A Core Competence Product Evaluation
Up and Running: Configuring the ISDN Card
We found that the NetCommander lives up to its claim as a Windows 95 "plug and play" card – simply insert the card into an empty ISA slot, boot up your PC, and Windows 95 recognizes the new hardware and asks where to find drivers. Windows 95 automatically installs all necessary drivers and software from both the Microsoft ISDN Accelerator Pack disk and the Supra NetCommander ISDN Setup disk (considerable swapping of disks). When the Setup application is finished, Windows 95 re-boots the PC and runs the NetCommander ISDN configuration utility.
At this point, if an IRQ conflict exists between this ISDN card and any other installed hardware, you’ll be prompted to correct the conflict before continuing. The documentation provides illustrated instructions which describe how to fiddle with resource settings in your Windows 95 Control Panel until you find the right combination of IRQs to keep all of your installed devices happy. This was the only hitch we encountered during several installations this otherwise "plug and play" adapter.
Once the NetCommander is installed correctly, the Configure ISDN Service window will appear during Windows 95 startup. This window offers a choice of viewing an ISDN order form (useful only if you have not yet ordered your ISDN BRI) or configuring your card. The wizard walks you through the configuration process, prompting you to enter your ISDN switch type, Service Profile Identifiers (SPIDs), and ISDN phone numbers. That’s all there is to it – the Save Configuration window loads your configuration into the adapter card, and the final Congratulations! window provides a ReadMe button which conveniently displays changes to software or the card that might not be in the documentation.
After you complete your initial configuration, Diamond Multimedia’s AutoISDN application provides additional configuration, connection status monitor, problem diagnosis and logging capabilities. The Preferences and Configuration panels can be used to view and edit your configuration. If you plan to use multi-link – that’s bonding together ISDN channels to double your bandwidth – check out the AutoISDN Multlink PPP Control panel to configure parameters that control when to add or drop the second channel.
Of course, you’ll need to create a Windows 95 Dial-Up Networking connection to place an ISDN call to your ISP or corporate access server. If you’re used to placing analog calls with Windows 95 Dial-Up Networking, you probably already know how to do this. Diamond Multimedia’s printed documentation does not describe this process, but a FAQ posted at their web site provides all the help you’ll need.
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