DeskPro EN Pci problems

I am running a compaq deskpro en Pen III 833 win2k sp4. I am
attempting to install a couple of pci cards(firewire, pci to pcmcia
adapter) in the expansion riser. The machine turns on but will not go
to post with the firewire card. The boot sequence is cdrom,a,c. With
the pcmcia card the cdrom lights up and the keyboard lights up, then
compaq logo appears then nothing. If I remove the cards from the
expansion riser the machine boots and runs fine.

Thanks for any advice.

Jim

wrote:
I am running a compaq deskpro en Pen III 833 win2k sp4. I am
attempting to install a couple of pci cards(firewire, pci to pcmcia
adapter) in the expansion riser. The machine turns on but will not go
to post with the firewire card. The boot sequence is cdrom,a,c. With
the pcmcia card the cdrom lights up and the keyboard lights up, then
compaq logo appears then nothing. If I remove the cards from the
expansion riser the machine boots and runs fine.

Thanks for any advice.

Jim

OK, this is a "little" confusing. When installing just one card, there
is a problem of some sort? Then the immediate suspect is the power
supply.

Q

I am trying to install both cards, one at a time. When the firewire
card would not install I suspected a bad card and removed it. I then
installed the pci to pcmcia card and still had a problem. I removed
the pci pcmcia card and the system booted fine.

Thanks for the info I will look at the power supply and swap it out
with another one.

The power supply in the machine is 120 watts. I found a 160 watt
compaq power supply but the power plug to the board was different.
Looks like I will not be upgrading this machine. It works fine for
surfing and downloading.

I was swapping out hard drives and found that the clone 10G Win98SE
would not run, blinking cursor. I had a 2.5 G Compaq hard drive
Win98SE and it worked fine after all of the drivers were loaded. The
2.4G Compaq hard drive Win95 worked fine also.



Thanks for your help.

Jim

Compaq's DeskPros use a mixture of power supplies depending on the exact model
and chassis. Some use absolutely industry standard-size ATX power supplies with
20-pin ATX connectors. Others use 24-pin connectors. The small form factor
ones use an oddball power supply, needless to say. You may be able to
substitute a generic power supply with greater wattage, depending on the
connector.

As for hard drives, again, depending on the model, the motherboard BIOS may or
may not recognize a drive larger than 8.4GB, which could be the cause of failure
to boot with a 10GB drive. Or, if the Windows software drivers on the hard
drive are not exactly right for the motherboard, the system would fail to boot,
too.

Failure of some cards to work in the system could be due to a mismatch in PCI
specification, which has undergone revision over the years, from PCI 1.0 to 1.1
to 2.0 to 2.1. Many newer add-in cards require a motherboard which complies to
PCI 2.0, at minimum. If you have an old model of DeskPro EN, it may not be PCI
2.0 compliant.

Exactly which model are you dealing with, anyway? RSVP with the info on the
decal usually affixed to the top of the case... Ben Myers

On 2 Nov 2005 20:08:08 -0800, wrote:

The power supply in the machine is 120 watts. I found a 160 watt
compaq power supply but the power plug to the board was different.
Looks like I will not be upgrading this machine. It works fine for
surfing and downloading.

I was swapping out hard drives and found that the clone 10G Win98SE
would not run, blinking cursor. I had a 2.5 G Compaq hard drive
Win98SE and it worked fine after all of the drivers were loaded. The
2.4G Compaq hard drive Win95 worked fine also.



Thanks for your help.

Jim

Thanks Ben

Here is the Compaq info on the sticker.

ENS/P866/15e/6/128c/ US

The MB had a sticker - P336COTDAJY2FU DW# 010701

The original HD is a 15G.

The firewire card in an actiontec, about 3 years old

The PCI to PCMCIA card is compliant with PCI Local Bus Specification
2.2.

The power supply is a 14 pin.

Thanks,

Jim