I purchased a computer 8 months ago The computer specifications are as follows:- Pentium 4 with a 1.7ghx intel processor and a L4S5A motherboard Ver 1.0b. The system BIOS is Award Bios V6.00 PG and the identification bios string is 01/21/2002-SIS-645-6A6IXE19C-00. The system is partitioned into 2 partitions the first running windows xp professional and the second windows 98 2nd edition. Two of the 6 PCI slots are being utilised by the following · A Conexant Soft 56K Data Fax Voice Speakerphone · A Realtek RTL8139/810X Family fast ethernet NIC. The system has been working perfectly up until 2 days ago. When I turned on the computer on Sunday morning, a message came on screen indicating a new PCI device existed even though I had not installed any new devices. The computer was not able to identify the PCI device. I shut down the system removed both PCI devices and rebooted - everything was fine. I then inserted only the Network Card and again a system message appeared recognising the existence of a new PCI device but was not able to identify that it was a network card. I went through the process of reloading the network card drivers to no avail. Went through add new hardware – network card-and install drivers - still no success. I then removed the Network card and installed the modem - same problem. I took out both cards and installed them into my wife’s computer (windows 98 2nd edition) and the cards were immediately recognised as modem and network card respectively and loaded successfully. This obviously indicates that both cards and their drives are working fine. Tried reinstalling one of the cards in my system and booting up with windows 98 2nd edition - same problem. I then progressively installed the network card in each one of the PCI slots but had the same problem in every case Went into BIOS and enabled "reset configuration data" Still no help The problem appears to be that although the system will recognise the existence of PCI cards, it cannot identify the type of card and will therefore not recognise any drivers. I am at my wits end and am desperate for advice Would appreciate any assistance available My email addresses are s.pickering@selectorgroup.com and/or sid@pickering.net.nz

Does your BIOS in fact even detect all the devices at boot time, and Windows wont detect them? Also, check your BIOS and make sure that all the slots are turned on. Turn off the plugnplay OS thing in the BIOS as well. I've seen where that setting can cause probs like this. Also, try every different combination of pci devices-slots. I've seen certain soundcards that do what you describe above, only work in one particular pci slot, and not the other two... strange I know.

Hi I'd format my harddrive and reinstall windows if i had that kind of problem. 8 Months? This is kinda long...