3C90x Family - Where are the latest available drivers?

Goal:
3C90x Family - Where are the latest available drivers?

This document covers the location of drivers for the 3C905C, 3C905B, 3C905, 3C900B and the 3C900 network cards.
Some drivers are specific to the 3C905-T4 network card. It also includes instructions for extracting the files
and creating diskettes.

Symptoms:
Cannot find latest drivers
Did not receive the correct driver set from the vendor

Operating systems:
Microsoft Windows 95 driver
Microsoft Windows 98 driver
Microsoft Windows NT 3.51 driver
Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 driver
Novell NetWare driver
Novell NetWare 4.11 MSL driver
DEC alpha driver
SCO UNIX driver
SCO UnixWare driver
OS/2 driver
Windows for Workgroups driver
NDIS2 driver
Banyan Vines driver
Packet driver
Solaris driver
AIX UNIX driver
HP-UX UNIX driver
Linux driver
Macintosh driver

Cause: 3Com ships each NIC with the most current certified driver in a box with the manual. Vendors
are not supposed to sell the NICs without a manual or the driver disk. If no driver disk, or the incorrect
driver disk, was received follow the instructions below to obtain the most current driver.

Note: The latest EtherDisk version is 4.01b for the 3C905-TX and the 3C905B network card. The
latest for the 3C905-T4 card is version 2.2a. This version cannot be used with the 3C905B card.

Fix: To download and extract the latest drivers:

1. Access the following URLs:
a. For the 3C905B: http://support.3com.com/infodeli/tools/nic/3c905b.htm
b. For the 3C905-TX or 3C905-T4: http://support.3com.com/infodeli/tools/nic/3c905.htm
2. Or access 3Com's web site: www.3com.com
a. Under Site Tools, click on Software Downloads
b. Click Network Interface Cards
c. Select one of the Pull-down menu options for your NIC. For example, under the Product Number menu,
highlight 3C905B and click Go There.
d. This page lists all of the drivers available for this network card
e. Under the section for the desired driver click on the link to download the driver. Choose either
FTP or HTTP
3. Most of the available drivers are contained on the latest Shipping Disks. The driver HTML page will
describe the three-disk set and the respective drivers contained on each disk
4. Click on the link to the driver location and driver information. The drivers are contained at the bottom
of the driver information page.

To extract the driver file:
1. Create a folder/directory right off the root of your hard drive (such as C:\3COM)
Note: If the file is embedded several directories deep from the root, or stored in a directory with a Microsoft
Windows 95 long filename, it may not extract completely. A DOS "Write error" may also occur.
2. After copying the file to the folder/directory, execute the extraction:
a. In Windows, double click the file
b. In DOS, type: 3c90xx1.exe (and then press the Enter key)
3. A DOS window should appear with a License Agreement. Type y to accept.
4. After the extraction is finished, go back into the directory
5. The files and folders should now be visible
6. To transfer the files/folders to a floppy disk:
a. Open the folder/directory
b. Select all the files and folders except for the executable file itself (3c90xx1.exe) and copy to the floppy disk

Fix: To download the Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows 98 and/or Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 drivers:
1. Follow above procedure to download the latest EtherDisk
2. Download Disk 1 and Disk 2
3. Choose either FTP or HTTP to download the disk
4. Extract each disk
5. Path out to the root of the extracted Disk 1; the INF file will load the driver automatically
(w95el90x.inf for Windows 95 or Windows 98, oemsetup.inf for Windows NT 4.0)
6. Insert Disk 2 when prompted
Note: For the 3C905-T4 card the drivers are all contained on Disk 2 only.

Fix: To download the Novell NetWare drivers:
For NetWare 4.1x:
1. Follow above procedure to download the latest EtherDisk
2. Extract Disk 3
Note: Only the 3.3 specification LAN driver is provided (nwserver directory).
Note: For the 3C905-T4 card, download Disk 1 of version 2.2a. The driver is contained
on Disk 1 in the nwserver\33spec directory.

For NetWare 3.12:
Since only the 3.3 specification LAN driver is available for the 3C905B, apply the latest Novell
patches to the Netware 3.12 server before loading the 3C905B LAN driver.

For the 3C905-T4 card a 3.2 specification LAN driver is contained on Disk 1 in the
nwserver directory. This driver cannot be used with the 3C905B network cards.

NetWare 3.11:
There are no drivers available for the 3C905B network cards.

For the 3C905-T4 card use the 3.2 specification LAN driver which is contained on
Disk 1 in the nwserver directory.
Note: You must load the lslenh.nlm before the LAN driver is loaded.

NetWare 2.2:
There are no drivers for NetWare 2.2

There are no MSL drivers for any of the 3Com Ethernet NICs.
Note: Mirrored Server Link drivers are needed for the purpose of backing up a Novell Netware server by
creating a mirror image of the original server in case it were to ever go down. These servers are connected
together via two network adapters that support such a function.

Fix: To download the DEC Alpha driver:
The DEC Alpha driver is for Windows NT 4.0 only.
Note: The following NICs are not yet supported: 3C905B-COMBO and the 3C905B-FX(SC)

For the 3C905B network card:
1. Follow above procedure to download the latest EtherDisk
2. Extract Disk 2
3. The driver is in the alpha directory

For the 3C905-TX or 3C905-T4 network card:
1. Access the 3C905 driver page (http://support.3com.com/infodeli/tools/nic/3c905.htm)
2. Under the Latest Drivers section, click either HTTP or FTP to download the file 3C90XDEC.EXE

Fix: To download the SCO UNIX 5.x driver:
1. Access the 3C905 or 3C905B driver page (i.e. http://support.3com.com/infodeli/tools/nic/3c905b.htm)
2. Under the Latest Drivers section, click either HTTP or FTP to download the file 90XSCO5.EXE

Fix: To download the SCO UNIX 3.x driver:
a href="http://support.3com.com/infodeli/tools/nic/sco.htm">http://support.3com.com/infodeli/tools/nic/sco.htm

For the 3C905-TX or the 3C905-T4 network card:
1. Access the 3C905 driver page (i.e. http://support.3com.com/infodeli/tools/nic/3c905.htm)
2. Under the Latest Drivers section, click either HTTP or FTP to download the file 90XSCO3.EXE

Fix: To download the SCO UnixWare 7 driver:
1. Access the 3C905 or 3C905B driver page (i.e. http://support.3com.com/infodeli/tools/nic/3c905b.htm)
2. Under the Latest Drivers section, click either HTTP or FTP to download the file 90XUW7.EXE

Fix: To download the OS/2 driver:
1. Follow above procedure to download the latest EtherDisk
2. Extract Disk 3
3. The OS/2 driver is located in the NDIS2\OS2 directory on Disk 3
Note: For the 3C905-T4 card the driver is contained in the EtherDisk version 2.2a.
It is in the NDIS2\OS2 directory on Disk 1.

Fix: To download the Windows for Workgroups driver:
1. Follow above procedure to download the latest EtherDisk
2. Extract Disk 2
3. The Windows for Workgroups driver is located in the WFW311 directory on Disk 2

Fix: To download the NDIS2 driver (EL90X.DOS):
1. Follow above procedure to download the latest EtherDisk
2. Extract Disk 3
3. The NDIS2 driver is located in the NDIS2\DOS directory on Disk 3
Note: For the 3C905-T4 card the driver is contained in the EtherDisk version 2.2a.
It is in the NDIS2\DOS directory on Disk 1.

Fix: For Banyan Vines 6.0:
1. Client drivers - use the NDIS2 driver located in the NDIS2\DOS directory on Disk 3
2. Server drivers - 3Com does not provide any server drivers. These drivers can
be obtained from Banyan. The URL is http://www.banyan.com/

Fix: To download the Packet driver (3C90XPD.COM):
For the 3C900B or 3C905B network card:
1. Follow above procedure to download the latest EtherDisk
2. Extract Disk 3
3. The driver is in the Pktdvr directory on Disk 3

For the 3C900, 3C905-TX or 3C905-T4 network card:
1. Access the 3C905 driver page (URL - http://support.3com.com/infodeli/tools/nic/3c905.htm)
2. Under the Latest Drivers section, click either HTTP or FTP to download the file 3C90XPKT.EXE

Fix: 3Com does not provide a driver for the Solaris operating system:
Contact Sun for information on 3rd party drivers which might be available.

Fix: 3Com does not provide a driver for the AIX UNIX operating system.
Contact www.ibm.com for further information on any possible drivers.

Fix: 3Com does not provide a driver for the HP-UX operating system.
Contact Hewlett Packard for further information.

Fix: 3Com has drivers for certain products including the 3C90X family of NICs.
1. 3Com LINUX drivers are located at: http://support.3com.com/infodeli/tools/nic/linux.htm
2. Independently developed drivers are available at: http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/drivers/vortex.html
Note: Once on that web page click on: ftp://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/linux/drivers/3c59x.c to view
the source code

Fix: 3Com provides solutions for Intel based computer systems and does not provide NICs for the
Macintosh platform.
Alternative:
1. Purchase a 10/100 PCI NIC from Farallon
2. Contact Farallon at www.farallon.com, (800) 998-7760, or (510) 814-5000

Fact: Last Reviewed: March 2000-ral
Fact: Search group - Desktop Ethernet NICs