VOGONS


First post, by derSammler

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Rank l33t
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l33t

I have a Compaq Deskpro EP 6400 here that drives me crazy. First of all, the system works perfectly fine. No issues with the OS, games, graphics, sound, whatsoever. With one exception: there's no way to get a networking card working...

Originally, I had Windows 2000 Pro installed. Tried installing a Kingston Fast Ethernet card (PCI) at some point. Windows 2000 found it, installed the built-in drivers, rebooted... and then told me that the device isn't working and that I should re-install the drivers (didn't help, of course). Later, when I found that Windows 2000 is crap for games, especially 3dfx Glide ones, I switched to Windows ME. Software-wise, everything is fine. The Voodoo2 works flawlessly, and I've even installed a TV card so I can hook up and capture analog footage, which works fine, too. Wanting to have LAN, I gave that Kingston card another try. Just like with Win2k, it installed the built-in drivers only to tell me that the device isn't working after a reboot. Tried a different PCI slot and a different IRQ - with the same result. I concluded the card is broken.

Next I tried a D-Link card (TX530). While having the correct drivers for Windows ME, Windows refused to take them. Apparently, it wasn't able to recognize a match between the card and the drivers. So next one, a Realtek 8139C. This one had been used before in my Win98 box and was known to be working. But again, no dice. The card was detected, the drivers correctly installed, but after a reboot, Windows would no longer work and just freeze 2 seconds after showing the boot screen. Again, tried different PCI slots and IRQs with no success. This doesn't seem normal to me, something must be wrong here. One strange thing I noticed is that the BIOS always assign the same IRQ to the NIC as to the VGA card and there's no way to change that. Changing the IRQ of any of the cards changes the other one as well. This happens no matter in which slot the NIC is installed, and even if there are other free IRQs available. BIOS bug maybe?

Is anyone here using a Compaq Deskpro EP 6400 with a NIC installed? If so, which one?