MADGE TOKEN RING SUPPORT PACKAGE VERSION 2.1.0 ============================================== This package provides support for the following Madge Token Ring PCI cards in all desktop Apple PowerPC PCI based machines: 51-05 Smart MK4 PCI Ringnode 53-05 Smart MK4 Low Profile PCI Ringnode 3140 2010 RapidFire 3140V2 16/4 TR PCI Adapter 31-04 RapidFire 3140V2 16/4 TR Low Profile PCI Adapter Additionally, support is provided and for the Madge CardBus MkII card (20-03) in Apple Powerbooks with CardBus compatible slots. Support is provided for all operating systems from MacOS 8.0 and later. However, please read the known problems section below before proceeding. INSTALLATION ============ If you have a desktop machine, power down the machine and install the network adapter in any free PCI slot inside the machine. Reboot and copy the following files to the Extensions folder in the current System Folder: PCI 100/16/4 TokRing PCI 3140v2 16/4 TokRing If you have a Powerbook, copy the following files to the Extensions folder instead: CardBus MkII TokRng Driver Madge Cardbus Enabler Madge Port Scanner For all machines, copy the following file to the Control Panels folder in the System Folder: Madge Token Ring Settings Restart the machine to use the newly installed software. CONNECTING TO A TOKEN RING ========================== Ensure that the token ring card(s) in your computer are connected to a token ring network via a suitable UTP or STP cable. Open the AppleTalk or TCP control panel according to the type of networking required and select 'Token Ring' from the menu a the top of the control panel. The network should be available after the control panel is closed. If the network does not behave as expected, the Madge Token Ring Settings control panel may help to establish the problem. If this is run from the Control Panels menu under the Apple Menu, it will display a list of the installed cards. For each card, three sets of information are displayed. These are, the card's current status, the current settings for user defineable parameters, and a selection of statistics indicating the number of packets transmitted and received. If the network adapter has failed to connect to the network for any reason, then the status display will give message indicating the source of the problem. The most common problems indicated are: (i) A fault in the cable connecting the adapter to the network. Action: Replace the cable and/or check wiring from the wall socket to the wiring closet. The driver will retry the opening process every few seconds and Madge Token Ring Settings will indicate as soon as a successful network connection is made. The driver for the mk2 card (51-02) is the only exception. Here the machine must be restarted if the initial attempt to join the network failed. (ii) Attempt to open in auto speed detection mode as the first station on a shared network. Action: If the machine is the first to open into a shared network, the card will be unable to establish the correct speed of operation. Madge Token Ring Settings must be used to select a fixed ringspeed for this card. (iii) Attempt to open at the wrong speed. Action: If the adapter has been configured to work at a fixed ringspeed, or is not capable of auto speed detection as is the case for the mk2 adapter (51-02), then Madge Token Ring Settings may report a cable fault. Contact the network administrator to ascertain the preferred speed of operation and set the card to that speed. For advanced debugging, the source routes learnt by the adapter can be displayed by selecting 'Display source route cache...' from the Edit menu. USER CONFIGURABLE PARAMETERS ============================ The control panel 'Madge Token Ring Settings' enables two parameters to be set by the user. These are the ringspeed and a locally administered network address. Please check the preferred settings with the network administrator before changing either of these from the factory default. The values are stored on the card itself, hence the configuration will not be affected by operating system upgrades or by deleting preferences files. After changing a parameter, the machine must be restarted to ensure that the new value is used. POWERBOOK NOTE ============== On a Powerbook, an icon for the Madge CardBus MkII card should appear on the desktop, when this is inserted into the machine. Double clicking on the icon will also open Madge Token Ring Settings if this file has been correctly copied to the Control Panels folder. The CardBus card may be ejected by dragging its icon to the Trash. This will cause any current network connections to be terminated. KNOWN PROBLEMS ============== (i) Only one CardBus card can be used in a PowerBook. If the card is ejected whilst the machine is either awake or sleeping, it should be replaced in the same slot to ensure correct operation. (ii) CardBus support only works when MacOS 8.6 is installed on the PowerBook. This is because of a problem in earlier version of the System Software which caused the card not to be recognised. (Note that 8.6 is a free upgrade for current users of MacOS 8.5 and can be downloaded from the Apple website). (iii) The 'Madge Token Ring Settings' control panel will only function correctly with MacOS 8.0 if the Appearance extension is upgraded to version 1.0.3 or later. If version 1.0 of Appearance is used, then the control panel will appear not to find any of the cards installed in the machine. There are no such problems with later versions of MacOS. (iv) A small number of applications may have problems with the larger frame sizes used on Token Ring compared to Ethernet. If you have an application where this is known to be a problem, the driver 'PCI Mk2 16/4 Small frame' can be used instead of 'PCI Mk2 16/4 TokRng Driver' for the 51-02 card. This restricts the maximum packet size to that of ethernet. It should not normally be necessary to install this file except to resolve this specific problem. Copyright Madge Ltd, 1998-2003 ------------------------------