LAVA does not provide drivers or support for UNIX. SCO UNIX has a command called mkdev serial that can install the port in UNIX. Consult the documentation for your version of UNIX to see if this is the correct command for you and the appropriate switches.

This note is useful in understanding configuration when software might require a specific Com port below Com 5.

Windows 95/98/Me/2000 cannot enumerate PCI serial ports starting at COM2 or COM3.

The way the Windows serial port enumerator (serenum.vxd) works is:

It first checks the I/O address of the serial port.

If the I/O address is 3f8 then it assigns that serial port COM1.

If the I/O address is 2f8 then it assigns that serial port COM2.

If the I/O address is 3e8 then it assigns that serial port COM3.

If the I/O address is 2e8 then it assigns that serial port COM4.

If the port has an I/O address other than what is shown above, then Windows enumerates the ports

starting at COM5.

PCI cards are completely configured by the system. The system cannot configure PCI cards with the I/O addresses shown above. Those are reserved for ISA devices so Windows will always enumerate our PCI ports starting at COM5.

If you wish to reassign serial ports, use the LAVA redirect software.

LAVA PCI cards do not install in Win2000 using a setup utility. They install when New Hardware is found at boot up of Windows. Windows searches your hard and floppy drives for an .inf file that includes the setup information for our card. This is a plain text file that contains the setup information for our card. Sometimes, it does not find this file so it is necessary to have our card reinstall.

The following procedure will reinstall our card:

1) Right Click on My Computer from the desktop and enter Properties and then Device Manager. Enter the section called Other Devices or Unknown Devices.

2) Remove the reference to either PCI card or PCI Serial Controller or PCI parallel controller by right-clicking on it and entering Uninstall.

3) Shut down your computer normally and ensure that our card is seated properly in the PCI slot.

4) Upon entering Windows, when New Hardware is found direct it to the LAVA Win2000 .inf file.

5) Let Windows search for our installation file and reinstall our card correctly.

WINDOWS 2000 FEATURES

In Windows 95/98/Me we provide a utility for redirecting the COM port assignment that Windows assigns our ports. This utility is not necessary in later versions of Windows. The following is the procedure to redirect our port in Windows 2000.

1) Go to Device Manager by right-clicking on My Computer from the Desktop and entering Properties.

2) Open up Ports (COM & LPT) by clicking the + sign to the left.

3) Double-click the port you wish to redirect and enter the Port Settings Tab.

4) Click the Advanced Button.

5) In the Window that appears you can redirect the port assignment.

SPECIAL WINDOWS 2000 FEATURE

Parallel Port LPT assignments can be redirected. Currently the choice for redirection is LPT1 LPT2 or LPT3.

CLEANING UP YOUR INF FILE

If you are updating the .inf file from a previous version of this file it is necessary to remove the old version. You must go to the Windows\inf folder. If you don’t see the inf folder then your folder options are set to hide that folder. To see that folder go to View|Folder Options|View

In there make sure that the show all files option is set. Our .inf file is found under the name oemX.inf, where X is some integer. You must edit using notepad.exe each oemX.inf file and look for a reference to LAVA. If there is a reference to LAVA then remove that file. Also, remove the associated oemX.pnf that is located here as well.

Note: LAVA PCI cards do not use a setup utility to install in Windows 95/98/Me/2000. They install when New Hardware is found at boot up of Windows. Windows searches your hard and floppy drives for an .inf file that includes the setup information for our card. Sometimes, it does not find this file so it is necessary to reinstall the card.

The following procedure will reinstall the card:

1) Right-click on My Computer from the desktop and enter Properties and then Device Manager. Enter the section called Other Devices or Unknown Devices.

2) Remove the reference to either PCI card or PCI Serial Controller.

3) Shut down your computer normally and ensure that the card is seated properly in the PCI slot.

4) Upon re-entering Windows and when New Hardware is found, place the LAVA Installation and Utilities disk into the drive.

5) Let Windows search for our installation file to reinstall our card correctly.

Also:

In Windows 95 B OSR2 a patch must be run in order for PCI devices to function properly. In Device Manager check if there is an Other Devices Section. In there you might see a PCI bridge device and a Universal Serial Bus controller both with question marks (?). If this is the case then you must run the Windows patch that comes on a floppy or CD ROM with the motherboard while our card is NOT in the system. The file is usually called piix4.exe or something similar. Consult the readme files on the disk to find out what the file is exactly named in your case.

Also:

If your card is a generic version of a LAVA card, it will require drivers written specifically for that card. Consult Technical Support to obtain generic drivers.

If reinstalling the card doesn’t work, check the following:

A) Ensure that the card is seated in the slot properly.

B) See that the slot that the card is in has no problem. Try the card in a different slot ensuring that it is properly seated in the slot.

C) Some computers give errors with our card if the card is placed in a dedicated PCI slot if there are shared PCI / ISA slots in that computer. Try the card in one of the shared PCI ISA slots.

D) Ensure that the card itself has no problems. If it does, replace it through the reseller of your card. If they are not willing to replace it then we can.

NOTE: The following instructions apply to PCI-bus serial 16550 UART ports and to PCI-bus parallel ports.

LAVA PCI cards take drivers native to Windows XP as well as LAVA drivers. When installing PCI cards, Windows XP asks for a driver disk. After searching the LAVA Installation Disk, Windows will also use drivers taken from the Windows XP Operating System.

When installing, a generic message may appear indicating a driver has not been submitted to Microsoft for approval. Continue with the install.

To change parallel port settings:

If you wish to change the LPT designation given to a port, go to the Device Manager, select the “Ports” menu, and select the port you want to change. Go to the “Properties” for that port, and select “Port settings.” Use the drop-down menu to change the LPT number as needed.

To change serial port settings:

If you wish to change the COM designation given to a port, go to the Device Manager, select the “Ports” menu, and select the port you want to change. Go to the “Properties” for that port, and select “Port settings.” Select “Advanced” and then use the drop-down menu to change the COM number as needed.

1) Create a DOS boot diskette on a non-NT system (DOS, WIN9x, or Win3.11) using the following command:

format a: /s

2) Copy lavaconf.exe (our LAVA PCI card detection routine) to that installation diskette.

3) Insert the LAVA PCI 16550 PCI card into an available PCI slot.

4) Boot to the DOS boot diskette.

5) Run lavaconf.exe from that diskette.

6) Record what Lavaconf reports.

7) Restart the computer and boot to NT3.51

8) Go to Control Panel and Click Ports.

9) Click Add and then click the Properties for the port that was added.

10) Go to Settings and then Advanced.

11) Configure the IO address and IRQ to what you recorded in step 6. (NOTE: the IO address will not be a choice in the list. You must type over what is in the list.)

12) Repeat steps 9-11 for all the Lava Serial ports you are adding.

13) Reboot after all the ports have been added.

Application: All LAVA PCI Serial Cards

Question:

I am running the final release of Windows 98 and when I run your ModemSpeed or Redirect utility with your PCI serial card it does not recognize the port. What’s going on?

Answer:

The fix for redirecting the card to lower COM port settings is the following:

1) Go to Start|Run and type regedit and then click OK.

2) Go to the following place in the registry.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\MF\CHILD0000\PCI&VEN_1407&DEV_0200&BUS_00&DEV_09&FUNC_00]

3) Modify the following string values by double-clicking the tab to the left of that String name. Change COM# to a value that is not already being used. i.e. COM3 or COM4. Verify this by checking ports in Device Manager.

“DeviceDesc”=”LavaPort 650 PCI (COM5)”

“PORTNAME”=”COM5″

“FRIENDLYNAME”=”LavaPort 650 PCI (COM5)”

Leave the following strings alone.

“HardwareID”=”PORT650PCI,MF\\CHILD0000″

“Class”=”Ports”

“Driver”=”Ports\\0001″

“Mfg”=”Lava Computer MFG. Inc.”

“ConfigFlags”=hex:00,00,00,00

4) Repeat Step 3 for the other port of the card(if it has one) found in the following place in the Registry.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\MF\CHILD0001\PCI&VEN_1407&DEV_0200&BUS_00&DEV_09&FUNC_00]