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Before your system was shipped from Dell, a technician used the ICU to enter the correct information for the expansion cards initially installed in your computer.

If your system was shipped with Dell-installed software, the ICU diskette image (from which you can make an ICU diskette) is installed on your hard-disk drive. (Your system may also be accompanied by an ISA Configuration Utility Diskette.)

The ICU is also available through online services such as Dell’s TechConnect bulletin board service (BBS). See your online System User’s Guide or the chapter titled “Get- ting Help” in your Diagnostics and Troubleshooting Guide for information on accessing the BBS.

Whenever you add or remove a non-Plug and Play ISA expansion card, use the ICU to reconfigure your system. The utility reads the card’s corresponding configuration file (.cfg file), which describes the card’s characteristics and required system resources.

After the resources identified in these configuration files are assigned to all non-Plug and Play ISA expansion cards, the system assigns resources to all Plug and Play expansion cards, as well as PCI expansion cards, thereby creating a conflict-free configuration.

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The ICU provides a database of configuration files for a large variety of non-Plug and Play ISA expansion cards. The database is located in the \ db subdirectory. Listed cards are non-Plug and Play ISA expansion cards that have configuration files stored in this database.

Unlisted cards are non-Plug and Play ISA expansion cards that do not have configura- tion files stored in the ICU database. Unlisted cards are not displayed in the list of cards provided for the various card categories. The unlisted cards may be cards for which no configuration file exists or new cards that include a manufacturer-supplied configuration file on diskette.

When you supply a configuration file and the ICU is running from the hard-disk drive, the configuration file is copied to the directory that contains the rest of the ICU database.

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Whenever you add or remove non-Plug and Play ISA expansion cards, you must run the ICU to ensure that no two cards attempt to use the same resources (such as interrupt request [IRQ] lines).

Run the program before adding or removing any non-Plug and Play ISA expansion cards. The ICU can identify and resolve any resource conflicts and indicate the proper jumper and switch settings for each expansion card to avoid such conflicts. Running the program first helps you determine how to configure a non-Plug and Play ISA expansion card before you install it in your computer.

Using the ISA Configuration Utility 3-3