PCI Express

[64AMD]

I am a PC Technician and Windows Network Engineer. I have a problem I have not seen before nor do I know what to do about it.

I have just reformatted a client’s computer. It is a Dell Precision 370. It has Intel Chip set 925x/xe. It has a NVIDIA Quadra FX 1300 Video Card. Two 160 gig hard drives in a mirrored raid, 2 gigs of ram, Pentium 3.6 gig processor

There is an on board NIC which Windows does not see, I had to put a Linksys card in to get on the net. Before I put the Linksys card in it was like there was not a NIC installed, not even under other. It also does not see the Video card although it does work, which only means that windows is using a generic driver. The video drivers will not install, says no supported hardware could be found. There is no on board video. I unfortunately do not have another card I could put in it, not even for trouble shooting

When I go into Device Manager there are three yellow exclamation points on three System devices. All three are PCI Express devices. When I go into the properties of any one of the three, under device status it reads:

Your computer's system firmware does not include enough information to properly configure and use this device. To use this device, contact your computer manufacturer to obtain a firmware or BIOS update. (Code 35)

I have downloaded and installed the Chip set drivers from Dell and Intel, neither one fixed the problem. I have updated the BIOS from version A02 to A08. I have loaded and saved system defaults in the bios.

Any one have any ideas?

Thank You

 

[TheLad]

I would suggest going to the Dell website and downloading the Network drivers, Audio Drivers and Video drivers.

Go to the link below, type in the Service Tag and download the drivers from there:

http://support.euro.dell.com/support/downloads/index.aspx?c=uk&cs=RC1050264&l=en&s=lca

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[64AMD]

I have already downloaded and installed all the drivers. The drivers are not the problem when the OS can not see the hardware. A Display Adapter is not even listed in the Device Manager generic, NVIDIA or other wise, in fact the catagory is not even listed. Neither was Network Adapters until I put the Linksys NIC in.

Once I got to the Dekttop when windows finished installing the only device in the 'Other' catagory was the audio driver and it has been installed verified to be working.

 

[Dillinger99]

Did the devices work properly before you reformated the PC? Do you see any lights on the onboard NIC if you plug a live ethernet cable into it? If not, perhaps the motherboard needs to be replaced.

 

[stduc]

You need to visit the link above and identify & grab the drivers you need.

Dell specific drivers are generally installed from their own Dell built executable & not from withing windows. So when you have the correct (you hope) exe files - run them. Most likely when XP re-boots it will go through its 'new devices found' routine.

 

[TheLad]

I was thinking from the point of view that your 3 system devices with exclamation points against them could be your network card, audio card and video card (regardless of whether they are listed as PCI Express or not).

So the system could be seeing them but due to not having the right driver installed, cannot recognise them properly.

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[cdogg]

Found the following article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/245386/en-us

CM_PROB_BIOS_TABLE

Text that is displayed in Device Manager: 
Your computer's system firmware does not include enough information to properly configure and use this device. To use this device, contact your computer manufacturer to obtain firmware or Bios update. (Code 35) 

Solution button: None 

Cause
This error message is displayed when a device does not have an entry in the BIOS MultiProcessor Specification (MPS) table. You can only see this error message on MPS-capable systems. This behavior usually indicates a BIOS bug. This is particularly prevalent on MPS systems with multiple root PCI buses. 

Troubleshooting

• Obtain a firmware or BIOS update. If no update is available, you cannot use the device. 

• If the BIOS has an option to switch between MPS 1.1 and MPS 1.4, you can try switching because a different table is loaded. You usually want the system set to MPS 1.4.

Since you've already applied the latest BIOS, look for that MPS setting. If it doesn't exist or changing it doesn't help, I'd try to reload Windows one more time from scratch.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
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[64AMD]

I got the problem fixed in the wea hours of the morning. What ever the problem was, was caused by something in the MBR of the drives. I Zero filled the first and last part of the drives and now it works fine.

I even had to spend an hour chatting with dell tech support, and even they could not give me a defendant fix.