HP Pavilion and a network card
Metspitzer
for a friend.
The card he bought is a TrendNet 10/100 PCI. It says the minimum
requirements are 256k, but I was gonna try it anyway. I put the card
in, and booted. It gave me a hardware conflict error so I pulled it
out.
I had an old 3com card, so I put it in. While I was plugging it in,
the computer started up. I went ahead and let it boot, and the damn
thing worked! Only I can't shut the computer off. When I tried to
power down, XP shut down, but the fan kept running. I unplugged the
computer and plugged it back up, and the fan started running again. So
I had to take the 3com card out.
I put the TrendNet back in and rebooted again. The computer booted
without giving a conflict error and it reported finding the card, but
it doesn't work. It also has a question mark beside it in the device
manager.
The computer has another empty PCI slot, but it has a breakout tab,
and I don't have another blank. It is not a big deal, but I would
rather not break it out if I didn't have to.
Anyone think using the other PCI slot would make any difference? Any
other suggestions?
Man-wai Chang to The Door (24000bps)
> the computer started up. I went ahead and let it boot, and the damn
> thing worked! Only I can't shut the computer off. When I tried to
You should not plug in hardware when the PC was powered on. Unplug the
power first!
> Anyone think using the other PCI slot would make any difference? Any
> other suggestions?
Does your PC have on-board LAN? What's the brand and model of your
motherboard?
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Paul
So you put a PCI card into the slot, while the computer still had +5VSB
running on the motherboard ? You're supposed to switch off at the back,
so that can't happen. (Switch off all power before adding or removing
PCI or RAM.) That could be why the computer started immediately.
It is a measure of stress on the Southbridge (the PCI interface is on
the Southbridge). If you electrically stress the Southbridge, while
+5VSB is available, it can cause the computer to assert PS_ON# and
start as if the power button on the front was pressed. That is why
it is important to switch off at the back - or get in the habit of
unplugging before taking the side off the computer. Plugging cards
into "hot" slots is not recommended, as damage can result, depending
on what contacts on the card or device touch first. And "hot", includes
slots with standby power present on them.
*******
Older machines have BIOS screens for resource allocation. On modern machines,
the BIOS can do resource planning, allocate IRQs, address spaces for the cards,
and pass that to the OS. (Setting "Plug and Play OS" to [No], means that
the BIOS does the resource planning, and passes the results to the OS.)
On older machines, some of that still works, for cards that can be identified.
But it may not work well if a "strange for its time" card is inserted.
For example, if the old machine sees a PCI Sound card, it may assign
IRQ 5 for it. If it sees Wifi, it might ignore it.
(The info here is for PIC interrupt mode. If you're using APIC, the IRQ numbers go
higher than 15 - things on the PCI bus can be 16 to 23. IRQ Sharing is allowed
on modern OSes. This article is just to demonstrate how some of this used
to work.)
http://www.computercraft.com/docs/irqs.shtml
On some of the 440BX era motherboards, it appeared that certain kinds
of modern cards were just being ignored. (I didn't keep track of which
worked and which did not, so I can't give a theory as to what the common
ingredient was. I don't have any cards here that refused to work in my
440BX system, so couldn't experiment with it.) One other poster looked at
it from a power perspective, and the card was receiving power, so that
wasn't the problem. But it appeared the BIOS just didn't want anything
to do with certain card types. We weren't sure whether it was a
PCI spec version issue (like rev 2.3 cards wouldn't work), or just the
card type (SATA controller, Wifi or whatever).
Maybe your Trendnet is one of those "ignored" cards, and the 3COM
has "primed" a configuration table in the BIOS.
If that is the sort of thing that is happening to you, it could have
something to do with resource planning. I don't know where I'd start though,
to prove that. The first thing that comes to mind, is checking in
Everest to see if there is an entry for the card in the PCI section.
(To prove it is electrically working.)
Now, you mention finding a question mark in Device Manager, so maybe
all it needs now is a driver. Maybe you're not that far from success.
Install the driver for the Trendnet card.
*******
The computer also keeps configuration data in the BIOS. The BIOS has
the ability to keep track of whether the hardware config is the same
as it was the last time the power came on. I don't really understand
all the logic behind this, as it makes just as much sense for the
BIOS to simply deal with the hardware it finds from scratch, every
time the power comes on. I don't see the logic in all this "delta
bookkeeping".
The BIOS has the ability to write to the BIOS flash chip. In other words,
in a limited sense, it is self-modifying. There are several flash segments
that store data. There are a couple 2KB chunks to hold microcode selection
for the processor. There is DMI and ESCD. DMI keeps a series of
text strings, with stuff like "Slot 3 128MB RAM". If you use a tool
like "DMI Explorer", you can read out this information. It is a form
of inventory info.
Main BIOS code (read-only, consists of multiple "files") \
DMI Update at POST, written by BIOS \
ESCD Update at POST, written by BIOS \__ BIOS
Microcode #1 Update at POST, written by BIOS / Flash
Microcode #2 Update at POST, written by BIOS / chip
Boot Block (read-only, just enough code to start, /
computes checksum on "Main BIOS code") /
The other part is ESCD. This is taken verbatim from an Asus manual
(minor mistakes and all).
"Reset Configuration Data [No]
The Extended System Configuration Data (ESCD) contain information
about non-PnP devices. It also holds the complete record of how the
system was configured the last time is was booted. Select [Yes] if
you want to clear these data during the Power-On-Self-Test.
That is a one-shot setting. You set it to Yes, and the next time the
computer POSTS, it gets set back to No, as well as clearing ESCD storage.
Now, would that make a difference to what you're doing ? I don't know.
I don't understand why you'd reach for that control. As your situation
is close to working right now, you may not need to mess with it.
Modern computers seem to be missing that option (my current computer doesn't
have the option), so whatever it was used for, seems to be less necessary now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESCD
Paul
Metspitzer
I fixed the problem by putting the modem in the PCI slot I was using
and putting the Lan card in the modem slot.
Thanks everyone