PCI should always be plug&play, even on an old i430NX chipset. If not, something's wrong. USB cards might use a newer PCI version, whicou could be problematic, but I'd expect the video card and sound card to at least be detected (getting drivers working would be a whole different kettle of fish, but that's not what you're hitting now). First thing I'd check is the connection the riser card is making. ISA works, but ISA has longer fingers than PCI on the PISA slot used on this motherboard. If the riser is slightly out, ISA would still work but PCI not...

Check the BIOS for a setting like "reset configuration data" or similar in the Plug&Play section. You may need to enable that once for the cards to get detected.

dionb wrote on 2020-04-08, 07:22:

PCI should always be plug&play, even on an old i430NX chipset. If not, something's wrong. USB cards might use a newer PCI version, whicou could be problematic, but I'd expect the video card and sound card to at least be detected (getting drivers working would be a whole different kettle of fish, but that's not what you're hitting now). First thing I'd check is the connection the riser card is making. ISA works, but ISA has longer fingers than PCI on the PISA slot used on this motherboard. If the riser is slightly out, ISA would still work but PCI not...

ok i just tried reaseating the riser and got nothing.

derSammler wrote on 2020-04-08, 07:27:

Check the BIOS for a setting like "reset configuration data" or similar in the Plug&Play section. You may need to enable that once for the cards to get detected.

well theres another whole issue , the board uses a dallas clock chip which has long since died and doesn't save any bios data , not even when restarting it with the power still running. luckly the board still works without the battery but i'm not able to change any bios configuration settings.

Maybe that's your problem, because it means that it can not even store any configuration data from the PCI bus enumeration.

derSammler wrote on 2020-04-08, 13:54:

Maybe that's your problem, because it means that it can not even store any configuration data from the PCI bus enumeration.

yeah but wouldn't the machine not retain the ide configuration as well then? which would prevent it booting?

I think the machine retains it's settings between each boot, just when rebooted looses them. are the default pci settings not set up to work properly? (but the default ide settings are?)

These boards often autodetect HDD by default unless you configure it manually. That's probably why it still boots without any CMOS data.

With no CMOS you won't be able to configure PCI Extended System Configuration Data (ECSD) with device resource allocations.

This is how P&P OS know which device need to be configured.

Exactly

mpe wrote on 2020-04-08, 14:04:

With no CMOS you won't be able to configure PCI Extended System Configuration Data (ECSD) with device resource allocations.

This is how P&P OS know which device need to be configured.

when i check the bios there doesn't seem to be an option for that. the only pci related options are palette snoop and a latency timer (pci clocks) setting which is set to 66

emosun wrote on 2020-04-08, 14:22:

when i check the bios there doesn't seem to be an option for that. the only pci related options are palette snoop and a latency timer (pci clocks) setting which is set to 66

Sure. There doesn't have to be anything to configure (most setups can at least configure an order of IRQs allocations though). But Intel boards are often light on options.

But the PnP BIOS still needs to keep track on how resources are allocated per device in ESCD portion of CMOS. Windows (or other PnP OS) then reads that to see what's changed. Without persistent settings this won't work as expected.

mpe wrote on 2020-04-08, 14:31:

But the PnP BIOS still needs to keep track on how resources are allocated per device in ESCD portion of CMOS.

would this be something it kept track of after a reboot?

I'm saying that..... would the machine not be able to do this on a "first boot" situation? What I'm getting at is , it can automatically detect the hard drives when it first boots and it will keep that data until the next reboot (becuase the battery is dead)

So wouldn't it be able to order the pci devices on the first boot and then until the next reboot hold the information? I understand fully that each time it boots it would need to reorder the devices again but is that not a thing it would do on a first boot?

Sorry if this conveys as combative , I'm just trying to understand as this board is just barely older than my other packard bell boards which don't need a bios battery to retain the pci slot configurations so I always like to be schooled and learn stuff. 🤣

Every board is different in this regard. Some boards with a Dallas chip can work with a dead battery with no issues, other ones only work partly, and a few won't even post. You need to address that dead-battery issue in the first place to make sure you are not trying to track down an error somewhere else that doesn't exist.

The most important thing to understand is that the CMOS in a Dallas chip can not be powered externally. If the battery is dead, the CMOS data is not retained even while the system is on.

I don't know exactly how it works for your particular board (as we are likely dealing with a very early PnP implementation).

In PnP setup on board of this era there is often option like "Boot With PnP OS" which is usually disabled by default and you toggle it only if you know you are running PnP OS like Win95 or 98 (but not 2000+). Since you can't change CMOS options you are likely defaulting to BIOS initialisation of devices. And since you have no persistent CMOS it will be always created from scratch.

Then as far as I know the ECSD copied (shadowed) in the RAM area during POST and only persisted in the CMOS when needed. So configured devices and any changes should in theory work until the next reboot. Windows is only writing to CMOS during normal shutdown (that's why many drivers beg you to restart during installation and why windows often hang during shutdown).

Could it be that Windows always enumerate list of BIOS initialised devices so they don't prompt you?

PCI does not require ESCD to be functional, it is just nice-to-have to speed up next boot. CMOS with dead battery should not affect PCI functionality, you will have power anyway, the battery is only used to sustain the date and clock when the power is out.

The on-board video, the Cirrus Logics Alpine GL-GD5434 is also a PCI device that requires BIOS initialization. Perhaps you have mechanical issues that prevented add-in PCI devices to show up properly. You may want to check for utilities that scan & dump PCI devices in real DOS, or just boot a Linux Live CD and do "$ lspci" from the console to check if the additional PCI devices actually showed up. Some BIOS will print out the list of PCI devices detected. For Win98, you may want to hit ESC during boot to remove the startup logo to be able to see the BIOS prints.

alright well heres an interesting development

I tried a pci ethernet card and it works , detected just fine. automatically came up in windows and requested a driver.

I then tried a pci ati rage gpu in the same slot which yielded a proper bios beep (1 long 2 short) (i assume thats "video problem related"). but didnt show any video out of the onboard or pci card. However the cd drive spun up which makes me wonder if it was checking for drivers.

I then tried the gpu in the other pci slot and nothing. no initail beep on startup or detected in windows.

so.... no ideas on that one huh? 🤣

emosun wrote on 2020-04-08, 19:21:

alright well heres an interesting development […]
Show full quote

alright well heres an interesting development

I tried a pci ethernet card and it works , detected just fine. automatically came up in windows and requested a driver.

I then tried a pci ati rage gpu in the same slot which yielded a proper bios beep (1 long 2 short) (i assume thats "video problem related"). but didnt show any video out of the onboard or pci card. However the cd drive spun up which makes me wonder if it was checking for drivers.

I then tried the gpu in the other pci slot and nothing. no initail beep on startup or detected in windows.

One long beep, two short seem to be "video related problems" at least on Award BIOS: https://www.helpwithpcs.com/upgrading/post-beep-codes.htm so I think that means it found the video card (good news) but could not initialize it (card broken?)

aha2940 wrote on 2020-04-10, 03:23:

emosun wrote on 2020-04-08, 19:21:

alright well heres an interesting development […]
Show full quote

alright well heres an interesting development

I tried a pci ethernet card and it works , detected just fine. automatically came up in windows and requested a driver.

I then tried a pci ati rage gpu in the same slot which yielded a proper bios beep (1 long 2 short) (i assume thats "video problem related"). but didnt show any video out of the onboard or pci card. However the cd drive spun up which makes me wonder if it was checking for drivers.

I then tried the gpu in the other pci slot and nothing. no initail beep on startup or detected in windows.

One long beep, two short seem to be "video related problems" at least on Award BIOS: https://www.helpwithpcs.com/upgrading/post-beep-codes.htm so I think that means it found the video card (good news) but could not initialize it (card broken?)

Tried a different gpu , same problem

I'm starting to realize this issue is simply related to pci compatibility and the machine most likely isnt having a problem.

What sort of list of pci devices that actually work on a machine this old is beyond me.

emosun wrote on 2020-04-10, 17:46:

Tried a different gpu , same problem […]
Show full quote

aha2940 wrote on 2020-04-10, 03:23:

emosun wrote on 2020-04-08, 19:21:

alright well heres an interesting development […]
Show full quote

alright well heres an interesting development

I tried a pci ethernet card and it works , detected just fine. automatically came up in windows and requested a driver.

I then tried a pci ati rage gpu in the same slot which yielded a proper bios beep (1 long 2 short) (i assume thats "video problem related"). but didnt show any video out of the onboard or pci card. However the cd drive spun up which makes me wonder if it was checking for drivers.

I then tried the gpu in the other pci slot and nothing. no initail beep on startup or detected in windows.

One long beep, two short seem to be "video related problems" at least on Award BIOS: https://www.helpwithpcs.com/upgrading/post-beep-codes.htm so I think that means it found the video card (good news) but could not initialize it (card broken?)

Tried a different gpu , same problem

I'm starting to realize this issue is simply related to pci compatibility and the machine most likely isnt having a problem.

What sort of list of pci devices that actually work on a machine this old is beyond me.

Hmmm...I'm not sure the problem is as simple as that, usually PCI cards just work fine, no matter the machine you use them in. IIRC, there are 3 PCI versions: 1.0, 2.0 and 2.1. 1.0 worked with 5V signals and 2.0 used 3.3V signals, so those cards designed for one, will not work on the other, but the slots were also keyed differently to avoid mistakes. PCI 2.1 used the same 3.3V as 2.0, but added some features...66MHz bus, I think? anyway, to be sure, you would want to test using a card from about the same year as the PC, that will most likely be compatible.