain requests if they occur during 802.12
training.
Rev 0.30 - 14Dec95 [1st beta release]
a) Added ability to specify network ethernet address
b) Added ECN to correct lockup problem that can occur with some
hubs if the utp cable is rapidly removed and reinserted
multiple times (hopefully this isn't a common practice!)
Rev 0.20 - 06Dec95 [2nd alpha release]
a) Added deviceid and vendorid support.
b) Added shared interrupt support.
c) Added promiscuous keyword support to work around problem in
Microsoft NT/Win95 test suite. See description of promiscuous keyword
above for more information.
d) Fixed problems with 100VG-AnyLAN training and board and phy
identification.
Rev 0.10 - 22Nov95 [Initial alpha release]
--- End of readme.txt ---
Download Driver Pack
After your driver has been downloaded, follow these simple steps to install it.
Expand the archive file (if the download file is in zip or rar format).
If the expanded file has an .exe extension, double click it and follow the installation instructions.
Otherwise, open Device Manager by right-clicking the Start menu and selecting Device Manager.
Find the device and model you want to update in the device list.
Double-click on it to open the Properties dialog box.
From the Properties dialog box, select the Driver tab.
Click the Update Driver button, then follow the instructions.
Very important: You must reboot your system to ensure that any driver updates have taken effect.
For more help, visit our Driver Support section for step-by-step videos on how to install drivers for every file type.