Greetings Everyone, My curiosity about the external NIC (SMC) time out problems I have been having led me to try a few things.
First, I tried changing the duties for each NIC in the GNAT Box configuration (I made the SMC the protected NIC, and the DEC the external NIC). The SMC still timed out and I noticed right away that I couldn't ping the SMC, or access it via the web browser from a computer on the protected network (I was able perform the aforementioned tasks when the NIC were installed in the other order). Hmmmm, OK. My next step was to pull the DEC card (now the external NIC) from the computer and reboot using a new GNAT Box install disk. I was now able to ping the SMC NIC and access the GNAT Box via the web browser interface! I figured that it must be a resource conflict so I changed the IRQ, I/O, DMA for the SMC NIC (using the table in the GNAT Box user manual) and rebooted again using a new install disk. All of the previous problems returned again. Following that, I tried to setup both cards using every possible setting listed in the GNAT Box user manual but no luck. I then decided to pull the DEC card out and install another identical SMC (which is all that I currently have) to see what happened. Neither of the SMC NICs time out and I am now able to access the "protected" SMC NIC via the web browser interface. I still can't successfully ping the external router but the external NIC's Rx and TX lights seem to blink in unison with the cable modem's lights during the pinging process. (What do you guys think? Is that a sign of a properly working external NIC?) (BTW, after reading the SMC user manual I notice that my SMC NIC is not NE2000 compatible. However, the SMC Elite Ultra series is listed as compatible in the GNAT Box manual and my card is an Elite 16 (model #8013WC which shows up as a WD8013 card during the GNAT Box boot-up.) One last test I decided to try was to create an artificial external network to ping to by attaching a laptop to the external NIC using the cross-over cable supplied by my cable company........ Wouldn't you know it, I was wrong in my assumption about the cable being a cross-over type. The modem manufacturer must cross-over the Rx and Tx lines internally. A good idea since it is cheaper for them to purchase off-the-shelf CAT 5 cables. Well then, there goes that idea....for now........ Do you guys think I should purchase a cross-over cable and do my ping test, or should I just go out and purchase a NE2000 NIC and use it with my DEC 204? Maybe I don't really have a hardware problem anymore and I'm wasting my time? Any other comments? Regards, Mark St.George
