About Plug-And-Play Pci Technology - Linksys 10/100 LAN Card 10/100 User Manual

EtherFast ® 10/100 LAN Cards

About Plug-and-Play PCI Technology

The EtherFast 10/100 LAN Card is designed to run in a 32-bit desktop com-
puter equipped with PCI expansion slots. The card is built to the PCI 2.1
standard.
Short for Peripheral Components Interconnect, PCI is a technology that
allows special Plug-and-Play expansion cards to be automatically configured
by a computer's BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) once they have been
installed. (Refer to your computer's user guide for more information about its
BIOS.)
When a PCI card is used in a computer that supports Plug-and-Play, the card
is automatically configured each time the computer is booted. The card's
IRQ, I/O address, and other operating parameters are automatically assigned.
There is no easy way to change a Plug-and-Play card's IRQ and other settings
outside of the BIOS menu(s) that your computer provides. If the resources
that are assigned to your EtherFast card seem to conflict with other devices in
your computer, you will need to use your system's BIOS to resolve the con-
flicts. If you have problems configuring your BIOS or resolving IRQ or other
hardware conflicts, consult your computer's manual or contact your PC's
manufacturer for BIOS setup and configuration directions.
Here are some general guidelines to follow when installing a PCI card (such
as the EtherFast card) into your computer:
1. The EtherFast LAN adapter should be used in a 32-bit PCI slot that sup-
ports PCI Bus Mastering. It cannot be plugged into a PCI Bus Slave slot.
Consult your motherboard's documentation for more information on master
and slave slots.
2. If loading the EMM386.EXE program in your PC's CONFIG.SYS, you
must use version MS-DOS 6.22 or above. If you load an older
EMM386.EXE program (below DOS 6.22), your PC will hang up while
loading the network driver.
3. When using NT, set your system's PNP OS option in the BIOS settings to
MANUAL or DISABLE. NT is not a Plug-and-Play OS, and will not usu-
ally recognize LAN cards if they are set to be automatically detected and
configured. If you need to configure your PC's BIOS in order to resolve an
IRQ or other conflict with the EtherFast card, there are a few possibilities:
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