Opening Device Manager
Start Windows*. Click Start, then Settings, then Control Panel. In the Control Panel window, find System and double click on it. This will bring up system properties. In the System Properties window, find the tab along the top titled Device Manager and click on it.
Checking the Device Status
Look down the Device Manager list until you see the listing titled "Network adapters". If there is a plus (+) sign next to the entry, click on the plus symbol to expand the list. There should be one entry for each adapter installed, and there should be no circled yellow exclamation mark or red X associated with the entry.
If there is a circled yellow exclamation point associated with the adapter, then the adapter is not working. If there is a red X associated with the adapter, then it could not be found or has been disabled.
If there is no circled yellow exclamation point or red X associated with the adapter, then it should be working properly. To verify this, highlight the adapter on the list and click on "Properties". This will bring up the adapter properties dialog box. On the general tab, the device status should read "This device is working properly".
Finding Available Resources
In the Device Manager window, with "View devices by type" selected at the top, highlight Computer at the top of the list and click on Properties near the bottom. This will bring up the Computer Properties window.
In this window, you should have the "View Resources" tab selected, and it should be set to display Interrupt Request (IRQ).
The Interrupt Request (IRQ) window will display the computers interrupts from 00 to 15. Scan this list looking for any numbers missing in the sequence from 00 to 15. Any numbers that are not shown are available. If the only thing listed for an interrupt number is "IRQ holder for PCI steering", then you can consider that interrupt available also. Write down all the available numbers you find.
Next, still on the View Resources tab, select the button marked Input/output (I/O). Now you will see a list of I/O addresses that are in use. Write down some available I/O addresses in the range that your adapter can use. Intel® ISA Bus Ethernet adapters typically use a 3 digit address range, such 300-30F. This would show up in the Device Manager list as 0300-030F in this example.
If your adapter requires a DMA channel, select the "Direct memory access (DMA)" button. Any numbers missing in the sequence (0 through 7) are available.
If your adapter requires a memory range, select the "Memory" button. Ranges that are not listed are available.