Windows is re-detecting already installed hardware as generic?

[3c273]

Hello,

I added a second video card to a friends computer, (something I've done at
least 25 times), and when I rebooted, it detected a "vga video controller"
and could not find the drivers even though it is an ATI rage 128 and the
windows xp hcl says that windows ships with a driver for it. That's only
part of it. Windows also redetected the modem, but instead of detecting a
"US Roboticts 56k Modem" and installing it as it did before, now it detects
a "simple pci communications device" and refuses to install. It is doing the
same thing with the onboard nic. It is as if windows can see that there is
new hardware but it can't tell what the make or model is any more. Any
insight is appreciated.

Louis

 

[3c273]

Also, I removed the video card and used system restore to go back but it
still detects the modem and on board nic as generic and refuses to install
them. The disks for his machine are at his other house in another state.
When I try providing the drivers for these devices, windows says that the
devices are not present on my machine. Thanks again.
Louis

 

[R. McCarty]

What interface technology is the 2nd Video card ? ( PCI, AGP, PCIe..)
It sounds you've configured PCI slots in a manner where the internal sharing
is having trouble allocating resources. Most motherboards have only 2
slots with independent IRQ mappings. Usually it is Slots #2 and #5.
Some expansion cards share IRQs correctly, but some combinations will
result in the kind of issues you describe.

 

[3c273]

It is a PCI card. There are 3 slots. Slot 1 is a wireless card. (I forget
the model), slot 3 is the modem. As per my second post, even after removing
the video card and going back a day with system restore, the modem and
onboard nic are still detected as generic. The wireless is also detected as
an generic "ethernet controller" but I'm not worried about the wireless.
Louis