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Configuring Network Adapter Cards
You must configure your operating system so that it can communicate with the network adapter card. In many cases, you must manually configure the adapter card (through jumper or DIP switch settings) so that it can communicate with the operating system.

To communicate, the operating system and the network adapter must agree on certain important parameters, called resource settings. Some common resource settings for a network adapter are as follows:
The IRQ (Interrupt Request Line) setting reserves an interrupt request line for the adapter to use when contacting the CPU. Devices make requests to the CPU using a signal called an interrupt. Each device must send interrupts on a different interrupt request line. Interrupt request lines are part of the system hardware. The IRQ setting (such as IRQ3, IRQ5, or IRQ15) defines which interrupt request line the device will use. By convention, certain IRQ settings are reserved for specific devices. IRQ3 and IRQ5, for instance, typically are used for network adapter cards. Microsoft recommends IRQ5 if it is available; IRQ5 is often the default.

The base I/O port address defines a memory address through which data will flow to and from the adapter. The base I/O port address functions more like a port, defining a channel to the adapter (see Figure 10.4).

The base memory address is a place in the computer’s memory that marks the beginning of a buffer area reserved for the network adapter. Not all network adapter cards use the computer’s RAM, and therefore not all adapters require a base memory address setting.

Any effort to configure a network adapter card should begin with the card’s vendor documentation. The documentation tells you which resources setting you must set, and it might recommend values for some or all of the settings. The documentation also recommends any jumper or DIP switch settings for the card.

The actual process of configuring the operating system to interact with a network adapter card depends on the operating system. A plug-and-play operating system such as Windows 95, when used with a plug-and-play compatible adapter card, may perform much of the configuring automatically. In Windows NT, you can configure adapter card resource settings through the Control Panel Network application’s Adapters tab. The Windows NT Diagnostics application in the Administrative Tools group (see Exercise 10.2 at the end of the chapter) indicates the resource settings that are currently available.