Windows XP Support

The MX driver can be installed using the Device Manager. It can be reached by opening the System Control Panel applet and selecting the Hardware tab. The Myricom Myrinet Adapter should be listed as an unknown PCI device rooted off Other Devices. Right click on PCI device and select Properties to bring up the PCI Device Properties page.

Select Reinstall Driver... (even though no driver has been previously installed) to get to the Hardware Update Wizard. Choose to install from a list or specific location.

You will be prompted for the path to the driver files. Enter the path to the directory where the MX files have been installed and select Next >. Windows will spend some time searching for compatible devices and should find that the MX driver can be installed. Windows may complain that a digital signature has not been found for the driver. In this case, select Continue Anyway to continue with the installation.

The Myrinet mapper can be installed as a service that runs in the background or it can be run manually. The mapper service runs automatically when the system is booted and periodically remaps the entire network. Running the mapper manually is done with mx_mapper or mx_mapper --map-once. The first invocation starts a mapper that runs forever, much like the server. The second invocation causes the mapper to map the network once and then terminate.

The installation of the mapper service begins from the Network Control Panel Applet.

Select the Local Area Connection that corresponds to the Myricom Myrinet Adapter. Right click on the icon and select Properties. From here, The Install... button allows the installation of various network components.

The mapper is a service, so select Service and then Add... Choose Have Disk... since this is not a service provided by Windows.

Select the active mapper and then complete the installation by pressing the OK button. The mapper will automatically run when the system is restarted. The mapper can also be manually started by executing net start mx_mapper at a command prompt.

After the MX driver has been loaded, it can optionally be configured with a static IP address. The default is to acquire an address via DHCP. This requires a DHCP server running somewhere on the Myrinet network.

Configuring a static IP address is done by opening the Network Connections Dialog box.
A right click on Properties for the Local Area Connection for Myrinet allows the setting of the IP address. Standard practice is to use a private address. Refer to RFC 1918 for more information. In the example below, the address is 192.168.100.97 with a netmask of 255.255.255.0. The last digit must be unique for each host. On large clusters, an address of 192.168.x.y with a netmask of 255.255.0.0 may be preferable. In this case, x.y must be unique. The ipconfig /all command will list an overview of available networks.

If the mapper has been configured to run as a service, then other hosts can be ping'ed using the private network in the same subnet. For easy access and observation of the network, add an icon to the system tray by checking the box labeled Show icon in notification area when connected. Please note that this configuration is optional. It will significantly lower latency and increase bandwidth when using the Myrinet network. In addition, a Winsock Direct Driver can be installed on Windows operating systems supporting this technique. If a Winsock Direct Driver is installed, the latency will be reduced to below 10usec and efficiency will be further improved. Please consult our Winsock Direct information for further details.

We also recommend reading the following information related to TCP/IP for Windows:

• Windows 2000 TCP Performance Tuning Tips
  Performance tuning specifically for Windows 2000, most of which is applicable to Windows XP as well.

• Microsoft Windows 2000 TCP/IP Implementation Details

Last updated: 12 January 2007