James Kerr@@METRICENG.COM> wrote:
>>Here is my problem. (snip)
>I had somebody that told me they were having strange problems
snip
>... he swapped slots with his video card (moved both) and all
>the problems went away, I know I couldn't explain it but it worked...
snip
>>I had an experience with that myself. I still have an old Dell 486
>>that is VERY slot sensitive. The symptoms were/are ABSOLUTELY
>>repeatable. Dell did their best, (for that and some other problems),
snip
I have had the same problem quite a few times, most recently
with 4 DELL Optiplex GXi(Arrrgggghh!) machines, it seems the PCI
slot with the lowest number (or highest, someone correct me if
I'm wrong) gets the first pick of the PnP resources when the PC is
booted, after that comes the next slot and so forth until all have taken
what they want. Some cards (in my case the SCSI-Controller or the
graphic card) just aren't flexible enough to use what is left and
usually either hang the system right from the start or boots you
into safe mode. Changing slots is just about the only way to solve
this problem. I've never seen the problem on an ISA machine though
your Dell 486 IS an ISA machine isn't it?
muddlin' through
Rick Swartz