About Plug-and-Play PCI Technology

Linksys EtherFast® Series

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:

10/100 Network In a Box

No Changes Allowed Your PC may not allow you to change the IRQ value(s) of the PCI slot(s). In this case, you will ONLY be able to use the IRQ and I/O values that have been pre-assigned to each slot. The popular BIOS from Phoenix, for example, does not generally allow you to modify BIOS-assigned IRQ settings.

Jumper Changes You may be able to change the IRQ & I/O values for a given PCI slot by setting jumpers on your PC motherboard. Please refer to your PC's motherboard user guide for specific instructions.

Menu Changes Your PC may allow you to change the IRQ & I/O values for a given PCI slot by accessing the PC's BIOS setup menu. Please refer to your PC's user guide for specific details. The BIOS from companies like AMI and Award are fully customizable from their BIOS menus, for example.

Linux, Open Source and Beta Operating Systems

Linksys does not provide technical support for Linux, BSD, or other free- ware, Beta, or open source operating systems. Although many Linksys prod- ucts have been proven to perform well under Linux and other freeware OSes, technical support for setup and troubleshooting is not provided. For informa- tion on where to find device drivers and setup instructions for Linux and other freeware OSes, visit the support pages and FAQ files on the Linksys website at www.linksys.com.