Digital's HiNote VP550 - 575 with Microsoft WindowsNT 4.0

Overview:

The intent of this document is to educate the reader on Digital's 
implementation of  PCMCIA and Power Management under Windows NT 4.0 
on the Digital HiNote VP550 - VP575 Series notebook.  

This document also contains instruction on updating Windows NT 4.0 
CardWizard PCMCIA software.

Revisions:

- The Microsoft version of  NT that Digital ships with this laptop is 
  Service Pack 1 (Build 1381).  It is important to note that 
  installation of other Service Packs is NOT recommended!  Digital 
  has gone to great lengths to make sure that our shipping version 
  of NT is dependable and reliable on our product. Monitor the 
  Digital WEB site weekly for updates on Service Pack testing 
  on this product. 
- Shipping Power Profiler revision is 2.10.03
- Shipping CardWizard PCMCIA software revision is 2.00.07
- BIOS revision must be 103A/B or higher
- Keyboard BIOS revision must be 102 or higher

Power Profiler:

Power Profiler is a product from SystemSoft that provides power 
management functions under Windows NT.  When NT boots, it places an 
icon in the task tray and places a suspend option on the start menu. 
The task tray icon performs several functions.  It indicates that 
you are plugged into AC, it shows battery charge level and it has the 
ability to suspend the system. Using a right mouse click on the 
battery icon in the task tray displays battery charge level.  The 
type of suspend that is performed is determined by the suspend option 
in the BIOS setup.  In other words, if you have the suspend/resume 
button set to "Save To File" then that is how the Power Profiler 
icon will behave when requested to suspend.

Power Profiler works very closely with the system BIOS and has the 
ability to create and stop power management requests.   The two 
power management timers in Power Profiler are "display power down" 
and "hard drive power down."  When these are enabled, all calls 
from the BIOS for display and hard drive are ignored.

The three power management settings for Power Profiler are:  

Always:   Power Profiler display timers and hard drive timers 
are active. The BIOS standby, suspend to ram and suspend to 
file should be enabled.  

Never:  This means Power Profiler display and hard drive timers 
are disabled, as well as the BIOS display, hard drive, standby, 
suspend to ram and suspend to file timers.

Battery:  If AC is inserted then this is the same as "never."  
If the AC is removed then this is the same as "always."


Regardless of the Power Profiler settings, pressing Fn+A or Fn+F 
(a hot key suspend request) will over ride and place the system 
into suspend.  The exceptions to this are noted below under the 
"CardWizard and Power Management events" section. 

Note:  Refer to your User's Guide for details on "hot key" 
suspend requests.


CardWizard:

CardWizard is an excellent addition to the PCMCIA support that 
Windows NT provides.  The CardWizard software comes up 
automatically when a card is inserted into a slot and tells you 
if the card is configured.  If no card is inserted, then you 
will never see the CardWizard software.  

Most cards will allow you to insert and eject while NT is running.  
The exception to this is Network, SCSI and Multi-Function cards 
(modem + ethernet).  The result is that these cards must be inserted 
and removed only while the system is off.  Failure to do this will 
result in the system being in an unstable state.



CardWizard and Power Management events:

Network Cards - All suspend events are rejected by CardWizard when 
a network card is installed in a PCMCIA slot.  This includes hot 
key suspend requests.  If running off battery power and the level 
gets to a critically low state, the system will force a suspend 
with a network card inserted.  Under this circumstance the network 
card will not be functional after the system is resumed.  NT will 
have to be rebooted to gain all functionality back.  Certain LAN 
cards will cause the system to hang upon resume. See the WinNT 4.0 
Suspend/Resume Bulletin for details and list of PCcards.

Modem Cards - A suspend warning message appears when a modem is 
inserted and a suspend is requested.  The warning can be ignored 
and the system will suspend.  Upon resuming, the card will be re 
initialized and will work properly.  It is however important 
to note that any modem applications should be closed before a 
suspend is allowed.

PCMCIA Hard Disks (ATA cards) - All power management events are 
allowed to occur while an ATA card is inserted as long as no files 
are open on the card.  If files are open, all suspend requests 
are rejected including hot key requests.

SCSI Cards -  A suspend warning message appears when a SCSI card 
is inserted and a suspend is requested.  The warning can be ignored 
and the system will suspend.  Upon resuming, the SCSI card will 
NOT be reinitialized but you can continue to work on the system.  
This same limitation holds true on low battery suspend.


Resource assignments for network cards:

Most network cards default to an IRQ and memory range that 
can't be used in the VP550 - 575 system.  When installing a 
network card, the preferred settings are IRQ 11 or 15, MEM 
of D000 and I/O of  340 (IRQ 5 and I/O 320 are used by the 
built in sound card).


How to get a DEC RoamAbout to work:

When the RoamAbout card is installed and NT reads the setup 
information from the install diskette, the card will not be 
configured properly.  This is because the oemsetup.inf default 
memory address is D800.  Unfortunately, the network properties 
window doesn't show this resource and doesn't allow it to be 
changed.  The way to get the card to work is to manually edit 
the oemsetup.inf on the install diskette for the RoamAbout.   
Here is the excerpt from the .inf file that will need to be 
changed:

Original text in INF file
DPPCCARDAttributeMemoryAddress = 884736     ;; Default MEM D8000
;;;DPPCCARDAttributeMemoryAddress = 851968     ;; Alternate MEM D0000

All you will need to do is place a semicolon in front of the default 
memory address (at the beginning of the line) and remove the 
semicolons from the alternate memory address (also at the beginning 
of the line).  

Edited text in INF file
;;;DPPCCARDAttributeMemoryAddress = 884736     ;; Default MEM D8000
DPPCCARDAttributeMemoryAddress = 851968     ;; Alternate MEM D0000

Now the card can be installed and it will work properly.  If the 
card was already installed then it would have to be removed and 
then added again through the network icon in the control panel.


Installing the Megahertz EM1144-T:

NT 4.0 doesn't have a driver for this card and Megahertz has not 
yet developed one either.  Digital has found that the XJEM2288 
driver works just fine with this card.  The XJEM2288 driver is 
native to NT 4.0 and therefore can be selected from the default 
list of network cards in the Megahertz section.


Webex software installation:

When installing the Webex software, it is important to install NT's 
RAS support.  Failure to do so will result in an error message 
regarding RASAPI32.DLL when you try to launch Webex.  All you need 
to do is go back and install RAS support by double clicking on 
"Dial up Networking" in "My Computer" and the application will 
work properly.


Viewing PCMCIA Hard Disks and Flash cards in "My Computer":

NT doesn't dynamically update the "My Computer" screen when a 
PCMCIA Hard Disk or Flash card is inserted.  "My Computer" can 
be closed and re-opened or you can refresh the screen to see 
the new drive letter.  To refresh the screen press F5 or click 
"View" and then "Refresh."  



Additional Information:

Power Profiler and CardWizard have online help that can be 
accessed through the "help" button in their respective program.  
In addition, there is a readme.txt located in the 
c:\program files\systemsoft\cardwizard directory.


Upgrading CardWizard to a newer version:

Note:  The first step to upgrading CardWizard is to obtain the 
       newest version from Digital's Web site (www.pc.digital.com).  
       As of the writing of this document, V 2.00.09 is the newest 
       revision and below is the procedure for updating to it.

1. Insert your floppy with Card Wizard 2.00.09 into your diskette 
   drive. Most likely labeled Drive A:
2. Click on Start button on Task bar
3. Click on RUN
4. Type  A:\setup.exe  ,  Click OK
5. Click NEXT in Card Wizard Setup window
6. Click NEXT in Welcome window
7. Make sure all PC cards are removed and click YES to continue.
   (However, if you have a LAN card installed you will
   have to shut down the machine, remove it, and start
   procedure from the beginning.)
8. You will see a message stating that setup has detected a
   previous version of Card Wizard. You must uninstall the
   previous version before you can install the upgraded
   version. Click YES to uninstall previous version.
9. Remove floppy and click OK to Restart computer. ( You must
   restart before re-installing)
10. Log in normally. During rebooting process, you will see a 
    message that "at least one service or driver has failed".
    This occurs because Card Wizard is no longer installed.
    After installing the new version you won't get this message.
11. Click Start button, and click RUN.
12. Re-insert floppy and type A:\setup.exe
13. Click NEXT in first two windows
14. Click YES in Question window
15. Click NEXT in the Choose Destination window
16. Uncheck "SSINTEL" and check "SSCL6832" and click NEXT
17. Click FINISH to restart your computer. Remove floppy.
18. Installation complete. You can verify Card Wizard version
    by running Card Wizard, select Help\About Card Wizard
    from menu bar.
19. Print the Readme.txt file located on the floppy. The file 
    contains important facts regarding running NT 4.0 on your 
    HiNote VP550-575 Series Notebook.
