Subject: Re: PnP weirdness
To: Lennart Augustsson <augustss@cs.chalmers.se>
From: Sujal Patel <smpatel@real.com>
List: tech-kern
Date: 07/29/1998 08:16:03
On Wed, 29 Jul 1998, Lennart Augustsson wrote:

> >  Do you know what the bios does to initialize
> > the card?
> No, I don't know.  I just know that it shows up as a regular ISA
> card if I disable isapnp.  Unfortunately, it doesn't work on
> ISA because the ISA driver doesn't like the irq that BIOS gives
> the card.

If it shows up at all without isapnp, then the BIOS is definitely setting
up the card for you (PnP-only devices usually sit dormant until they are
configured).

Most BIOS setup utilities have an option to specify that you have a "Plug
& Play Compatible OS".  Setting this option will make it so the BIOS
doesn't configure your PnP cards.  You may need to hunt for this option,
because many of the BIOS setup's aren't clear about what the setting is
really doing.

While, it should be possible to reconfigure your PnP device after the BIOS
configures it, I've seen problems in the past with older BIOS versions.
I find it hard to believe that any modern motherboard is still buggy, but
you may want to make sure that the BIOS version is the most recent your
vendor offers.


Sujal