PCMCIA-GPIB+ Plug and Play Conflict

[Mike T]

Hi All,

I installed a PCMCIA-GPIB+ in my Sony VAIO and it works great, except
for one vexing problem. I also have a LinkSys Combo PCMCIA Ethernet
card. If I boot up Windows 98 with the GPIB card plugged in, it
clobbers the LinkSys card! If I always remember to remove the GPIB card
before booting, and only hot plug after Windows is up and running, then
everthing is fine.

In Control Panel, System, Device Manager, the Resources tab shows the
LinkSys I/O range 0300-031F and Interrupt 05. Use Automatic Settings is
checked.

When I hot plug the GPIB card, it does NOT conflict. Multi-function
Parent Properties shows two I/O ranges: 0100-011F and 02A0-02AF.
Interrupt is 03. Use Automatic Settings is checked.

But
if the GPIB is plugged in when I boot up Win98, apparently the GPIB
card allocates resources before the LinkSys and renders it "not
working" I then have to remove and reinstall LinkSys drivers (and bound
network drivers!)...quite a pain!

I tried unchecking both the "Use Automatic Settings" boxes but they seem
to always reset themselves to "checked."

ANY help, hints or suggestions would be most appreciated!

Best Regards,
Mike T

Mike Tranchemontagne
Consulting Applications Engineer
TeraComm, Inc.
148 Main Street
Building A, 3rd Floor
North Andover, MA 01845
877-900-TERA (8372)
978-557-9490 (FAX)
603-598-4773 (Direct Line and Cell)



[See first answer for additional information]

[Mike T]

[Attachment(s) for question]

[Jason Hobbs]

Mike,
I believe you are right in thinking this is a resource allocation issue.
Here are a few things you may want to try. First you may want to try alternating
card slots for each of the cards. This may fix the resource allocation issue
in that if the Ethernet card is in slot 0 and gpib in slot 1, it should allocate
resources to the Ethernet card first.
It is odd that once you have non-conflicting resource settings between the
cards, and subsequently reboot, that you are still seeing the problem. The
OS should be "remembering" these resource settings in the future and therefore
not conflict.
Another thing that you could try would be to check for 3rd party socket services.
These are software packages like CardWizard, CardSoft, Card Executive, or
SoftEx, which generally ship pre-installed on a system. These services handle
resource allocation/configuration for the pcmcia cards. Our gpib driver
is meant to work with the native Windows pcmcia driver. It is possible that
this is an issue. You may elect to uninstall the 3rd party socket service
(provided you have one) through add/remove programs, and reinstall the native
Windows pcmcia driver by copying the "pcmcia.sys" file from the Windows CD,
to the location where the file exists on your hard drive (c:\windows\system).
There will already be a pcmcia.sys file here left from the 3rd party service.
Rename this to "pcmcia.old" before copying the native driver over. Rebooting
your machine will then load the native driver.
You also want to make sure that you are using version 1.60 of the gpib driver.
As a last resort, you may try installing a different card with the gpib
card to see we are still experiencing the resource allocation issue or if
it is specific to that card.
There arent always clear-cut answers to these types of issues. A lot of
times, it just comes down to trying several different things.

Jason Hobbs
Applications Engineering
National Instruments




Mike Tranchemontagne wrote:
>This is a multi-part message in MIME format.>--------------D34357B14283E8D3C66A46AB>Content-Type:
text/plain; charset=us-ascii>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit>>Hi All,>>I
installed a PCMCIA-GPIB+ in my Sony VAIO and it works great, except>for one
vexing problem. I also have a LinkSys Combo PCMCIA Ethernet>card. If I
boot up Windows 98 with the GPIB card plugged in, it>clobbers the LinkSys
card! If I always remember to remove the GPIB card>before booting, and only
hot plug after Windows is up and running, then>everthing is fine.>>In Control
Panel, System, Device Manager, the Resources tab shows the>LinkSys I/O range
0300-031F and Interrupt 05. Use Automatic Settings is>checked.>>When I hot
plug the GPIB card, it does NOT conflict. Multi-function>Parent Properties
shows two I/O ranges: 0100-011F and 02A0-02AF.>Interrupt is 03. Use Automatic
Settings is checked.>>But if the GPIB is plugged in when I boot up Win98,
apparently the GPIB>card allocates resources before the LinkSys and renders
it "not>working" I then have to remove and reinstall LinkSys drivers (and
bound>network drivers!)...quite a pain!>>I tried unchecking both the "Use
Automatic Settings" boxes but they seem>to always reset themselves to "checked.">>ANY
help, hints or suggestions would be most appreciated!>>Best Regards,>Mike
T>>Mike Tranchemontagne>Consulting Applications Engineer>TeraComm, Inc.>148
Main Street>Building A, 3rd Floor>North Andover, MA 01845>877-900-TERA (8372)>978-557-9490
(FAX)>603-598-4773 (Direct Line and Cell)>>>--------------D34357B14283E8D3C66A46AB>Content-Type:
text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii;> name="miket.vcf">Content-Transfer-Encoding:
7bit>Content-Description: Card for Mike Tranchemontagne>Content-Disposition:
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or 603 598-4773>x-mozilla-html:TRUE>url:http://www.teracomminc.com/>org:Sales;TeraComm,
Inc.>version:2.1>email;internet:miket@teracomminc.com>title:AE>adr;quoted-printable:;;148
Main Street=0D=0ABuilding A, 3rd Floor;North Andover;MA;01845;>note;quoted-printable:877-900-TERA
is toll free to TeraComm sales office =0D=0A=0D=0A603
>598-4773 is home office and forwards to cell phone>fn:Mike T>end:vcard>>--------------D34357B14283E8D3C66A46AB-->