3C589 - Dell Lattitude XP - CardSoft

Problem: 3C589.COM gives HSM error on load. When CARDID.EXE loads, two beeps are heard: one for the modem, one for the 3C589.

Solution: Edit the CARDID.INI file and remove the line "DEVICE=3COM.CLB".

In order to run a PC Card in a laptop socket, you need to first load Card and Socket Services. Card and Socket Services are different pieces of software which manage the PC Card sockets on the laptop. They assign resources to the adapter and allow adapters to be configured when inserted into the laptop socket on a hot swap. There are several different card and socket service vendors: SystemSoft, Phoenix Technologies, IBM, Databook, and Award Softare. Each of these companies has their own flavor of card services. Any vendors card services can be run on any particular laptop as long as that vendor has written a Socket driver for the type of PCMCIA Controller in the laptop.

SystemSoft has a couple of different coined terms for their Card Services. Earlier versions were called CardSoft. Their latest stuff is called Cardwiz.

From laptop to laptop, you can see anyone's Card Services running. The most widely used, however, is SystemSoft's Cardwiz or CardSoft.

Generally, when you insert a PC Card into the laptop socket, you want that card to be immediately configured by the Card Services. The driver is then loaded on the adapter, knowing that the card has already been configured. The only problem with this methodology is that if you want to run without Card Services you now need to load an Enabler driver prior to the network driver.

3Com decided that we don't want to have to load a separate Enabler driver to run without card services, so we built the Enabler into our ODI, NDIS, and Packet drivers. To make this approach work, we cannot have Card Services configure the 3Com PC Card prior to the loading of the 3Com network driver. 3Com drivers expects to find an unconfigured adapter. When the 3Com driver loads, it registers with Card Services, receives an interrupt request, i/o address, and memory address, and configures the adapter.

SystemSoft's Card Services tries to immediately configure any PC Card with a *.CLB file defined in the CARDID.INI file. Traditionally, there have been no 3COM.CLB files in existence, so our drivers have had no problem loading. What we are beginning to see is that it looks like SystemSoft now includes a 3COM.CLB file with their latest Card Services. This causes the 3Com PC Card to be configured prior to the load of the driver, so our driver now fails to load. The solution is to take the 3COM.CLB file definition out of the CARDID.INI file.

SystemSoft card services are shipped with Dell, NEC, Compaq, AST, and others, to name a few. All 3Com PC Cards operate in the same fashion as described above.