User manual LAVA LAVAPORT-PCI

[. . . ] If desired, install the Lava Com Port Redirect and Lava Modem Speed Set utilities to change the Com numbers of your ports, and to automate modem speed settings. For Windows 2000/XP, you can redirect your Com ports by Right Clicking My Computer > Properties > Hardware > Device Manager > double click the Lava Port you want to change > Port Settings > Advanced and under Com Port Number, you can change the port number from the drop down menu. 4 Hardware Installation 1. Before opening the casing of your computer, make sure that all power is off. Locate an unused PCI slot and insert the LavaPort-PCI into it. [. . . ] Assign Port 1 to be Com 3 instead of the default Com 6), please use the Lava Com Port Redirector Utility. This program will allow you to change the numbering of your ports without changing I/O address resources. Interrupt Resources may be modified for the LavaPort Parent device (see Device Manager - Multi-function Adapters), but not for individual ports because both ports on the LavaPort-PCI share one IRQ. Please note that interrupt changes require a reboot to take effect. 10 Changing the Com numbering of your Ports Windows 95/98/ME The LavaPort-PCI takes advantage of the inherent support of Windows for a multitude of Com Ports, and allows the user to add one or more ports beyond the traditional Com 4. Indeed because the LavaPort-PCI is a PCI device, Windows will always configure its ports using Com designations with higher numbers than Com 4. Unfortunately many communications application programs do not recognize Port designations beyond Com 4. It therefore may be necessary to rename one or more of the Ports in your PC to use different Com numbers. This may be accomplished using the Lava Port Redirect utility found in the Utils subdirectory of your LavaPort-PCI diskette. This utility may be run from the diskette or installed onto your hard drive by using the Setup. exe program in the Utils subdirectory. To install the Lava Port Redirect utility on your hard drive, insert the LavaPort diskette into your floppy drive, click Start, Run and type A:\Utils\Setup. Windows 2000/XP Windows2000/XP has its own port changing ability built-in. You can do this by Right Clicking My Computer > Properties > Hardware > Device Manager > double click the Lava Port you want to change > Port Settings > Advanced and under Com Port Number, you can change the port number from the drop down menu. 11 12 Setting LavaPort Data Rates in Windows The data rate of the LavaPort may be set using the Bits per Second pull down menu. Please note that this menu will also appear when setting the "Port Properties" in any communications application, and may have to be set independently of your Control Panel settings. Control Panel settings may not necessarily be linked to those of your Communications Application. For example, Port speeds in Dial-Up Networking are controlled independently of speed settings in Device Manager. For optimum performance, always verify that your LavaPort is set to the maximum speed supported by your modem, and that both speed settings are the same in every application. Please note that the setting of Communications Port Data Rates is often the most confusing of tasks encountered by modem users. For this reason, Lava has included the Lava Modem Speed Set utility in the Utils subdirectory of your LavaPort diskette. Lava strongly recommends using this utility for all LavaPort-to-modem connections. 13 14 Setting LavaPort FIFO Control in Windows 15 Each of the the LavaPort-PCI's two ports incorporates a 32-byte FIFO (first-in-first-out) buffer. The FIFO control tabs set the buffer "trigger" levels. When the buffer is filled to its trigger level with the selected number of bytes, the CPU will be interrupted and asked to either reload the buffer (for transmission), or retrieve data from the buffer (for reception). Most efficient data transmission occurs when the CPU is interrupted infrequently. For each interrupt, the CPU can then service the buffer with larger data blocks: during transmission, it can place a large burst of data into the buffer, and during reception it can retrieve a large block from the buffer and then continue multi-tasking. Ideally therefore, Receive triggers should be set as high as possible and Transmit triggers as low as possible. However, if the Transmit trigger levels are set too low, or Receive triggers too high, and the CPU is busy when an interrupt is called by the LavaPort, a short period of inactivity may occur between the port and the modem. This will reduce effective transmission/reception speeds. [. . . ] After the necessary files have been copied, select My Computer and start Control Panel. A new icon will appear called "LavaPort" . This applet should now be used to configure ALL Com Ports in your PC not just LavaPorts. 21 Please note that Com 1 may not appear in this applet if you have your mouse attached to Com 1. 22 Setting a 230. 4 kbps Data Rate The LavaPort-PCI supports data rates up to 460. 8 kbps, including 115. 2 kbps and 230. 4 kbps. However, not all modems support Com Port rates above 115. 2 kbps. If your modem does not support higher data rates and you select a higher data rate in the LavaPort Properties, Windows will automatically default to the slowest supported rate in the chain. [. . . ]