# Legacy ISA Card Read Problems



## jr6300 (Nov 11, 2006)

Hello,

My machine (CMM or Coordinate Measuring Machine) uses 2 ISA cards. My old Dell Optiplex has 4 ISA slots & they work fine in this PC.

My problem is: I ordered a special build PC with 2 ISA slots (one shared) & 5 PCI's. The 2 boards receive power (lights on the boards are lit), but I cannot get the PC or CMM controller to read or recognize them ("fails read test" is the error I receive when trying to load my controller).

I went into the BIOS & tried each IRQ setting that weren't already in use to no avail. I believe these cards use IRQ 9.

Speaking with others, I have found that anytime a PC was built for their customers with ISA slots for the same cards, they had used motherboards that had 3 ISA slots. Is there some logical reason why the 3 slot boards work & the 2 slot boards don't or is this just a coincidence? Both are P4 socket 478 boards.

The only other difference is that I have Win2000 Pro installed & they had XP Pro. I'm in the process of reformatting & moving to XP Pro.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanx in advance,

Joe


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## Terrister (Apr 18, 2005)

Xp Pro should fix this problem.


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## jr6300 (Nov 11, 2006)

Thanx. I'll give that a shot. I'll repost when my IT people have installed XP Pro & I've tried the cards again.

Joe


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## jr6300 (Nov 11, 2006)

On the 3 slot theory compared to my 2 slots. 

Would it possibly have something to do with one of my slots being shared while the ones with 3 slots are using the 2 "unshared" slots. 

A guess would be find @ this point.

Thanx in advance


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## Terrister (Apr 18, 2005)

I am guessing it has something to do with how the IRQ and Memory addresses are handled.
Xp does a much better job of handling system resources.


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