New PCI cards & RAM not working (and graphics card as well!)

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I've just been down to the shops and bought some bits & pieces for my PC. It was a bit old really but I thought I could give it a kick by upgrading & adding some stuff.

Firstly, I upgraded the SDRAM from 64MB by adding a second 128MB strip. After booting up again I went to System and according to that I now have 128MB, when I was expecting 192MB (64+128). What has happened to the original 64MB?

Secondly, we have just got broadband internet access in our house. It works fine of my housemate's PC (the one I'm using now). I had to buy a PCI-USB card (as I had no USB ports already). I got a USB2 card with 3 external & 1 internal port. I installed it onto the PCI bus, rebooted & tried to run the driver software installation, but my PC is not recognising the card in either PLug & PLay or or the Device Manager.

I also bought an Ethernet card, installed this at the same time as the USB2 card, and this isn't being recognised either.

Rather than type out a long list of specs, if anyone who knows what the problem might be can post here with a list of specs they need, I'll come back with them.

THanks very much in advance!

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Re: New PCI cards & RAM not working....

Grand Duke wrote:

Firstly, I upgraded the SDRAM from 64MB by adding a second 128MB strip. After booting up again I went to System and according to that I now have 128MB, when I was expecting 192MB (64+128). What has happened to the original 64MB?

Try swapping the memory modules around. On some systems the larger module has to be in the 1st slot. You may also have a system that requires memory to be installed in matched sized pairs. You'd have to list you motherboard model number for someone to look it up.

Quote:

Secondly, we have just got broadband internet access in our house. It works fine of my housemate's PC (the one I'm using now). I had to buy a PCI-USB card (as I had no USB ports already). I got a USB2 card with 3 external & 1 internal port. I installed it onto the PCI bus, rebooted & tried to run the driver software installation, but my PC is not recognising the card in either PLug & PLay or or the Device Manager.

I also bought an Ethernet card, installed this at the same time as the USB2 card, and this isn't being recognised either.

Do you have the Plug'n'Play function turned on in the system BIOS? Again, depending on your system, some have one setting for all of the PCI slots and others have Plug'n'Play settings for each individual slot. (I'd recommend only installing one card at a time, getting it working and then installing the next too..)

Also, what OS are you running? Win98? Win2000? XP?

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Thanks fishin'. I'm running Windows 98 and have an IBM Cyrix-PII 300MHz CPU. I got into Setup during the boot-up, and have enabled P&P on every place I could find it. I'll go back and try swapping the RAM around and taking out the Ethernet card and start with the USB card.

I already have a 56k internal modem from several years ago, which is in PCI slot 3 (the new cards are in 1 & 4) and that worked fine last time I used it (a few years ago). I might try taking it out and putting one of the new cards into there, as it definately has worked in the past. I do remember have a devil of a time trying to get the modem to work when I installed it. I had to mess around with the IRQ addresses and all-sorts to get it to work, and then it suddenly started working without me having idea what I'd done.

I'll also come back with the motherboard serial no. in case that helps anyone to help me. Cheers again, back soon...

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I've sorted the RAM problem. It seems like the motherboard will only take 2x64 modules, and when I swpped them around, it refused to boot, and putting the 128 strip in the first port only gave me 64MB, so I've put them back and gone back to 128MB.

As for the PCI cards... I've managed to do something in Setup which is making Windows load in Safe Mode. I tried loading all the default settings, and that hasn't fixed it. Anyone got any ideas what's happened? I took out the modem and put the USB card into its place, and it still doesn't work. And I can't get out of safe mode! PLease help!

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It's now not in Safe Mode anymore, but I've managed to accidently disable the graphics card somehow, and it's stuck in 16 colours. Any ideas anyone?

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Grand Duke wrote:

It's now not in Safe Mode anymore, but I've managed to accidently disable the graphics card somehow, and it's stuck in 16 colours. Any ideas anyone?

I've not read the whole thread since it looks like you've worked out some of the problems already, but regarding this last question, well, what does it show in the device manager? Does it show your display adapter is disabled (a red x), that there's something wrong with the driver (a yellow circle with a question mark), or does it show some generic driver is installed? My guess is that you've somehow uninstalled the correct VGA driver and you'll have to reinstall it, and that in the meantime it's defaulted to the generic driver which only supports 16 colors.

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I'm not being facetious but you don't have say, $180 hanging around do you ?
If you do I'd very strongly suggest you upgrade the motherboard, processor and RAM.
I know you can pick up a P3 board with a 933 MHz processor on it and 256 MB of SD RAM for under $200 easily.

You'll have USB and possibly built in graphics. What you get for trading in your old processor, board and RAM will get you a Riva TNT2 Ultra graphics card with 32 MB of RAM on that and it'll blow whatever card you have plugged into the P2 away. Either that or an old G-Force 2 card which will still handle most modern games at 800x600.

Your case will be fine as will your soundcard unless you really need more than the odd 'beep'.
It is possible that you'll need to change the power supply in the case if the one you have is not an ATX supply. They're very cheap though as you don't need more than 150/200W for the P3.

The harddrive(s) you have will be fine and the optical drive(s) will be too.

Save the cash up and go for it.

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Thanks Monger & Heliotrope.

I've got so sick of the 5 year-old beast that I'm trying to buy a whole new system from Dell - as long as I get approved for the finance deal.

If I don't I might have a look at upgrading the motherboard. I have little knowledge of hardware (can you tell?!) so might have to get a shop to do it. The rest of my kit is meagre - Soundblaster Awe64 sound card, 4GB hard drive, floppy drive, 48x CD & 2nd CD-RW 8x/2x/1x. I can't even see a graphics card inside anywhere so I assume it's only got a built-in chip set - and if that's the case, will the drivers be on the Windows98 CD?

After having checked the specs on the USB2 card, it seems as if my CPU is wrong - it asks for Pentium2 or AMD 233MHz, and mine's an IBM Cyrix. Bugger. There's no mention of specs on the ethernet card.

If I have a go at taking it to bits and building a new one, how will it compare to a factory built one for price (I assume less) and reliability (I assume less also)?

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If you build your own machine you can do it for a lot less than some PC retailers.
Some of them are a lot cheaper but the quality and capability of the components like the soundcard etc... will be inferior.
If you build it you can get the components that suit you.

The reliability isn't an issue as it's not like cars etc... where the skill of them mechanic is a big factor. They basically just plug together and the components are the same as in retailer's machines.

If you are going to go with a Dell machine then to be honest you can't go far wrong. They are a decent company with reasonable customer service.
The machine sould come with Windows XP pre-installed and the drivers for all the bits will be installed too. You basically just switch it on and you're off.

Make sure you get the disk with XP on it and all the driver disks for the hardware as you'll need them if you have problems or have to format the drive etc... Better to play safe and get the disks.

Personally I build all my PCs. I can choose what I want and when I upgrade it. That's not for everyone however.

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You didn't disable the graphics card, Windows 98 uses it's native drivers when in safe mode (as video drivers screw up often). Once you get back to normal mode, windows should resume using the vendor drivers. As for the PCI cards, moving them around won't matter. It doesn't matter what slot a card is in. Resources (IRQ's and whatnot) are determined by the card, not the location. I would install the cards one-at-a-time to ensure that they are claiming the resources. Sometimes the P&P gets confused when you try to do too much at one time. Also, depending on the motherboard/bios and the hardware, it is actually better to DISABLE plug & play in the bios setup before installing. I had an old computer and enabling plug & play seemed to screw more things up than it fixed. Once I disabled it, everything worked right. Oh, and upgrade to Windows XP if you can... cause 98 blows. Cheers.

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Damn good advice USAFHokie.

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USAFHokie wrote:

Also, depending on the motherboard/bios and the hardware, it is actually better to DISABLE plug & play in the bios setup before installing

Thanks, Hokie.

Is that in Setup (during boot-up)? Will I need to disable it seperately for each of the PCI slots, or may there be there a 'general' option for them all? I'll find out the BIOS version if that's any use to anyone.

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It's in the BIOS, ie setup during boot up. You do the old press delete while it's booting thing to get in there.
There's an option that disables plug-and-play for everything.

I have to say that disabling it can create problems too. I'd only go with the disable option when nothing else works. Try to get all the hardware installed first.

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Thanks Heliotrope. I believe I've tried everything else already. Plugging them in then switching on resulted in nothing. I then went to Control Panel/Install New Hardware and it couldn't find them then. I went to Device Manager and they weren't even showing as unknown devices. I've tried doing one at a time - nothing. I took out the modem that was already in one of the PCI slots, and tried both of the new cards in the modem's old slot - nothing. I'll post back with any developments after disabling PnP. Cheers again.

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New PCI cards & RAM not working (and graphics card as well!)

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