MPI ISA Card Start-up
The interface between S7-CPU and PG is usually the MPI interface. Siemens offers
the following ISA cards for operating:
- MPI ISA card
6ES7 793-2AA00-0AA0 withdrawn
- MPI ISA card
6ES7 793-2AA01-0AA0
- CP 5411
6GK1 541-1AA00
- CP 5412
6GK1 541-2BA00
When you start up, make a note of the card you are working with. Each card must
be driven by the corresponding driver. The same driver is used for both MPI ISA
cards (6ES7 793-2AA00-0AA0 and 6ES7 793-2AA01-0AA0). The driver is included
in the basic package. With regard to the CPs, these are L2-CPs that can handle
MPI in addition to L2. For these CPs you need an optional driver that is not included
in the STEP 7 basic package.
Hardware settings
Set the jumpers S1-S3 of the MPI ISA card according to the following table.
Jumper position
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
S1/3
ON
ON
ON
ON
OFF
OFF
OFF
S1/2
ON
ON
OFF
OFF
ON
ON
OFF
S1/1
ON
OFF
ON
OFF
ON
OFF
ON
Setting
Address area
0C8000-0C8407
0C9000-0C9407
0CC000-0CC407
0D0000-0D0407
0D1000-0D1407
0DC000-0DC407
0E1000-0E1407
EMS parameter
X=C800-C8FF
X=C900-C9FF
X=CC00-CCFF
X=D000-D0FF
X=D100-D1FF
X=DC00-DCFF
X=E100-E1FF
We recommend the D segment (lines 4 - 6) as address segment. The C and E
segments usually occupied by other PC hardware. Please note that there are errors
in some of the sets of documentation on the MPI ISA card of the S1-S3 jumpers
included in the hardware documentation delivered.
Page 1 of 9
MPI ISA card
The new MPI ISA card (6ES7 793-2AA01-0AA0) is isolated. You can recognize it by
the machine-readable part number stuck on the back or by the DC/DC converter
(see diagram). The DC/DC converter is the largest component and is located in the
vicinity of the MPI socket. The previous MPI ISA card had sporadic problems with
the Triton chip set and faster processors (e.g. Pentium).
DC/DC 5V
Slot
The MPI ISA card must be slotted in the 16 bit ISA slot.
PC resources
Installation is the same as for other ISA cards. The cards occupy PC resources
(interrupt and memory) that must be available. For operation in your PC the MPI
ISA card requires .. Kbytes of memory and one free interrupt.
Address area
This memory area is set via jumpers on the module and must not be occupied by
any other card in the PC.
PC specialists can check whether the card can be addressed via the ISA bus by
entering the following command in the MS-DOS prompt:
debug D <address area>:404.
For example, if you have left the default setting for the address area (0DC0000DC407), the command is as follows
debug
D DC00:404
The first cells should be: "FCF9F6F3". You only see these cells if they have not
been mapped to another address area by EMM386.
Interrupt
The interrupt is set by software in the "Properties for MPI ISA card" window.
Check / Set structure
In order to preempt interrupt conflicts, consider what other cards you want to
operate in your PC or which functions are in your PC on-board that require the
same PC resources as the MPI ISA card.
Page 2 of 9
SCSI controller
If you are using an SCSI controller, a specific address area is usually already
occupied. For example, if you use the Adaptec controller AHA 2940, it occupies the
C segment. But the AHA 2940 not only occupies the C segment but also parts of the
D segment, depending on the firmware version. You should make sure that the AHA
2940 firmware is at least version V1.23. If not, you should upgrade the firmware
accordingly.
If you are using multiple SCSI controllers, the available address area is reduced
significantly. Depending on the type of controller used, implementation of the MPI
ISA card might be prevented because all segments of the possible MPI ISA card
address area are occupied.
BIOS
Some BIOS systems (e.g. AMD or PHOENIX) make it possible to cache the area as
of HB000. Naturally, the area in which the MPI ISA card is situated must not be
cached.
The PHOENIX BIOS, which is also implemented on PGs, permits multiple caches.
ROM segment cachability: a cache for the areas between C000-C3FF and C3FFC7FF can be activated here.
Video shadow: in this BIOS the cache can be activated in segments of 1 Kbyte in
the area from C800 to EFFF in order to enhance the video performance.
There must be no cache activated for the memory area in which the MPI ISA card is
located. It is not hard to imagine that all sorts of errors can occur, even system
standstill, if there are address conflicts.
You should therefore always check that there are no active caches for the areas in
which you want to operate the MPI ISA card.
Page 3 of 9
Installation of the MPI ISA card software
Parameters
After you have checked the hardware settings and installed the card, you must
parameterize the card in order to operate it.
1. PG/PC interface
For this you call the Control Panel in the start bar. Start the "Setting PG/PC
Interface" application. The "Setting PG/PC Interface" window opens. Select the
"Standard On-line Interface" button in the On-line Interface group.
The MPI line should be selected (with dark shading) in the Bus Profile group.
Page 4 of 9
2. MPI properties
With MPI selected you click on the Properties button. The "MPI properties"window
opens. This contains the Hardware, Network and Protocols tabs. The Hardware tab
contains the "Communications modules" window which in turn contains the drivers
loaded for communications modules. This window has at least one entry (None).
The entry (None) in Hardware / Communications modules means that no
hardware will be installed. Select the entry:
• MPI ISA Card
Warning: If you select the wrong driver here, it is not usually recognized. The error
surfaces at another point.
Page 5 of 9
The Network tab contains the following entries:
Subnet Type:
MPI
Subnet number:
0
Highest Node Number:
15
Transmission Rate:
187.5 Kbps
Local Node Number:
0
Not the Only Master Active
x
selected
Note: The factory defaults the for "Local Node Number: " entry are set to 0 for the
first PC and 1 is reserved for the OP. If you want to implement the PC as the
first PG, just leave the setting as it is.
The Protocols tab contains the "Protocol driver" window in which the "MPI protocol"
line should be selected.
Normally, you shouldn't need to change anything in the Network and Protocol tabs.
3. Driver properties
Select the driver in the "Communications module" window and select the Properties
button.
Page 6 of 9
4. System properties
The "System properties" window opens. Select the Device Manager tab. The
available hardware of the computer is listed. The list should not contain any red
entries. A red exclamation mark (!) or cross (x) indicates that there is a hardware
conflict.
Select the SIMATIC NET group (click on the plus sign in front of the icon). A list of
the installed device drivers is displayed. Select the driver for the MPI ISA card and
click on Properties.
5. MPI ISA properties
Resources
The "MPI ISA card properties" window opens. It contains the General and
tabs.
General
The General tab should contain "This device is ready for operation" as an indication
of the device status.
Resources
The Resources tab contains the following elements:
• "Resources settings" window with interrupt and memory area
• "Basic configuration" combo box
• "Change settings" button
• "Set automatically" check box
The interrupt and memory area are displayed in the "Resources settings" window. A
free interrupt must be used. Usually, Windows 95 proposes a correct free interrupt.
For the memory area you must set the memory area which you have set on the card
with S1-S3.
You can change the memory area and interrupt by selecting the "Change settings"
button. You can only change the memory area if you set basic configuration 1.
Plug & Play
The MPI ISA card does not support the Plug&Play function of Windows 95. The
"Set automatically" check box should therefore not be selected. Deactivate it.
Use OK to close all the windows that have been opened during start-up of the MPI
ISA card
Virus scanners
We have feedback to the effect that virus scanners process the memory area in
which the MPI ISA card runs in such a way that subsequently the card no longer
runs. In this case you must reboot Windows 95.
Analysis / Troubleshooting
Error behavior
You should bear in mind that the Windows 95 Device Manager does not recognize
all conflicts. We are often informed of faults involving sound cards or SCSI
controllers or other PC cards, which subsequently turn out to be hardware conflicts.
If errors occur, check to see whether your device has such an interface. Many PCs
provide these functions already on-board.
The problems which have been reported to us until now usually arise when you
press the "Available Users" button. The following error situations have been
reported to us so far:
Page 7 of 9
Error no.
Error message
Error description
Cause
Remedy
SIMATIC Manager hang-up
Address conflict
Exit via Task Manager
Cursor frozen in "hour-glass"
Address conflict
state
13:17072
No hardware found on-line
13:17072
No hardware found on-line
Wrong driver or no
driver loaded
13:17074
’On-line incorrectly
No connection to S7-CPU
configured or invalid
Incorrect module
Compare microswitches with
address
settings in PG/PC interface
Incorrect registry
See: Incorrect registry
entries
parameters in the registry'
13:17088
Errors in registry or
See: Registry entries
wrong driver
:17072
This message indicates that either no driver or the wrong driver is installed, or the
MPI ISA card cannot be addressed. The most common cause of this error is that
MPI was selected at installation, but not entered in the Properties window. You
should therefore check that a driver has been selected in the "MPI properties"
window as described under the point on software installation above. If no driver has
been selected in the "Communications modules" window, this is generally the
reason for the error message. The same error message is also displayed if an
incorrect module address is selected.
13:17074
Sporadically with STEP 7 V2.x you can overwrite the specific registry entries. This
affects the MPI interface among other things. In this case the following message is
displayed when you select the "Available Users" button:
'On-line incorrectly configured or
invalid parameters in the registry'
In this case you delete the driver for the MPI interface in the "MPI properties"
window ("Remove" button) and then insert it again. Parameterize the newly inserted
driver as described under the section on installing the MPI ISA card software.
13:17088
The communications drivers are loaded via entries in the registry. If, for example,
you load a driver via the PG/PC interface and delete directly via the Device
Manager, then there might still be entries in the registry. The remedy here is to
delete the driver and then insert it again just as for error message 13:17074 above.
Registry entries
The driver for the MPI ISA card is loaded dynamically. When you press the
"Available Users" button, STEP 7 attempts to load the driver. These registry entries
are deleted and newly inserted with the Delete and Insert functions. The names of
the drivers for the different protocols are stored in the registry. If you open the
registry with "regedit", you should find entries for the L2DRIVER and L4DRIVER
cells in the following path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\SIEMENS\SINEC\LogDevices\MPI
You should find these drivers in the Win.95\System directory on your PG/PC.
Page 8 of 9
Reference list
We are endeavoring to build up a reference list in order to provide references for
future installations. It is very helpful for us and perhaps also for you to know how
STEP 7 has been installed on a particular PC and what points are to be noted. If
you have STEP 7 installed on a PC and there is no need to worry about data
security, then we would be very grateful if would inform us of your experiences.
Best regards
Your Hotline, Systems Analysis and Consultancy
Page 9 of 9