[ale] weird bios problem

[Geoffrey]

Frank Z. wrote:
>>I've got an older ibm box that I'm trying to resurrect (p200).  It 
> 
> has a 
> 
>>nic on the mb which is recognized and properly configured, but never 
>>works.  I just figured it was bad.  Anyway, I've tried dropping in 
> 
> both 
> 
>>a wireless pci card as well as a pci nic, no go.
>>
>>I was digging through the bios and found a setting under 'PCI 
> 
> control' 
> 
>>that is grayed out but says 'Network adapters   [Disabled]'.  Now my 
>>assumption is that would apply to the nic on the mb, but I can not 
> 
> get 
> 
>>this thing to toggle on.  There is a dip switch on the mb that 
> 
> disables 
> 
>>ethernet, but I've toggled it both ways, no difference.
>>
>>So, I'm now wondering if this is why the on board nic is not 
>>functioning?  I figured if the bios says it's disabled, then the OS 
>>would never see it.
>>
>>Anyone had similar experiences?  The box probably isn't worth $25 but 
>>I'd just like to get past this.  (anal kind a thing isn't it???)
>>
> 
> 
> Is the BIOS maintained by a battery? If so, could the battery be old? 
> Can you clear the BIOS and reset? If the feature is available, can you 
> change to boot NIC first and see what happens?

Actually got around this problem by resetting the bios to default 
values.  Nic still doesn't function.  Dow mentioned something about 
problems with acpi, so I'm looking into that right now.



-- 
Until later, Geoffrey	esoteric at 3times25.net

Building secure systems inspite of Microsoft