Chip 1997 April (Special)

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Chip 1997 April (Special) / Chip-Special_1997-04_cd.bin / creative / ctcmbbs / ctcmbbs.exe / MANUAL.TXT < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1996-03-14 | 28.6 KB | 662 lines

DOS/Windows 3.x & Windows 95 DOS Mode Plug and Play Installation Tips ====================================== Welcome to the world of Plug and Play (PnP). So, this manual is prepared to show you how to install and use CTCM and CTCU in your system. We have also provided some information here, to help you understand basic PnP concepts as well as Creative's PnP solution for non-PnP environments. And to find out how to solve some common PnP installation problems, just flip to the last section. The information here is organized into the following sections: 1. Installing CTCM & CTCU 2. Using CTCM 3. Using CTCU 4. PnP Concepts 5. PnP in Windows 95 MS-DOS Mode 6. PnP in DOS/Windows 3.x 7. Creative's Approach to PnP 8. Common Questions and Answers NOTE: Please read the README.TXT file in your PnP Configuration Manager diskette for the latest information on the software. 1. INSTALLING CTCM & CTCU To install Creative PnP Configuration Manager (CTCM) and Creative PnP Configuration Utility (CTCU) in DOS/Windows 3.x: 1. Insert the PnP Configuration Manager installation diskette into your floppy drive. 2. Exit to DOS if you are in Windows 3.x. 3. Type A:INSTALL (or B:INSTALL if your diskette is in drive B:) and press <ENTER>. 4. Follow the instructions on the screen to complete the installation. The installation program will install CTCM as a DOS device driver by adding the following line to the CONFIG.SYS file: DEVICE=<C:\CTCM>\CTCM.EXE where <C:\CTCM> is the directory where you have installed CTCM. This CTCM statement will be placed before all the statements that load other low-level device drivers (such as CTSB16.SYS and SBIDE.SYS) so that your Creative PnP cards will be configured before these device drivers try to use them. NOTE: If you add this line to CONFIG.SYS manually, please make sure that this line is placed after the statement (if any) that loads the other PnP configuration manager in your system. The installation program will also add the following lines to the AUTOEXEC.BAT file: SET CTCM=<C:\CTCM> <C:\CTCM>\CTCU /S /W=<C:\WINDOWS> where <C:\CTCM> and <C:\WINDOWS> are the directories where your CTCM/CTCU and Windows 3.x files are installed respectively. After the installation, CTCM and CTCU will be invoked each time you boot your system. CTCM will scan for and configure any unconfigured Creative PnP cards. CTCU will run in silent mode and update the parameters needed by your Creative and Windows drivers. It will also update the BLASTER environment variable if it detects a Creative audio card in the system. For more details on how the CTCM and CTCU commands work, please read the sections "Using CTCM" and "Using CTCU". NOTE: To configure Creative PnP cards in Windows 95 MS-DOS Mode, CTCM is required but CTCU is not necessary since CTCM can get both legacy (non-PnP) and PnP card settings from Windows 95. If you do not have Creative Windows 95 software and you need to configure these cards in Windows 95 MS-DOS Mode, please refer to section "Common Questions and Answers" for configuring these cards under Windows 95 MS-DOS Mode. 2. USING CTCM After booting your system, you may want to configure a Creative PnP card again. You can do so by running Creative PnP Configuration Manager (CTCM) from the DOS prompt: 1. Exit to DOS if you are in Windows 3.x or restart in MS-DOS Mode if you are in Windows 95. 2. Type CTCM and press <ENTER>. CTCM will configure your Creative PnP card(s) and update the BLASTER environment variable if it detects a Creative audio card in your system. NOTE: CTCM configures Creative PnP cards only. But it can work with or without another PnP configuration manager installed in the same system. 3. USING CTCU You should run Creative PnP Configuration Utility (CTCU) when one of the following situations happens: a. Your PnP cards' settings do not work properly. For example, some systems do not support high DMA (Direct Memory Access) and one of your PnP devices is set to use high DMA. Then you need to run CTCU to select another set of configuration which does not use high DMA. b. You need to add resource settings for new and existing legacy (non-PnP) cards. c. You have changed the resource settings of your legacy cards. d. You have removed a legacy card from your system. Running CTCU helps to free the resources previously allocated to the card. NOTE: CTCU does not access the resource settings database used by Intel Configuration Manager (ICM). So, do not use CTCU to change or disable your card settings if you already have ICM installed. Use ISA Configuration Utility (ICU) instead. For more details, please refer to the section "PnP in DOS/Windows 3.x". To run CTCU in DOS/Windows 3.x: 1. Exit to DOS if you are in Windows 3.x. 2. Change to the directory where your CTCM and CTCU programs are installed. The default directory is C:\CTCM. 3. Type CTCU and press <ENTER>. The CTCU command has two optional switches: /S and /W=C:\<WINDOWS>. You can type it in the following way: CTCU /S /W=<C:\WINDOWS> where <C:\WINDOWS> is the directory where your Windows 3.x files are installed. The /S switch notifies CTCU to run in silent mode. This means that it will not display any messages or screens. It will simply update the parameters required by Creative drivers. If you do not use the /S switch, CTCU will run in full-screen mode. The /W=<C:\WINDOWS> switch informs CTCU to update the PnP hardware information of your Windows drivers in the SYSTEM.INI file. If you do not use this switch, CTCU will prompt you to enter the name of the directory where your Windows files can be found. When you run CTCU in full-screen mode, you can pull down the menu to select one of the following sections: 1. PnP Cards section 2. Legacy Cards section 3. System Devices section You can use your mouse or keyboard to move around and select an item or action in CTCU. To pull down the CTCU menu, click the menu or press the <ALT> key, followed by <ENTER>. To select an item in a menu or box, use your mouse or the arrow keys to move your screen cursor to that item. To see more details about an item, double-click the item or press <ENTER> after you have moved your screen cursor to that item. To move your screen cursor from box to box within the same window, click the box or press <TAB>. The instructions in the following sections are written with the assumption that you will use your mouse in CTCU. 3.1 PnP Cards Section NOTE: You can use this section to view the resource settings of the PnP cards in your system and change the settings of Creative PnP cards only. When you select the PnP Cards section from the CTCU menu, the Plug and Play window will appear, listing the PnP cards in the system. Choosing a card here will, in turn, display a list of logical devices on that particular card. To view the resources for a PnP device, double-click the device you want. Alternatively, select the device from the list and then click the Resources button. The Resources window will appear. The Resources window displays the current resource settings of a particular logical device. The settings shown may include input/output (I/O) ranges, interrupts, Direct Memory Access (DMA) channels and 32-bit memory ranges, depending on the PnP card you have and the configuration chosen. To change the resource configuration, click the down arrow next to the Configuration box and then select a suitable configuration which has all the settings that your card needs. To disable a logical device, click the Disable checkbox. A mark will appear in the box, informing CTCM not to configure this device the next time it runs. To view or change a resource setting, double-click the setting you want, or alternatively, select the setting and then click the Reconfigure button in the Resources window. Depending on the setting that you have chosen, one of the following windows will appear: a. I/O Range window b. Interrupt window c. Direct Memory Access window d. Memory Range window The I/O Range window displays the current I/O resource setting and a list of possible settings. To change this setting, select one from the list. Make sure it will not conflict with the other cards' settings. Then double-click the new setting or click the OK button. The Interrupt window displays the current interrupt resource setting and a list of possible settings. To change this setting, select one from the list. Make sure that it will not conflict with the other cards' settings. Then double-click the new setting or click OK. The Direct Memory Access window displays the current DMA resource setting and a list of possible settings. To change this setting, select one from the list. Make sure it will not conflict with the other cards' settings. Then double-click the new setting or click the OK button. The Memory Range window displays the current 32-bit memory resource setting and a list of possible settings. To change this setting, select one from the list. Make sure it will not conflict with the other cards' settings. Then double-click the new setting or click OK. NOTE: Each of these windows has a Conflicting Devices message box which will inform you of any hardware conflicts that may result from the settings you have just selected for your card. To see the list of settings available in each window, click the down arrow on the right-hand side of the Choices box. 3.2 Legacy Cards Section NOTE: You can use this section to enter, view or change the resource settings of all the legacy (non-PnP) cards in your system. When you select the Legacy Cards section from the CTCU menu, the Legacy window will appear, displaying the resources taken up by the legacy cards in your system. You can add information on a legacy card's resource settings by simply clicking the Add button. You can also view, change or remove an existing card's resource settings by selecting a card in the window and then clicking one of the following: a. Add button b. View All button c. Change button d. Remove button Add Button Clicking this button in the Legacy window opens the Add window where you can enter the following details for a new or existing legacy card in your system: a. Card Name b. Input/Output Range (I/O) c. Interrupt (IRQ) d. Direct Memory Access channel (DMA) e. 32-bit Memory Range (Mem) NOTE: You must enter the card's name in the Card Name field. The other fields can be left blank. View All Button Clicking this button in the Legacy window opens the View All window, which lists all the resources you have reserved in your system. These resources are grouped by type and displayed in four boxes ≤ input/output Range (I/O), interrupt (IRQ), Direct Memory Access channel (DMA), and 32-bit memory range (Mem). Change Button Clicking this button in the Legacy window opens the Change window which displays the current resources that have been reserved for a selected legacy card. You can also change any of the resources as well as the card's name here. NOTE: Be very careful when you add or change resource information for a legacy card. Verify all the hardware settings of the legacy cards in your system. Filling in incorrect data may reserve resources which will not be used by any device! Remove Button Clicking this button in the Legacy window removes a selected card's settings. 3.3 System Devices Section NOTE: You can use this section to view but not change the resource settings of the system devices in your computer. When you select the System Devices section from the CTCU menu, the System Device Resources window appears, listing all the resources used by your system devices. These resources are grouped by type and displayed in four boxes: input/output range (I/O), interrupt (IRQ), Direct Memory Access channel (DMA) and 32-bit memory range (Mem). 4. PnP CONCEPTS When you add a hardware card to your personal computer (PC), you must reserve some system resources - such as input/output address spaces, interrupts, Direct Memory Access channels or memory spaces - for the card. You must also make sure that there is no hardware conflict, that is, the resources reserved by one card are not used by another card in the same system. Before Plug and Play (PnP) was introduced, you can reserve system resources only by manually changing the settings of some dip switches or jumpers on a legacy (non-PnP) card. This can be quite difficult since you have to understand how the hardware settings correspond to the system resources that your card requires. It can also be very tedious since you may need to change the dip switch or jumper settings several times before your card can be configured without any hardware conflict. With the emergence of Plug and Play (PnP), a revolutionary design philosophy and a new PC architecture specification finalized recently, the PC, hardware cards, drivers and the operating system can now work together without such ôuser intervention. You no longer need to change any hardware settings on your card before it can work properly in a PC. Instead, a PnP BIOS or software would find out the types of resources each card needs and allocate the resources accordingly. Generally, a PnP card requires one of the following to work: 1. PnP System BIOS 2. PnP Operating System 3. PnP Configuration Drivers and Utilities NOTE: The PnP BIOS specification went through several revisions. The version 1.0a specification was finalized in May 1994, with further clarifications documented in October 1994. As a result, older PnP systems shipped are not fully compliant with this specification. So, there are some compatibility problems. For more details, please read the section "PnP in DOS/Windows 3.x". 4.1 PnP System BIOS The PnP system BIOS is the lowest level of your PnP system. Its main functions are to provide information on the resource settings of your system devices and to configure PnP cards. Some PnP system BIOS configure PnP cards automatically. Other BIOS give you an option in their setup utilities to disable their PnP configuration capability. Please refer to your system manual for more details. 4.2 PnP Operating System A PnP operating system provides a fully PnP user environment. It can support PnP cards on its own, with or without a PnP system BIOS. Its main functions are to determine which resources have been reserved by the legacy and PnP cards in your system, and then dynamically allocate free resources to newly added PnP cards. Windows 95 is an example of a PnP operating system. When you install or upgrade to Windows 95 for the first time, it will automatically determine the resource settings of the existing cards in your system and allocate other resources to new PnP cards. When you add a legacy card later, however, you will need to run the "Add New Hardware" wizard in Control Panel so that Windows 95 can detect this card. To avoid any conflicts that may be introduced by the hardware settings of this new legacy card, Windows 95 may also re-assign different resources to existing PnP cards. 4.3 PnP Configuration Drivers and Utilities If you do not have a PnP operating system, you need to install a PnP configuration driver and utility to perform the allocation and configuration functions of a PnP operating system. A PnP configuration driver determines the resource settings of all your system devices and legacy cards, configures PnP cards, and provides relevant configuration information to other drivers or applications that access your PnP cards. A PnP configuration utility allows you to view, enter or change the resource settings of the PnP and legacy cards in your system. The new or changed settings are then used by the PnP configuration driver to configure new PnP cards. Intel Configuration Manager (ICM) and ISA Configuration Utility (ICU) are examples of a PnP configuration driver and a PnP configuration utility. For more details, please read the section "PnP in DOS/Windows 3.x". 5. PnP IN WINDOWS 95 MS-DOS MODE Although Windows 95 configures PnP cards in its Windows and DOS box environments, it does not configure them in an MS-DOS Mode session. Therefore, you need to run a PnP configuration driver to configure these cards in this session. Otherwise, when you run a DOS program in MS-DOS Mode, the program would not be able to detect any of your PnP cards. NOTE: For more details on how you can start an MS-DOS Mode session in Windows 95, please refer to the documentation that comes with Windows 95. 6. PnP IN DOS/WINDOWS 3.x DOS/Windows 3.x is not a PnP operating system. So, to configure PnP cards, you need to install a PnP configuration driver and a PnP configuration utility. Currently, a generic set of PnP configuration driver and utility that you can find in the market for the DOS/Windows 3.x environment is ICM. Consisting of Intel Configuration Manager (ICM) and ISA Configuration Utility (ICU), this driver and utility set was developed by Intel Corporation as an interim solution to facilitate PnP configuration when a PnP operating system is not available. It may come pre-installed in your PC or bundled with your PnP cards. However, due to the compatibility problem mentioned earlier (please refer to the note in the section "PnP Concepts"), you may encounter one of the following error message or problems when you use ICM version 4.13 to configure your PnP card: a. "Error: Failed NVS write, Error=82h" b. Failure to detect PnP BIOS machine c. Failure to assign new configuration to PnP card And ICM may not be able to configure your PnP card properly. 7. CREATIVE'S APPROACH TO PnP To solve problems similar to those mentioned in the previous section, we have developed a set of DOS-based PnP configuration driver and utility for the DOS/Windows 3.x and Windows 95 MS- DOS Mode environments. They are called Creative PnP Configuration Manager (CTCM) and Creative PnP Configuration Utility (CTCU). CTCM can be loaded as a device driver through a statement in the CONFIG.SYS file. It can also be run from the DOS prompt. It configures Creative PnP cards only and provides configuration information to other drivers or DOS applications. CTCU is used when your DOS/Windows 3.x system does not have ICM and ICU. It allows you to perform the following functions on the devices in your system: a. Enter, view, change or remove the settings of legacy cards b. View, change, or disable the settings of Creative PnP cards c. View the settings of system devices and non-Creative PnP cards 7.1 Why Use CTCM and CTCU? There are several reasons why we offer CTCM and CTCU: 1. CTCM provides a consistent method for configuring all Creative PnP cards. It works with or without PnP BIOS or ICM. If your PnP BIOS or ICM has already configured your PnP card(s), CTCM will simply retain those settings. 2. If the PnP BIOS or ICM did not configure your Creative PnP cards properly, due to incompatability problems similar to those mentioned in the section "PnP in DOS/Windows 3.x", CTCM may be able to allocate resources to these cards. 3. If you use ICM to solve the Windows 95 MS-DOS Mode problem, you need to enter legacy card settings through ICU although Windows 95 already has this information. ICM also stays resident and competes with your DOS programs for memory space. CTCM, on the other hand, configures Creative PnP cards with the same settings used by Windows 95. You need not run CTCU at all. CTCM also does not stay resident and thus, does not waste any memory space. 4. You need not reboot your system after using CTCU to change Creative PnP card settings, if you do not have any DOS device drivers (e.g., SBIDE.SYS or CTSB16.SYS) loaded. You only need to run CTCM to reconfigure the card. This is possible because CTCM can be activated from the DOS prompt, unlike ICM. 7.2 Limitations of CTCM and CTCU If you use a non-PnP operating system like DOS/Windows 3.x and do not have a PnP BIOS or ICM, your PnP card works like a software-configurable card. In such an environment, CTCM needs to know which resources have been reserved by all the legacy and PnP cards, and system devices in your system before it can allocate conflict-free resources to your new Creative PnP card. CTCM can get the resource settings of PnP cards and system devices from the PnP cards and BIOS. But you need to use CTCU to enter the resource settings of all the legacy cards in your PC, and then run CTCM to configure your Creative PnP card. You may still encounter hardware conflicts if the resource settings specified through CTCU are incomplete or wrong. If this happens, use CTCU to select a different group of resources for the Creative PnP card that caused the conflict. You may need to try a few combinations until you find one that works. This can be tedious, but it is easier than the legacy way of changing dip switches or jumpers. 8. COMMON QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS This section gives the answers to some common questions that you may have while installing a Creative PnP card in the DOS/Windows 3.x and Windows 95 MS-DOS Mode environments. 8.1 General Questions Question : I have a PnP BIOS as well as a PnP operating system or a PnP configuration driver and utility. Which one should I use to configure my PnP card? Answer : If you have a PnP operating system or a PnP configuration driver and utility, it is better to let your PnP operating system or configuration driver configure your PnP card. Try to set your BIOS so that it will not configure PnP cards since it may not have access to the hardware setting information of your legacy (non-PnP) cards and thus may give your PnP card some settings that would conflict with those of existing legacy cards. Question : I have just upgraded my operating system from DOS/Windows 3.x to Windows 95. But I do not have any Windows 95 software for my Creative PnP cards. What must I do to configure these cards properly? Answer : Use your Windows Explorer to look for a CTCM.INF file in your CTCM directory. Right-click on the file and select Install from the shortcut menu that appears. This program will copy some drivers into your system to configure your PnP cards in MS-DOS Mode. It will also convert into remarks all CTCM/CTCU statements in your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files as Windows 95 will take care of all PnP configurations in its Windows and DOS box environments. 8.2 ICM Questions Question : Must I remove ICM in order to use CTCM? Answer : No, you do not have to remove ICM to use CTCM. If both CTCM and ICM are installed in your system, just make sure the CTCM statement in your CONFIG.SYS file is placed after the ICM statement. Question : What should I do if I cannot configure my Creative PnP card using ICM? Answer : If you cannot configure your PnP card using ICM, try removing ICM. Then use CTCU and CTCM to change and reconfigure your card settings. For more details on using CTCU or CTCM, please refer to the sections "Using CTCM" and "Using CTCU". 8.3 CTCU Question Question : Can I run CTCU to change or disable my card settings if I have ICM in my system? Answer : No, do not use CTCU to change or disable your card settings since CTCU does not access or update the resource settings database used by ICM. You should use ICU instead to change or disable your card settings if ICM is already loaded into your system. 8.4 CTCM Questions Question : How do I use CTCM to configure both legacy and PnP cards in DOS/Windows 3.x? Answer : First, run CTCU to add the information on the hardware resource used by your legacy cards. Next, run CTCM to configure your PnP card. Alternatively, if you do not know your legacy cards' settings, use CTCU to change the settings of your PnP card. Then run CTCM and test whether your card works properly. This is a trial-and-error method since CTCM will not be "informed" about the resources that have been reserved by your legacy cards. You may need to try different combinations of settings before you can configure your PnP cards successfully, without any hardware conflicts with existing cards. For more details on using CTCU or CTCM, please refer to the sections "Using CTCM" and "Using CTCU". Question : My system hangs or reboots whenever I load CTCM. What should I do? Answer : The memory area of your PnP BIOS machine is probably mapped by EMM386 using the HIGHSCAN option and thus, can get corrupted easily. When it does, CTCM will not work properly. Your system may then hang or reboot whenever you load CTCM. To solve this problem, remove the HIGHSCAN option in the EMM386 statement in the CONFIG.SYS file. For example, change the statement DEVICE=<C:\dir>\EMM386.EXE HIGHSCAN <other parameters> to DEVICE=<C:\dir>\EMM386.EXE <other parameters> where <C:\dir> is the directory in which your EMM386 program is installed and <other parameters> are the other parameters in the EMM386 statement ******** END OF MANUAL.TXT ********