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PCI card(s) problem!


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#1
wolfp13

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i built my computer about 4 months ago and everything has been working like a dream, but the other day i installed a new adaptec 3 port firewire pci card, (and due to the fact that pci cards are usually plug and play, no driver came with the software). the only problem is, the computer was incorrectly recognizing it, it was picking it up as a multimedia audio device... which is totally wrong. so i searched through the manufacture's website along with the abit website(maker of my motherboard) and then onto the microsoft website as well. and the only thing that barely stuck out a helpful hand was the notion that if right at first the pci card is not or improperly read, try another slot, so i did. but i had to move some of my other cards around to do so. and then once i fired the machine back up, all the cards i moved went to crap. none were being read. after about 30 minutes i got my sound card back to good as new after putting it back in the origional spot i had it in, but the ethernet card i had also moved is still not working, not to mention even trying the firewire card until all is working fine again.

so that's were i need help, what should i do if my computer is not reading a card right after moving it to another pci slot and then back again that was working prefectly fine a few hours before. that makes no sense.

please lend a hand, my frustration is getting near full.

Edited by wolfp13, 04 May 2005 - 12:21 PM.

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#2
Samm

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Hi there

First off, the adaptec card -
I've looked on adaptecs website, they say that the driver required is embedded into XP in the driver database. If it's not there, you may need to insert the XP CD to locate it. You are looking for the 1394 (firewire) driver.

The problems you had with the other PCI cards are due to you rearranging them, but you've probably worked this out. For future reference, you would have been better off removing one of the existing cards & leaving it out of the system until the firewire card was setup. Moving a pci card to a different slot often causes the card to be redetected & a different IRQ to be assigned.

The best thing to do now probably is to clean up the driver installs. You can do this by :
physically removing all the pci cards
boot windows up in safe mode (F8 key the second that windows starts to load, then select safe mode from menu)
Open device manager & delete all the pci cards that have been removed. If any of the cards have an uninstall option in programs, then run this as well.
shut down & replace the cards one at a time. Reboot after each one & reinstall the driver before continuing.

Let me know what happens
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#3
wolfp13

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no, that didn't work, once i had all the cards back out of my computer, i turned it on to see the same "found new hardware-multimedia audio controller" message pop up....did i mention all pci cards were out of the computer?!

What new hardware was it talking about?
pleasekeep helping
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#4
Samm

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If ALL pci cards are out of the system & windows still detects a new multimedia device, then you have got an integrated sound card on the motherboard. This would have originally been disabled in the bios but if the bios has been reset back to defaults at any point, then the sound controller would be re-enabled by default.

Go into the bios & look for the onboard audio setting & disable it.

That aside, if you to remove all cards & boot up in safe mode, windows will NOT detect the new hardware. So, with pci cards out, disable the sound in the bios, boot in safe mode then remove all pci card devices (& any unknown devices) from device manager.
Reboot normally. check eveythings OK, then replace PCI cards one at a time as I described in the previous post.
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#5
wolfp13

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yeah, that sounds like that will work, let me give it a try and ill reply back tomorrow, thnks

~~~~~~~~~(next day post edit)~~~~~~~~~~~

i tryed it and that solved the new hardware pop-up for the audio device on the motherboard, but i found another problem, the add/remove page in control panel says i still have some files attached to the sound card in the computer, and when i try to get rid of them, it says "no audio pci device found, nothing to do!", so how am i supposed to install it again if part of it won't go away? need help.

Edited by wolfp13, 06 May 2005 - 11:17 AM.

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#6
Samm

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Don't worry about them then. As long as the device has been removed from device manager, windows will redetect it & reinstall it.
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#7
wolfp13

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yet another problem(sorry for extended time between posts, final week in college right now) when in safe mode and trying to take out the ethernet card, it says it cannot be uninstalled from the computer because the computer may need it to boot up, so all i can do is disable it... and i lef that alone and tryed to install the firewire card but no new hardware information pops up even after i search for it, and for that pci card i should not have to delete anything, because i only had it in once before and it wan't being read in the first place, which in term gave me all the mess...help is needed again, 3 cards not being able to be used. : (

(by the way, should the audio/video codecs be in the sound, audio, etc. part of the device mannager? are they helping the problem or hurting it?)

Edited by wolfp13, 08 May 2005 - 05:54 PM.

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#8
Samm

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The audio codecs etc should be in the multimedia section of Device manager - they are installed along with the sound card driver normally, so if you have a sound card installed then leave them there.

Sounds like you may have a duff firewire card but I'm not absolutely certain yet.
Can you clarify for me exactly what state the system is in. ie what cards are physically in the computer & which of those have drivers installed & are working?
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#9
Doby

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Hi,

you mentioned its a Abit board so I am assuming the bios has these options I will mention below

when in safe mode and trying to take out the ethernet card, it says it cannot be uninstalled from the computer because the computer may need it to boot up, so all i can do is disable it


This could be because in bios under "Intergrated Periphers" then under "Onchip pci devices" lan boot rom is set to enable. Disable it and try uninsalling the card.

Samm is on the right track here the cards because of irq issues need to be uninsalled and the reinsalled to sort all this out and I think that the new firer wirer card is bad but to make sure this ain't a bug in bios try this, again if your bios has this option,

Under "Advanced Bios Features" Enable "Unused Pci devices" this way the system will send clock signals to all pci slots even if no card is installed. I would enable this setting then try reinstalling all the cards including the firewirer card.

Also I have heard reports that some times when installing a sound card in a pci slot next to the agp slot can cause some problems so try and avoid this if possible but I can not verify this is accurate

I duno if any of this will will help but its worth checking out.

Rick

Edited by Doby, 08 May 2005 - 08:44 PM.

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