Ok this is kinda hard to explain. I have having an issue with the PCI slots on my Mobo. I have this CPU heatsink that requires the use of a PCI slot.(here) Anyway my problem is, when i have the PCI control unit in a PCI slot, none of my devices in my other PCI slots will work. When i take the PCI Control unit out, everything works fine. But the problem is, When the control unit is not in a pci slot, it does not turn on with the rest of my system. When the control unit is not on, neither is my heatsink. I have moved the PCI cards around and had play musical chairs with the PCI slots trying to get both to work at the same time. I honestly do not know whats causing this. It only started happening a few months ago and before that i had no issues. Any help appreciated. Thanks!
So - you are saying you have had this unit for some time and it use to work fine? Then one of twp things have happened, either the control card is going bad or your PSU is going bad. There are some utilities and sometimes your BIOS will let you know if they can actually see (find) and program your other PCI devices. So you could get one/some of these and look around, but there is not much that can go wrong with a PCI bus. It might be a little odd that your slots stop working and not your on-board PCI devices like your IDE or SATA controller. They are probably on a different PCI bus and getting power from that bus controller then. But, like I said, if your PCI bus is working intermitantly (or only under these specific conditions) it basically has to be a power issue. Things to try then are: -try a new PSU -try the card in other systems -try disconnecting all over devices (like CD ROM) to see then if your PSU can then handle the load. (esp if there is a recently added high powered device e.g. bus powered USB devices). -measure the volatages and loads (on the PSU leads) both with and without the device in place. Actually, if you can turn USB off completely (BIOS setting), this would save a lot of power consumption - if you have USB mouse/keyboard try using a PS2 replacement if at all possible. Well - that's about all I can think of.
