starting new job need help please

[hydraulic]

I just accepted a job with cabco,they do cable installations,cable modems,nic and the software. they want to train me in digital comunications.now here is my problem, one of the required expertise is to have experience in solving problems with interrupts when installing nics.I have very little experience on this subject and I need all the help I can get in simple terms. the more I know the better it will look for me,and if there is any sit or person that could enlighten me on this subject please let me know. thanks

[luqa]

If as you say, you have already accepted the job, then, let them train you to do it. Your level of expertise will be a product of the quality of their training, and your ability to learn. Relax! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[hydraulic]

luqa: I like to stay ahead of the game and the more I know the better.

[SDT]

The good news is that most pc's have a pci bus these days and interrupts generally don't conflict on a pci bus. The bad news is that IRQ conflicts can be a pain to resolve. You can usually look at the bios and see what is being used by the system for the parallel port and the floppy disk and for other devices on the system. You then have to take into account the other cards (modem for instance) are using the other interrupts. Unfortunately there are no hard and fast rules but you will catch on soon enough. I have my doubts that you will be installing very many ISA bus NICs ... most will be PCI.

[CMonster]

Any book on A+ certification will have exactly the information you are looking for.

~edit: and since you are sharp enough to get the job you could likely learn IRQ conflict resolving in about 30 minutes. A resource conflict can be stubborn but usually they are not. The problem comes when the customer has most of his slots filled.

One thing I can recommned if the computer has an AGP slot do not put any card in the PCI slot next to it- those two slots usually share the same resources and it is a sure way to get a conflict (this seems to be a very common problem).

Some resource conflicts can be resloved in the device or hardware manager, or simply by reinstalling a card in another slot and rebooting. Sometimes it is even necessary to disable an unused COM port in BIOS in order to free up resources.

I'm sure you will find that it is really quite easy - have confidence.



[This message has been edited by CMonster (edited 03-24-2000).]

[hydraulic]

thanks for the vote of confidents.usually when I get hardware conflicts I can figure it out myself,it may take an hour but I usually solve the problem. also one of my friends has the a+ certification on cd, maybe he will let me borrow it.

[alpha]

Resource conflicts are pretty easy to get the hang of, won't take ya long! Good luck! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/biggrin.gif

[U-96]

It might be a worthwhile investment for you to get something along the lines of Scott Mueller's "Upgrading and Repairing PCs".
It should help with pretty much everything hardware-based, though books for the particular operating system you deal with might be just as valuable...
Just make sure to get the latest editions! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

Don't forget the wise advice of your colleagues too.

Good luck in your new job, sounds like you're very enthusiatic about it!

U-96

[welsh wizard]

You beat me to it U 96, was just about to say that, as this book should be on hand, even when you know the job in side out, you will still get times when you will find it usefull to have close at hand.
WW

[Nathan]

Keep in mind also that when installing a NIC in some PC's, there is a possiblity that you can corrupt it enough to where it could have to be rebuilt. So if you are going to different customers homes and businesses, it's possible to mess up their system by doing this installation. Sometimes you can't tell it in advance when they are going to have a problem either. And yes, you will probably get blamed for it by the customer too when it's not your fault.

Good Luck!

[This message has been edited by Nathan (edited 03-27-2000).]

[reddog4629]

Scott Mueller's "Upgrading and Repairing PCs" is an excellent reference book! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif