Resolve PCI conflicts in NT


If you add a PCI device and Windows NT hangs, the HAL has assigned the new PCI
device an I/O port address or memory address used by the existing PCI devices.
Remove the new PCI card and reboot. If the system is back to normal, you can use
the /PCILOCK switch to boot.ini
to cause the HAL lock these used resources to these PCI devices. This was added
in SP4 and Microsoft’s HAL.DLL, HALMPS.DLL, or HALAPIC.DLL will respond to /PCILOCK directive. Using the parameter is a good safe-guard
anyway since ntdetect.com has been known to dynamically switch resources on a
working system to a set that are overlapping and thus conflicting.

If the system does not hang but a new PCI card has conflicts, the best tack
is to place the new PCI device in a different slot (if another if free) and if
not, to experiment with the order of cards in the PCI slots. Not very elegant. I
have seen PCI card combinations that I simply could not get to work together.
Some feature-packed sound cards and video cards have been this way.

Once you get the set to work, put the /PCILOCK
parameter in place.

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