PCI Bus Version - Which One Do I Have?

[Dick]

I bought a Stratitec USB 2.0 Upgrade Card for use in an old MMX-233
Supermicro computer. OS XP Home SP2. The computer doesn't recognize
the card for installation. It requires a PCI v2.1 slot for the card.
I'm wondering if the problem is because the PCI bus is not ver. 2.1.
How can I tell which version PCI bus I have? I looked in the manual,
Device Manager, etc. Can't find anything.

 

[www.interfacebus.com]

I believe the MMX-233 came out in 1997

Version 2.1 of PCI came out in 1995
Version 2.3 of PCI removed 5v only cards [2002]
Version 3.0 of PCI removes 5v interfaces

I have a PCI desciption page here
http://www.interfacebus.com/Design_Connector_PCI.html

 

[Dick]

Thanks.

 

[Paul]

I bought a Stratitec USB 2.0 Upgrade Card for use in an old MMX-233
Supermicro computer. OS XP Home SP2. The computer doesn't recognize
the card for installation. It requires a PCI v2.1 slot for the card.
I'm wondering if the problem is because the PCI bus is not ver. 2.1.
How can I tell which version PCI bus I have? I looked in the manual,
Device Manager, etc. Can't find anything.

There have been problems in the past, with 440BX generation motherbooard,
when mixed with newer PCI card types. But no one has been able to
figure out what the magic ingredient might be, that prevents the
cards from being recognized. It is possible, the BIOS has to
read and parse the contents of the config space on the PCI card,
and pass some info to the OS at boot time. If a card that the BIOS
doesn't recognize is present, it could be that the OS is never told
about the card. (And I'm referring to "classes" of cards here, as
opposed to just some bad config space info.)

So, moving to the latest BIOS available, is the best you can do in
that regard.

For debugging problems like this, my personal option is the debugging
would go easier if you were using Linux or another Unix variant.
There are now some very nice Linux distributions, that come as
an ISO CD image, and boot up "read-only". That means you don't even
need to install Linux on the hard drive, to be able to use it. I
have used a Knoppix CD to boot several computers here. (I then have
copies of tools like Prime95, on a floppy, so I can run a test in
the Linux environment.) With a Linux distro, you can even resort
to writing code if you want to, or use things like "lspci". If Linux
can see the card, then at least you know it isn't a hardware problem.

Knoppix is a 700MB download, so is only practical with a high-speed
Internet connection. But it is possible there are some smaller
distros, that won't have the same onerous download requirement.
The trick is finding a distro that has the tools you need, yet
isn't a bloated pig. (Maybe the most stripped distros won't have
"lspci" for example.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Linux_Distributions

Is Linux easy to use ? Well, the last distro I touched (Fedora),
cost me 2 weeks of effort and testing, before I was happy with the
setup (that is a hard drive install, not a read-only CD image).
Every technical question cost me about a day of learning,
and I have experience with Unix. But at least now, there is
one less computer in the house, with Windows on it

HTH,
Paul

 

[Dick]

There have been problems in the past, with 440BX generation motherbooard,
when mixed with newer PCI card types. But no one has been able to
figure out what the magic ingredient might be, that prevents the
cards from being recognized. It is possible, the BIOS has to
read and parse the contents of the config space on the PCI card,
and pass some info to the OS at boot time. If a card that the BIOS
doesn't recognize is present, it could be that the OS is never told
about the card. (And I'm referring to "classes" of cards here, as
opposed to just some bad config space info.)

I did finally get it working. I downloaded the manual from the
Stratitec site which had a different XP procedure for installation
from what the included manual showed. The latest manual said to
install the software first, then install the card. I know that's what
most adapters tell you to do, but the manual for this one said to
install the card first, then install the software. I followed the new
procedure and the card was recognized immediately and installed
properly. Works great. Another case of you can't believe what you
read.

Dick

 

[kony]

I did finally get it working. I downloaded the manual from the
Stratitec site which had a different XP procedure for installation
from what the included manual showed. The latest manual said to
install the software first, then install the card. I know that's what
most adapters tell you to do, but the manual for this one said to
install the card first, then install the software. I followed the new
procedure and the card was recognized immediately and installed
properly. Works great. Another case of you can't believe what you
read.

"software"? What software was needed for a USB2 card? At
most there'd be the driver which generally isn't done until
a card is installed- any card, not just this one with some
instruction mentioning it.

 

[Dick]

"software"? What software was needed for a USB2 card? At
most there'd be the driver which generally isn't done until
a card is installed- any card, not just this one with some
instruction mentioning it.

Most drivers are in the form of software. I can't tell you the last
thing I installed that asked for the hardware to be installed first.
They usually warn you, sometimes with red seals, DO NOT install this
without first installing the software. In this case in particular,
there was no way this card was going to be recognized without first
having the software (driver) installed. No doubt why they had to
change the installation manual.

Dick

 

[DaveW]

That OLD computer was designed many years before PCI version 2.1 came out.
None of the modern PCI cards will work in that machine.

 

[Dick]

That OLD computer was designed many years before PCI version 2.1 came out.
None of the modern PCI cards will work in that machine.

Both PCI 2.1 and the SuperMicro motherboard came out in 1995. The
card in question does work just fine now. It was a matter of
installing the driver before inserting the card.

Dick

 

[kony]

Both PCI 2.1 and the SuperMicro motherboard came out in 1995. The
card in question does work just fine now. It was a matter of
installing the driver before inserting the card.

Dick

Contrary to your assumption, it is NOT at all usual to
install drivers before the card, nor it is usually
necessary.

What a driver does for purposes described here- copies
driver function files and referencing INF files to a
location windows can find them. Installer front-end
"software" is just a bloated way of accomplishing it, and
can as easily be done after a card is inserted and windows
is asking "where's the driver".

You're only setting yourself up for problems by installing
drivers ahead of time. Been doing this a lot for a long
time, it is extremely rare that ANY software is necessary
before putting in the card. With older OS and USB devices,
not cards, this can matter more due to OS bugs, some
software(driver) is best installed before device is plugged
in.

For the record, if your card has NEC chipset, the best thing
to do would've been go to NEC website and get latest driver,
completely disregarding whatever is on the included CD.
Same applies to other USB bridge chips as well.

 

[Dick]

Contrary to your assumption, it is NOT at all usual to
install drivers before the card, nor it is usually
necessary.

It was not an assumption. The installation manual's section for XP
SPECIFICALLY stated to install the card first, then install the
drivers. It was not a suggestion. I did that, but Windows absolutely
would not recognize the card no matter what I tried. Then I found
that there was a version 2 of the manual on their website. The
installation procedure for XP was changed to require that the driver
be installed FIRST. Then the card. As soon as I did that, it worked
perfectly. They obviously found out that installing the card first
didn't work.

 

[kony]

It was not an assumption. The installation manual's section for XP
SPECIFICALLY stated to install the card first, then install the
drivers. It was not a suggestion. I did that, but Windows absolutely
would not recognize the card no matter what I tried. Then I found
that there was a version 2 of the manual on their website. The
installation procedure for XP was changed to require that the driver
be installed FIRST. Then the card. As soon as I did that, it worked
perfectly. They obviously found out that installing the card first
didn't work.

While I can appreciate that it seems this way, "something"
was wrong. IOW, I've installed cards from the major USB hub
manufacturers, ie- ALI, Via, NEC, and they all followed the
typical installation method of installing card, then
installing driver.

Perhaps what I'm getting at is this should not have been
necessary, that the card distributer had screwed up their
driver installation routine and it would be best to use the
bare, newest version of the reference driver... which is
generally the best thing to do regardless of whether there
was an issue with an older 2nd party driver or not.

 

[Dick]

While I can appreciate that it seems this way, "something"
was wrong. IOW, I've installed cards from the major USB hub
manufacturers, ie- ALI, Via, NEC, and they all followed the
typical installation method of installing card, then
installing driver.

Perhaps what I'm getting at is this should not have been
necessary, that the card distributer had screwed up their
driver installation routine and it would be best to use the
bare, newest version of the reference driver... which is
generally the best thing to do regardless of whether there
was an issue with an older 2nd party driver or not.

Apparently, the latest driver came with the card. When I went to the
website, there was no later driver available. The only download on
the site was the new manual which solved the problem.