PRELIMINARY
This document contains information on a product under development at Advanced Micro Devices. The information
is intended to help you evaluate this product. AMD reserves the right to change or discontinue work on this proposed
product without notice.
Publication # 22349 Rev: AAmendment/0
Issue Date: March 1999
PCnet™-
FAST III
-KT
Am79C973-Based Evaluation Kit for PCI Systems
DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERISTICS
n
Based on the PCnet-
FAST III
(Am79C973) single-
chip 10/100 Mbps Ethernet Controller
n
Implements a fully functional 10/100 Mbps
Ethernet node for a PCI-based system
n
Supports ACPI/OnNow power management and
Magic Packet™ remote wake-up and power-on
n
Software compatible with all PCnet Family
members
n
Software drivers support all popular Network
Operating Systems
n
Includes Evaluation Board, AMD Networking
CDROM, and supporting documentation
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The PCnet-
FAST III
-KT evaluation kit is a design evalua-
tion vehicle for the Am79C973 PCnet-
FAST III
Ethernet
controller. The kit includes an evaluation board with the
Am79C973 Ethernet controller and is designed for
10BASE-T or 100BASE-TX media.
The evaluation board, when installed in a PCI-based host
system, provides a platform for demonstrating the high
performance of the PCnet-
FAST III
device and the low
manufacturing cost of a PCnet-
FAST III
based solution.
The platform further allows the user to evaluate the net-
work hardware and to develop software for an Ethernet
node based on the PCnet-
FAST III
device.
The PCnet-
F AST III
evaluation board supports ACPI/OnNow
power management and AMD’s patented Magic Packet™
technology for remote wake-up and power-on. The board
supports power management and remote wake-up via the
PCI bus using the PME pin, or by using the 3-pin WOL con-
nector and cable that is included in this kit. This functionality
requires a system or motherboard that provides auxiliary
power and remote wake-up functions.
In addition to the evaluation board, the kit comes with the
AMD Networking CD-ROM, a hardware user’s manual,
the
PCnet Family Network Driver Installation Guide
, the
Am79C973 data sheet, board schematics and Bill of Ma-
terials, and instructions for testing the Magic Packet re-
mote wake-up technology.
The software includes driver object codes for Novell Net-
Ware ODI DOS and OS/2, NetWare Server, Microsoft
Windows NT, Windows 95, Window 98, Windows CE, Win-
dows for Workgroups, LAN Manager, Banyan VINES Cli-
ent, IBM LAN Server, SCO UNIX, Artisoft LANtastic/AI,
DEC Pathworks, and Packet Driver. Also included are util-
ity programs for configuration of the network adapter card
EEPROM configuration, diagnostics, and Magic Packet
wake-up.
No hardware jumpers are required for configuration. The
PCI system BIOS automatically configures on power up,
the I/O Base Address, interrupt channel, and DMA chan-
nel for the PCnet-
F AST III
-based Ethernet adapter card. In
addition, AMD provides a low-level evaluation program to
establish connections, and send and receive messages.
The evaluation program allows the user to view and
change the contents of the PCnet-
FAST III
registers, the
memory resident Initialization Block, and the data buffer
Descriptor Rings. The program also allows the designer to
establish loops for hardware probing.
The PCnet Family Configuration and Installation utility
program,
AMINSTAL
, provides an easy user interface to
view the configuration of the PCnet-
FAST III
evaluation
board. The utility program automatically scans the system
bus(es), which may include ISA, VL, and PCI to find the in-
stalled PCnet-ISA, PCnet-ISA+, PCnet-ISA II, PCnet-32,
PCnet-PCI, PCnet-PCI II, PCnet-
FAST
, PCnet-
FAST+
,
and PCnet-
FAST III
devices. With the configuration por-
tion of the program, the utility will find and report to the
user the I/O address, IRQ channel, and DMA channel as-
signed to the PCnet-
FAST III
device by the system BIOS.
After configuration, the user may use the utility to create
or modify the CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT, and PRO-
TOCOL.INI OR NET.CFG files on the user’s system.
The PCnet-
FAST III
evaluation board stores the unique
IEEE physical address in the serial EEPROM. Once pow-
ered up, the Am79C973 device reads the node’s IEEE
physical address from the EEPROM through the Microw-
ire interface protocol. For more details about the PCnet-
FAST III
Ethernet Controller also refer to the
Am79C973
PCnet-FAST III
data sheet (PID #21510D).
Trademarks
Copyright © 1999 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved.
AMD, the AMD logo, and combinations thereof and Magic Packet and PCnet are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Product names used in this publication are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective companies.
