I can't believe this, a little while I bought a PCI which was dead, series of beebs from the card, flashing wouldn't work, not even with that special bios.

And now again the same thing.

Could it perhaps have anything to do with the motherboard being incompatible?

I'm using a SOYO SY-6BA+ III SLOT 1 with Athlon 700Mhz CPU. 2x512mb of Ram.

I found that PCI cards sometimes are more "quirky" than non-PCI cards.

Can't tell anymore how often a PCI card at first didn't work simply because it was fitted too tight or was fitted with some tension (fore or aft) in the System.

I would recommend :
- clean PCI connectors (both card and Slot)
- test the card without fixing it (to excert no additional pressure into the slot)
- have the PCI connectors of the card remain visible for about 1mm
- avoid any tension on the card's connector in the slot
- if all else fails : move PCI card to lower slots
- if even that fails : switch PCI latency to 32 or 64

Weird enough, I keep seeing such problems being solved by that in my Network (operating 22 PCI Cards). Can't tell exactly what the cause is, but the fixes - born from years of Trial&Error usually do the trick.
Anyway, because a System isn't booting from a PCI card doesn't mean anything to me anymore, as in almost all cases I ever saw the Boards/PCI VGA combination could be made at least work to display an image or get into the BIOS.

Weird, I tried what you said, no pressure.

I've got it on an open platform, so I thought the monitor cable could be pulling it a bit. I removed it, no beep, and I could hear it starting windows. So I very carefully put the cable on, turned it on, and it booted to windows, but after 10 seconds on the desktop, the display became all garbled, and I could paint the distortion with the mouse.

I'm going to try once more, strange issues really, shouldn't be happening. I've never had any problems with PCI cards.  :-/

Does the same occur when going into the BIOS or booting into a Low-Resolution Safe Mode ?

Sorry for the late reply, I tried it again. Pulled it out a milimeter, gently put the connector back on, supported it with a cardboard box. Installed the card, ran Porsche 2000 for a good couple of minutes, with and without AA. Working beautifully.

Thanks pal.

(btw, I did test the other dead V4 PCI I had, and that one is really dead)

Weird, isn't it ?

I have never found out why this phenomenon occurs, I only know that this workaround helps in most cases.
Never had any comparable issues on AGP or PCIe slots...

FalconFly wrote on 17.01.09 at 12:57:08:

Weird, isn't it ? I have never found out why this phenomenon occurs, I only know that this workaround helps in most cases. Never had any comparable issues on AGP or PCIe slots...

Absolutely, very strange. I've tested many PCI cards, and this is the first one that has done this. Plugged in a V5 PCI, and I didn't have to do any of the above, worked beautifully.

It's a mystery. :)