🚀 go-pugleaf

Hi,

I am having trouble adding a station to a small Ethernet LAN.  The network
is running NetWare ELS II version 2.15c.  There are 3 stations and one
server, all on the same piece of thin Ethernet (UL CL2P).  All stations
and the server have a Western Digital WD8003E card.  SHGEN (4.02)
identifies the drivers provided with the cards as Western Digital
Star/EtherCard 2.11.1.

I want to add an original IBM PC as a new station.  The PC has an MDA
adapter, a floppy controller, and an AST Memo576 memory expansion card in
it along with the network card.  I have tried the following network cards
in it:  DLink DE-100, Suntek EL-100, WD 8003EB.

The symptoms are thus:  With no config.sys or autoexec.bat, I load IPX
and NET4.  I attach to the file server OK, and I can switch to F: and
CD \LOGIN.  I can list the files in the directory with DIR.  However,
as soon as I try to run LOGIN, the PC hangs for about 30 seconds, and
then I get a message like "Error receiving from server BLAH, Network not
responding, Abort, Retry?".  If I Retry, I get the same error after another
30 seconds.

I know the PC is working, since I tried one of the cards from another
station in it and it works OK.  I tried other network taps, and tried using
the cards in other stations, with the same errors.  When possible, I have
used the configuration that works with the existing 8003E cards:  int 3,
I/O 300h, RAM at D000:0, no ROM.  For the DLink and WD8003EB cards, I ran
their test programs; they were able to "play catch" with each other across
the net.

I got the same error from a Novell NE/2 card in a PS/2 model 80 and a DLink
DE-200 card in one of the working ATs.

My guess is the cards are having trouble receiving multiple packets.  That
is, they can get a directory listing, since it is a short list and can fit
in one packet, but when they are supposed to get several in a row, like
LOGIN.COM, they miss the second one and time out.  I am sure the cable
distances are not over maximum.

Can anyone help me with this?  Have you seen this error before?  Please
respond by e-mail and I will post a summary.  Thanks.

Terry McKiernan
Consultant at Large