If You're Into PC Hardware, This Is the Chapter Where You'll Have a Lot of Fun, And

chapter 1

INSTALLING

HARDWARE

f you’re into PC hardware, this is the chapter where you’ll have a lot of fun, and pos- Isibly learn something. PC hardware has dramatically improved over the past five years. PCs offer better speed, better prices, better compatibility, and incredibly better hardware quality than ever. Some strange and potentially crippling holdovers persist from the very first days of the PC platform, the most notable of which is interrupts. Interrupts are discussed in much more detail below. Despite some nagging problems, PCs are unquestionably faster and cheaper. This chapter discusses how you can get more out of your Windows 98 system. A huge commodity parts market flourishes around the PC platform. Every computer store in your area sells add-on parts for your machine—video cards, sound cards, network cards, new hard disks, and so on. Buying new parts is a great way to extend the life of your machine. The process can get complicated. This chapter’s main mission is to help you understand and avoid the many gotchas involved in upgrading and generally working with your PC’s hardware. Here’s the absolute, paramount fact of this whole chapter:

Windows 98 computers rely on a specific PC feature called hardware interrupts (called IRQs, for short). Every PC computer built in the past ten years—Windows PCs, MS-DOS PCs, you name it—uses 16 hard-wired interrupt lines that are built into the computer’s hardware. (The original IBM PC and XT machines had just 8 interrupts.)

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All the individual devices in your PC, such as the keyboard, serial ports, modem, video card, networking card, printer port, sound card, game/joystick port, and disk controller, each occupy one of those 16 precious interrupts. Because of this, PCs offer only so much room for peripheral devices on your computer, no matter how new or how fast it is. When you add all the hardware features you’re likely to want on a new system, the odds are that you’ll only have one or two interrupts left—if you have any left. This is an inescapable fact of life for PC-compatible computers using Intel microprocessors (or Intel-compatibles). To understand just how complicated it can be to manage PC hardware, here’s a brief list of the key devices that are installed in the author’s test Windows 98 system, including two video cards, and their respective interrupt (IRQ) settings:

Rich Grace’s Pentium-MMX PC Parts Interrupt (IRQ) Occupied System timer 00 Computer keyboard 01 Interrupt controller 02 Serial port 2 03 Serial ports 1 and 3 (internal modem) 04 Matrox Millennium II video card 05 Floppy disk controller 06 Available 07 System CMOS/real time clock 08 Sound Blaster sound card 09 Matrox Millennium PCI video card 10 PCI Fast Ethernet DEC 21140 network 11 adapter Computer mouse 12 Math coprocessor 13 Primary EIDE disk controller 14 Secondary EIDE disk controller 15

In this computer, which is a fairly normal setup (except for the two video cards), just one interrupt, 7, is available for a new device to use. Yep, even if you have a screaming 600 MHz Pentium III machine, with tons of RAM and disk space, you’re still stuck with just 16 interrupts. If they’re all used up in your computer, which happens frequently (considering all the gadgets that are out there, and how so many PC motherboards helpfully build in a sound card and joystick port), you will not be able to install a second video card unless you remove something first. That other device is CHAPTER 1 • INSTALLING HARDWARE 3

apt to be something you really need. To this day, interrupts are a true PC architecture bot- tleneck, and they can cause big problems for users of even the newest PCs. Help is at hand.

INTRODUCING THE DEVICE MANAGER

Here’s one Windows 98 feature in which Microsoft did a very good job. The Device Manager is a highly useful reporting tool on the status of your computer’s hardware. Combined with the new System Information application, the Device Manager provides accurate, understandable information on exactly how every device in your system is configured—including the all-important interrupts and memory segments used for hardware addressing by the system. The Manager enables changing and tweaking settings based on predefined configurations and even allows you to create your own. The Device Manager is a real blessing for knowledgeable PC owners because it gives you a fighting chance to get that conflicting sound card or SCSI disk controller working without jumping through hoops or ripping the recalcitrant card out of your machine in frustration. Veteran PC owners know what this means. Beyond this, there has never been a third-party software package that does a more capable job of reporting accurately on PC hardware than the Device Manager. It even allows you to print a complete (and accurate) summary of your computer’s configuration! To locate the Device Manager, follow these steps:

1 Open the Control Panel. 2 Double-click the System icon. The System Properties window appears. 3 Click the Device Manager tab. The Device Manager appears as shown in Figure 1-1. It is a list of all the installed hardware components in your computer. A plus sign (+) next to a listing indicates sublistings, which show specific devices in your computer by name. If there is a yellow sign with an exclamation mark inside it next to any device, this is the Device Manager’s way of telling you there is a problem with that device. The device may not be configured properly, or not it may not be attached. 4 Click any plus sign or double-click a listing in the Device Manager (Figure 1-1). The list opens up to display individual devices in your computer, as shown in Figure 1-2. 5 Select any listing. 6 Click the Properties button. A Properties window appears for the selected device, as shown in Figure 1-3. This takes you another level deeper into the Manager, to the individual device level. Typically, you’ll find three tabs in the multitabbed Properties window, depending on the type of device you’re viewing: 4 CHAPTER 1 • INSTALLING HARDWARE

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Figure 1-1 Exploring the device tree in Device Manager.

Figure 1-2 Selecting an object to view its Properties.

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Figure 1-3 Checking Properties for a specific device.

General—The immediate assessment of the state of your hardware device. It tells you immediately if the device is working or not and, if it isn’t, offers at least some explanation why. Two important checkboxes appear here: Disable in this hardware profile and Exists in all hardware profiles. Driver—Shows the version of the software driver used to enable the device in the computer. Two buttons are provided: Driver File Details and Update Driver. Driver File Details simply provides a list of the specific file making up the device’s driver package. Update Driver is an important button that allows you to install new drivers as they become available. Resources—A vital resource for anyone needing to troubleshoot and quickly repair their PC. Allows you (sometimes) to change the interrupts and I/O ports for any device in your system.

An I/O port is a small segment of your computer’s memory that is set aside for its exclusive use. It’s quite possible for devices in your system to have conflicts in I/O ports as well as interrupts. 6 CHAPTER 1 • INSTALLING HARDWARE

The Resources tab allows you to physically change memory I/O ports, DMA ports, and interrupts for selected devices in your computer. In many cases, when a device is working properly, the system will not allow you to change the settings at all. In other cases, it will, depending on the type of device you’re dealing with. Just because a yellow warning sign is next to a device in the Device Manager does- n’t necessarily mean something is wrong with your system. It depends on the device. For example, if you have a SCSI-based system, IDE controllers will still show up in the Device Manager but will be tagged with the yellow icon to indicate a problem talking to devices on those controllers (there are no devices to talk to!). However, a yellow warning icon next to sound cards, network cards, or other devices that should be working tends to mean that either the device is not functioning properly or the configuration information is incorrect. Occasionally, a device driver gets corrupted or the wrong device driver gets loaded, and this prevents the system from talking to the device properly, hence another yellow icon. How do you fix a yellow-iconed item? The most common problem is a conflict with the IRQ and memory address assigned to the device, even if it is Plug-and-Play. The following steps can help you troubleshoot nonworking plug-in card and many devices:

1 Check the other devices on the system for the same settings and decide which should be changed. Some devices are more tolerant of changed IRQs and memory addresses, while some will only work on a very small number of settings. 2 If the nonworking card is a Plug-and-Play unit, shut down the system, remove the device, and restart your machine. After the machine is up and running, make sure everything in the Device Manager is correct. Then shut down, reinstall the device (in a different slot, if possible), and restart. The Device Manager may assign different, nonconflicting configurations to the device this time. 3 If the nonworking card isn’t Plug-and-Play or the removal-reinsertion process did- n’t work, you will have to manually set the card to unused IRQs and memory addresses. Utilities are often provided on diskette or CD-ROM exactly for this pur- pose. After running the setup utility, reboot the system and if necessary use the Properties sheet for the device to tell Windows what the settings are. 4 If an external device is not working, or the device is on a SCSI or IDE chain, check the drivers, cables, and power supplies. Usually this is the most common cause of problems. It is rare to get a device problem with SCSI or IDE devices. External add-on devices like cameras, removable drives, and so on are more likely to cause problems, as the IRQs and memory addresses must be correctly set. If you need to set up a device on an IRQ that is assigned, you may be able to remove the device using the IRQ. For example, some systems configure a second parallel port on IRQ 5. If you don’t have a second parallel port, remove the device. If you are not using both serial ports, you can free up another IRQ there (although most of us don’t have enough serial ports usually). If you are using SCSI devices, you can use the IDE IRQs, too. Be careful when removing IRQs, though, as you may cause your system to misbehave or not start up properly. CHAPTER 1 • INSTALLING HARDWARE 7 INTRODUCING MICROSOFT SYSTEM INFORMATION

The previous section described the Device Manager, which is a serious hands-on tool for checking each device’s status in your system. Windows 98 offers much more. In fact, between the Device Manager and the program we’re describing in this section, any third-party software companies that sell system troubleshooting utilities (such as WinCheckIt) should consider finding something else to do. Microsoft System Information better be a good program because of all the competition in this area. Let’s say it straight: It is. Microsoft System Information is more accurate than WinCheckIt, Norton Utilities, and any other program around for troubleshooting and viewing specific information about your Windows computer. To open Microsoft System Information, select Start | Programs | Accessories | System Tools | System Information from the Windows Desktop. The Microsoft System Information program appears as shown in Figure 1-4. It’s not a fancy-looking program with a lot of buttons and icons. What System Information does is provide exhaustive and accurate lists of the devices in your system, and the interrupts, memory segments, and every single possible resource use that each device occupies.

Figure 1-4 Opening Microsoft System Information provides a quick summary of your computer. 8 CHAPTER 1 • INSTALLING HARDWARE

Table 10-1 System Information Components Component Description Hardware Resources Provides a quicker overview of the system, including accurate lists of shared interrupts, DMA channels, I/O port memory use, and a full high-level listing of system IRQs. Components The core of the System Information screen, this category provides memory segment and IRQ information, in exhaustive detail, for literally every device on your system. A large number of primary subcomponents exist in this category, under which devices such as your sound card, video displays, modem, and input devices are subjected to an intense scruti- ny for all memory segments, specific IRQs, and all resources occupied by the device. The information provided here is much more low level than in the Hardware Resources category. Pay close attention to the Problem Devices item here. Software Environment Shows a complete list of currently used device drivers, software tasks currently running, and other items such as object registra- tion.

The System Information program offers three primary components: Hardware Resources, Components, and Software Environment. Clicking a plus sign (+) next to any of them opens up a hierarchical list shown in Table 10-1. If you know that you’re having a hardware problem, one place to find out more is in the Components item in System Information.

1 Open System Information as described earlier. 2 Open the Components category (Figure 1-5). 3 Select Problem Devices. The program checks the current status of your computer, and the System Information screen refreshes. If any devices are having problems, you’ll learn everything possible about it here. The registry key governing the object is listed, along with all the I/O ports, IRQ occu- CHAPTER 1 • INSTALLING HARDWARE 9

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Figure 1-5 Tracking problem devices.

pied (if any), and a brief explanation of the status of the device are provided. Scrolling down may show more devices, so don’t take it for granted that the first one to appear is the only one.

Don’t try to edit specific registry keys listed in this program, because the settings are very difficult to understand without having specific information from the vendor.

All this is just in the GUI. We haven’t even mentioned the various utilities available from the Tools menu. One primary tool that hasn’t been mentioned is the System Configuration Utility, which allows you to view the contents of the AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS, WIN.INI, and SYSTEM.INI startup files. For the first time in any version of Windows, Microsoft provides a graphical means by which individual items in the WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI files can be enabled or disabled. If you’re a veteran Windows 3.1 user, you’ll know exactly what this means. Figure 1-6 shows an example System Configuration Utility screen, displaying the contents of WIN.INI with checkboxes for disabling any item in the file. 10 CHAPTER 1 • INSTALLING HARDWARE

Figure 1-6 Editing calls in WIN.INI.

WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI are both Windows startup files. They are Warning highly sensitive to changes, and you should avoid making any changes to them unless you’re well acquainted with their contents.

The Registry Checker is another handy tool. It’s quite simple, but its compelling virtue is that it allows you to make a backup copy of the Registry. If your system has trouble starting up, backup copies of the Registry are often used to help recover from problems. Making a backup copy of the Registry (which automatically resides on your hard disk) can be a useful safety measure. With tools like System Information, you have a shot at successfully installing just about any piece of recalcitrant yet necessary hardware in your computer, or at least finding out exactly what is wrong. This is very fortunate because the next section discusses a very attractive yet rather difficult proposition for Windows 98 users— installing dual monitors on their PC. CHAPTER 1 • INSTALLING HARDWARE 11 INSTALLING AND USING DUAL MONITORS

If you have a need for it, Windows 98’s Multiple Display Mode can be incredibly useful. You might be a programmer or a multimedia developer, or work a lot with graphics. If you simply have to run multiple applications on a constant basis, using dual monitors can really boost your productivity, as Macintosh users have known for quite a long time. Windows 98 is the first PC-based operating system to hold out the promise of supporting this powerful, handy feature. Unfortunately, that promise goes largely unfulfilled. Windows’ built-in video drivers do not work with many current high-end cards for multiple display mode. If you’re unlucky enough to own almost any card manufactured in 1998, you’ll have to wait for your card maker to release new drivers to support it. Out of the box, Windows 98 offers support for a number of graphics accelerator chips and card types with multiple display modes.

Windows 98 Multiple Display Mode will work only with PCI and AGP video cards. ISA video cards are not supported.

The list of supported cards seems quite formidable, but there are literally hundreds of different cards out there. The list of supported cards is fairly substantial, but some top manufacturers and their cards are missed—the popular Number Nine Imagine series and Matrox Millennium series being prominent examples, along with Voodoo and Voodoo2 cards for 3D gaming. Microsoft claims that up to nine video cards can be built into a Windows 98 system. Fat chance. Just installing two video cards into a Windows 98 computer can border on a miracle. If you have to do this, do yourself a favor and use the Device Manager and System Information to track the devices that are installed in your system, and the interrupts they use. That’s why such a long introduction to it was provided in the previous section. Think hard about how you want your PC to be built if you want to run dual monitors. In fact, having two video cards in your computer is really the practical limit for most PCs because each video card takes an interrupt by itself. There’s a chance that you’ll have to do without a sound card or some other device because so many PCs have sound cards and game ports built into the motherboard, each of which occupies IRQs on its own. You might also run out of PCI slots. That said, if you can do it successfully, it’s well worth the bother. Windows 98, and hardware that properly supports it, gives you a chance to do some really unusual and productive things with your PC.

To have the best chance of making two video cards work in the same machine, have them each be the same exact card or at least from the same manufacturer. Better-quality PCI cards, or a PCI card combined with an AGP card, are the best bet. 16-bit ISA and VL-Bus cards will not work. Also make sure you can get a multiple display mode driver! 12 CHAPTER 1 • INSTALLING HARDWARE

The initial setup for your video card consists of cracking open your PC’s case and popping in the new card, or having a technician do it for you. Then, after the hardware is squared away, turn on the system. You should be able to plug your existing monitor into either video port. The system BIOS automatically decides which video card is to be the primary on your system. If you want to use more than two cards, some experi- menting needs to be done to find out which cards will be the second and third displays because the system will not inform you of their status. After rebooting, Windows 98 should automatically detect the new cards. The card that displays the Windows 98 splash screen is the primary display on your system. The computer will also show a message stating that the new video cards have been properly initialized. Some systems also build a video chip on the motherboard. If that’s the case, disable it. On-board video won’t work with multiple displays. Once your hardware setup is running, you can plug your second monitor into the other available video port. To begin making adjustments, just open the Displays application from the Control Panel. A secondary monitor icon should appear, along with an Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor checkbox. Select the secondary monitor icon, enable the checkbox, and you should be able to change its resolution, color depth, and refresh rate settings. All displays must run at least 256 colors. It may not always be that easy. To find out why one of your video cards may not be working properly in a dual-card setup:

1 Open the Control Panel. 2 Double-click the System icon. The System Properties window appears (Figure 1-7). 3 Click the Device Manager tab. The Device Manager appears. 4 Double-click the Display adapters item. If a yellow dot with an exclamation point appears beside a video card listing, that indicates a hardware problem. 5 Select the problem card. 6 Click Properties. The video card’s Properties window appears as shown in Figure 1-8. The Device Status describes the current state of your video card. In Figure 1-8, the page reads: “Your computer’s display will not work with Multiple Display Support…” This is the key piece of information. If your video card doesn’t have an updated Windows 98 driver, it will not support multiple monitors. This will be the case even if you don’t have an interrupt conflict. As noted above, Windows 98 does not provide multidisplay drivers for many up-to-date cards. Fortunately, Windows 98 is very clear about this problem and doesn’t make you desperately hunt around to find out why multiple display mode isn’t working. CHAPTER 1 • INSTALLING HARDWARE 13

Figure 1-7. Locating a problem video card in System Properties.

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Figure 1-8. Windows 98 can be explicit in describing a hardware problem. 14 CHAPTER 1 • INSTALLING HARDWARE

You can’t just slap in any two video cards to make the system work with multiple displays. You must make sure your cards are directly supported by Windows 98 and provide a multiple display video driver.

Now, many video cards provide slightly older Windows 95 drivers that will work just fine for basic Windows 98 displays. The big difference is that video card drivers must be updated to support multiple displays, or your second video card just sits inside your computer, taking up space and a precious interrupt. This is one reason why it’s important to use two identical cards for multiple monitor support. If you buy one high-quality card that offers the correct Windows 98 driver, buying the same card makes things simple. Simply plug the second monitor into the second card and configuration is a snap. If you use two totally different cards, each requires its own special driver. The number of things that can go wrong multiplies. There’s never been a better time for PC users to buy high-quality video cards for their computers. Prices are much lower and the current cards’quality is phenomenal. The best brands tend to be Matrox, Number Nine, Diamond, and a couple of others. The better video cards always offer 4Ð16 MB of video memory, or more for higher-end applications. With Windows 98 support, a free slot, and a free interrupt, you can do something to turn your machine into a serious productivity tool. Dual monitors are great for games, too. Also note that if you get both monitors to display, you can change their resolution and color depth independently of each other. For example, one display could have a 1152 x 870 24-bit color display, while another display could run a 1024 x 768 256- color screen. Finally, bear in mind that some card makers offer video cards that support two or more monitors in hardware off the same card. Matrox and STB do this. Those cards cost more, but occupy only one slot.

USING HARDWARE PROFILES TO MANAGE DEVICES IN YOUR COMPUTER

Windows 98 supports a feature called hardware profiles. For laptop users, this is a real boon. A hardware profile allows you to select from different hardware configurations. If you constantly tinker with your PC, or have to swap PCMCIA cards on a laptop fairly often, hardware profiles can be very helpful.

1 Open the Control Panel. 2 Double-click the System icon. The System Properties window appears (Figure 1-9). 3 Click the Hardware Profiles tab. CHAPTER 1 • INSTALLING HARDWARE 15

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Figure 1-9 Selecting format options.

4 Select the Original Configuration listing. 5 Click Copy. The Copy Profile dialog appears (Figure 1-10). 6 Type in a suitable name for a new profile and click OK. After you copy over a profile, you’ll need to edit it to the settings you prefer. The method for doing this is to disable and enable specific devices from within the Device Manager. 7 Restart your system. 8 In the character-based boot-up screen of Windows 98, press a numeric key to select the hardware profile you want. The system continues to boot. 9 Open the Control Panel, open the System icon, and click the Device Manager tab. 0 Select a device that you want to disable in the current profile, and click Properties. 16 CHAPTER 1 • INSTALLING HARDWARE

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Figure 1-10 Creating a new hardware profile.

! In the Properties window’s General tab, enable the Disable in this hardware profile checkbox (Figure 1-11). @ Clear the Exists in all hardware profiles checkbox. # Click OK. $ Select any other hardware devices that you may want to disable in the current profile, and follow steps 9Ð12. % Click OK to restart your system.

Figure 1-11 Modifying profile properties for a specific device.

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For testing purposes, you can remove any hardware device from your system by disabling it in the hardware profile. When the device is disabled, the Device Manager shows a red AGP Accelerated graphics port. A X over the device’s icon. new Intel motherboard feature that For laptop users, this whole process means that you can provides a dedicated 32-bit slot for keep any PC card or PCMCIA drivers installed in your sys- a high-speed video card. The AGP tem. Laptops are frequently used with docking stations and card slot runs at 66 MHz, provides port replicators that provide additional hardware support, and a theoretical throughput of 266 using hardware profiles enables easier management of com- MB/sec, and provides a generally plicated hardware configurations. slight performance increase over the same video card in a PCI form. Hardware Interrupt Dedicated hardware communication line that allows devices inside a PC to ADJUSTING communicate with the BIOS POWER (basic input/output system) of your computer and with other MANAGEMENT hardware devices. PCs have 16 FEATURES dedicated interrupt lines, which are also called IRQs. PCs continue to get steadily better in a lot of subtle, useful Hardware Profile Windows areas. One place where Windows 98 can actually help you feature allowing multiple, save wear and tear on your machine, and possibly a couple of selectable machine configurations dollars on your electric bill, is in power management. While to be created in the same the so-called “Green PC” is largely a marketing gimmick, computer. It’s a highly useful power management is a handy feature in laptop computers feature for PC and laptop users that helps get the most out of battery life. For desktop com- who juggle devices in their system. To use different profiles, puters, power management is a bit more of a “don’t really you select from them during need it, but it’s nice to have” feature. In fact, having your startup. monitor and hard disk shut down can get in your way. I/O Port Small segment of your Whether or not you have an interest in power management, PC’s memory that is dedicated to a you might still want to know how to turn off that annoying specific hardware device. screen blanking feature, so here’s how to do that: Windows 98 Device Manager also calls it input/output range. 1 Open the Control Panel. PCI Peripheral component 2 Double-click the Power Management icon. interconnect. Invented by Intel, 3 The Power Management Properties window PCI is an industry-standard PC appears, displaying the Power Schemes tab, as and Macintosh 32-bit card slot bus for connecting peripherals such as shown in Figure 1-12. video, network, and sound cards. 4 In the Power Schemes dropdown, select Always All modern PCs made in the past On. several years use the PCI bus. PCI 5 In the Turn off monitor dropdown, select buses generally run at 33 MHz Never. and provide a theoretical throughput of 133 MB/sec. 6 In the Turn off hard disks dropdown, select Never. 18 CHAPTER 1 • INSTALLING HARDWARE

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Figure 1-12. Selecting power management features.

You can save your settings and restore them for different configurations by clicking the Save As button.

SUMMARY

Video Driver Special piece of software that is bundled with The PC hardware realm is vast and confusing. Windows 98 video cards for PC users. A makes a strong effort to accommodate the needs of hardware- video driver makes sure that challenged PC users. Though the multiple-display support turns the card works with your out to be a major disappointment, Win98’s troubleshooting tools computer and allows you to are more efficient and more accurate than any third-party soft- use all the features of your ware tool has ever been. There’s much more that could be said display. Cards with Windows 95 video drives will work with about PC hardware than we have space for in this chapter; in par- Windows 98, but for multiple ticular, PC options continue to grow more complex in the monitor support, each of your processor, chip set, and motherboard areas. In many cases, it’s video cards requires an better to buy a complete system unless you’re a compulsive tin- updated driver specifically for kerer (like the author). This chapter provided practical advice Windows 98. and critical signposts that will empower you to get the most out of your system with minimal problems.