How can I solve my network card issues?

Solutions Covered:

1. Job’s printing on a blank page when no print job has been sent?
2. Unable to change the gateway address on HB-7 or HB-8
3. Corruption when printing through HP Jetdirect Interface?
4. Novell Server not showing on Ecolink status page.
5. Failure to print using a 3COM Switch.

Job’s printing on a blank page when no print job has been sent?
The HB-4 card produces a 'b' as an error report when the memory storage (for Novell file server names) on the HB-4 or the printer is exceeded.
Solution
Version 5.19 and above of the HB-4 firmware does not produce this error. Another solution to this problem is to specify a File Server Name on the HB-4.

Unable to change the gateway address on HB-7 or HB-8
This applies to ECOSYS III (2nd Generation Interface). These NICs (network interface cards) do not require a gateway address to be defined as they are passive network devices. This means that they respond to data packet requests, but do not normally send out active packets. The only active packets sent out by the NIC are for a local DHCP/WINS connection and this would normally reside on the same sub-net group.
When data packets are routed through a network router or bridge, the IP address of the router/bridge is attached to the information packet so that any device receiving this on the other side of the network will be able to pass the data back the same way.
The reference to a Gateway address on the front panel of the printer is for compatibility with other network cards available world-wide and this address cannot be changed from the default 000.000.000.000

Corruption when printing through HP Jetdirect Interface?
Print corruption occurs when using a Jetdirect external (Parallel connected) interface with a Kyocera Mita ECOSYS III printer on an NT 4.0 Server. Printer codes can be seen on the page in random places, and the printer occasionally pauses between jobs. This communications issue is caused by an incompatibility between the HP Jetdirect Interface and the printers.
Solution
Configure the Kyocera Mita printer’s parallel port to Normal (via front panel).
Configure the HP Jetdirect parallel port to Centronics. The default setting on the Jetdirect interface is either ECP for newer models or Bitronics. This has to be set via the HP Jetadmin software, and it is important that the correct port is changed as these units can have up to 4 parallel printers connected to them.

Novell Server not showing on Ecolink status page.
The Kyocera Mita network cards HB-4 and HB-6 (below v6.00 firmware) are passive network devices, and therefore need to receive a SAP packet from the Novell NetWare server before they will attempt to attach to a NetWare queue. This problem shows up if no Novell servers are shown on the Ecolink status page. Novell are now shipping Novell NetWare 4.11 server software with the default installation disabling the SAP packet system.
This does not apply to NDS. HB-4 network cards over v6.00 support NDS.
Solution
The simple solution to this problem is to modify the line in the AUTOEXEC.NCF that disables the SAP packets.
How to do this:
1. From the server command line or via a remote console, load the installation program by entering:
LOAD INSTALL
2. Select ‘NCF File Options’ on the menu and then ‘Edit AUTOEXEC.NCF’
3. Change the following line:
LOAD IPXRTR ROUTING=NLSP
to:
LOAD IPXRTR
4. Press F10 to save the file and Escape to exit the installation program.

Failure to print using a 3COM Switch.
Failure to print on a network with 3COM Switches (Model name Superstack II Switch 1000).
Solution
The problem with switches was due to a default configuration setting on the 3COM Switches (Model name Superstack II Switch 1000).
This Switch has a database of all devices on the network that defines how the switch acts if it receives a packet of information that it hasn´t got a record of in its database. By default the Switch is configured to send to backbone, which, as it says will attempt to pass the information back out to the defined backbone. If a customer has a problem printing via these switches they will need to configure the Bridging Mode to Forward to All. This means that it will pass on any packets for an unknown destination down all available channels to find the unit.