First post, by dionb
- Rank
- l33t++
Thanks to a bit of help, I now have a working EISA system at last. So it's time to populate the beast. That's not risk-free, given that OPTi Local Bus uses the exact same slots as EISA, but in an electically incompatible way that results in magic smoke being liberated if inserting the one in the other. I'm well aware how to recognise the boards, i.e. one or two brown slots in between otherwise normal ISA combined with an OPTi chipset reeks of OPTi Local Bus, whereas all slots brown with another chipset is typically EISA. Also, EISA boards have a habit of reminding you of the fact at POST - and if in any doubt you can test with ISA cards first to see that POST.
Fair enough. But the cards...
Obviously, if the card can be identified and Googled, that should generally clarify the situation. But if it can't be identified, or it can, but no authoritative info is easily available online (and no, an eBay ad saying "EISA card" isn't authoritative), or simply no internet connection is available at the time, what then? How can I determine if a given card with the typical double-depth connector wants an EISA or an OPTi bus?
