Notebook + Windows NT 4.0 + PCMCIA Network card = Pain in the A$$

[ndee]

This is just soooooooo bad, I have to try thousands diffrent memory settings, I/O Ports and IRQ to get a freaking NIC running under NT on a notebook...

I have a Compaq Armada 1700 with a 3Com XJack 10/100 network card, and I just can't get it to work... it always tells me, that there is a resource conflict.... is there a way in NT I can look which resources are free? I guess Diagonstics, just not sure... will have a look in a sec....

Argh..

 

[Wizkid]

Getting PC Cards NICs to work in Win NT is a pita. Do you have the most recent NT Service Pack as well as the latest drivers for the NIC?

Yes diagnostics will tell you what resources are in use...

 

[ndee]

OK, looked up which resources are free... reboot.... "Resource conflict", Service Pack 6, newest drivers.... that something like that got so popular....

 

[TBP]

I can feel your pain since I have the similar experience with my laptop+NT4. I had to basically tried most of the possible IRQ/address combination (reboot for each change) and finally, I found one that worked (I forgot how many hours I spent on this).

One thing to check is that if your system BIOS is set to PnP OS. Since NT4 is not PnP you might want to disable it. And if possible, you might want to set the onboard sound etc. manually in the BIOS before you straight out the NIC issue.

It is a piece of cake in win2k (in my case). So if possible, install win2k instead of NT4.

 

[HaVoC]

My Armada laptop was acting up funny with the network card as well. The driver would not load and reported IRQ problems, etc. Only way to fix this is to do a "BIOS RESET" which resets the BIOS to the factory settings. The driver then picked up the card no problem. Try doing the reset procedure at POST. For my Armada E500 it is CTRL+F11 on bootup I believe. You could probably find the appropriate keystrokes on Compaq's support site. I have NT 4.0 SP5 with an built-in Intel ProExpress 10/100 Ethernet interface.

 

[ndee]

Well, the problem is, I had trouble with a couple NICs on this notebook. To install the Realport Xircom card(can't remember which model exactly): I mustn't have the NIC in the notebook, when I want to install the _driver_ otherwise it'll lockup during the installation. And when I remember correctly, I called compaq, and they had a huge list, with a lots of (150+) diffrent NICs, each with some individual settings.. "You have this card? Then you have to use this I/O Port. But you have to use this I/O Port if you want to use this card, etc."

Actually, I just wanted to make a point, that NT4 can really be a PitA with laptops

And yeah, I know about this "Fn + F11" trick. If the notebook doesn't boot, just hit "Fn + F11" and it might work...