| Title: | FDDI - The Next Generation |
| Moderator: | NETCAD::STEFANI |
| Created: | Thu Apr 27 1989 |
| Last Modified: | Thu Jun 05 1997 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 2259 |
| Total number of notes: | 8590 |
I have a customer that has an Alpha 2000 with a FDDI and 2 Ethernet adapters. He is running Windows NT V3.51 with Service Pack 4 installed. This issue is in relation to Appletalk. While configuring this system he forgot to connect his FDDI to the hub. When he tries to start Appletalk he gets an error "A device attached to the system is not functioning." The interesting thing is that Appletalk won't start on the ethernet when this happens. Is this the way it should work? According to the customer his Sun system will fail on the FDDI but will still allow Appletalk to start on the ethernet. Any recommendation or explanations would be appreciated. Bill Duncan Windows NT Support
| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2053.1 | NETCAD::STEFANI | Thu May 23 1996 21:12 | 11 | ||
The recommendation is to NOT install a driver for a device that you're
not planning to use. The current FDDI driver doesn't return any
particular status if the cable is disconnected, so NT probably thinks
there's something wrong and is affecting the bound protocol stacks.
If your customer is going to leave the FDDI unused, they should remove
the driver, or alternatively, use the Bindings option under Control
Panel/Network Settings to turn off all of the bindings to the FDDI
card.
- Larry
| |||||
| 2053.2 | future plans? | CSC32::DUNCAN | Fri May 24 1996 11:08 | 14 | |
The customer planned on using the FDDI but through an over sight hadn't connected it to the hub and was initially suspecting a problem with the FDDI. After he realized that it was only a disconnected cable he felt that NT should have went on and loaded Appletalk on the ethernet controllers as Sun supposedly does. Do you plan in the future to return any status to NT so that it might better handle and over site like this by our customers or are there no plans for this. Thanks for the information. Bill Duncan Windows NT Support | |||||
| 2053.3 | NETCAD::STEFANI | Fri May 24 1996 12:31 | 14 | ||
>>Do you plan in the future to return any status to NT so that it might better
>>handle and over site like this by our customers or are there no plans for this.
The Microsoft driver development documentation is severely lacking, but
we found an NDIS_STATUS error code called "NO_CABLE". The new driver
I'll be releasing shortly will return this error code if the link is
unavailable. Again, it's not a given that NT won't still "mess up",
but at least architecturally, returning this error code makes sense.
I still stand by my original recommendation that you either don't
install network drivers for cards that aren't being used, or you
install the drivers, but turn off the bindings.
- Larry
| |||||
| 2053.4 | Thanks | CSC32::DUNCAN | Fri May 24 1996 17:18 | 5 | |
Thank you so much for the information. Bill | |||||