"Invalid IRQ Level (255) assigned by PCI BIOS - ASUS P3B-F Motherboard

[SteveHere]

Hi All,

I'm trying to build up a "White Box" Open Step machine, which I have never done before.  I found a PII machine with an Asus P3B-F motherboard in it, and it's got the Intel 440BX chipset in it, which I have read here is a good thing for OpenStep.

Anyway, this machine has been a challenge.  I've located a compatible PCI Ethernet card and an ISA Sound card that work in this machine, but I can't get Networking working.  (there's only one ISA slot on this version of the motherboard so I do need a PCI NIC)

I started with a 3COM 3C905 NIC and was getting the following error in the bios "Invalid IRQ Assignment".  I tested the card in another machine and it's working.  I thought that because it was a 3rd party driver I'd try another card.  I found a card with a DEC 21X4X chipset on it, and Open Step's configure.app recognizes the card, so I thought I was home free, however, when I boot with the -v flag, I'm still getting this same error.  (See attached image).

Can anyone on the forum here recommend anything?  I've updated the board to the latest released BIOS (v 1006).  I've disabled USB and other peripherals on the motherboard to try to free up resources but that hasn't helped either.  I tried moving the order of the cards around, too.

I'd appreciate any thoughts or advice about what to do next.

Thanks!

[Nitro]

Check out the hardware document in our archives entitled "Minding Your DMA's and IRQ's":

https://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Docs/Hardware/i386/Minding_Your_DMAs_And_IRQs.pdf

Take a look at your BIOS boot screen to see what IRQ's are being assigned by the BIOS. There may be some conflicts there. You also may be able to disable unused ports such as the LPT1 printer port or any serial ports if you haven't done so already, freeing up resources. Another thing to try is one expansion card at a time to see if they work individually. Hope that helps.

[SteveHere]

Check out the hardware document in our archives entitled "Minding Your DMA's and IRQ's":

https://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Docs/Hardware/i386/Minding_Your_DMAs_And_IRQs.pdf

Take a look at your BIOS boot screen to see what IRQ's are being assigned by the BIOS. There may be some conflicts there. You also may be able to disable unused ports such as the LPT1 printer port or any serial ports if you haven't done so already, freeing up resources. Another thing to try is one expansion card at a time to see if they work individually. Hope that helps.

Thanks for the ideas and for sending that document link, I had not seen that document before and I'll give it a through read.