Technical Upgrading A Computer Legacy Expansion Cards

Fitting A Legacy Expansion Card

To start with I am going to explain how to fit an expansion card and then go on to examine the problem of resolving hardware clashes, a common problem with expansion cards and peripherals.

Fitting any kind of expansion card to your computer consists of two distinct phases. Fitting the card in to the personal computer and then configuring it and its software. Although Plug and Play (PnP) promised an end to configuration nightmares, it can not always deliver this promise.

Lets assume that you will be installing a legacy, non PnP card.

Hardware Installation

I don't want to lose you, before we get started, so take the safety precaution of unplugging your personal computer from the mains. It isn't necessary to disconnect peripherals like printers or monitors, but it makes things much easier if you want to move the case about.
If you have never removed your computers lid, deep joy, your in for an eyeful, so make a note of what goes where, in particular where cables connect. Be sure that you discharge any static you may be carrying by earthing yourself. Touching a metal pipe or tap or go and buy an antistatic strap if you want to be really careful. Static electricity can be fatal to chips, so try to minimise your handling of the expansion card and be particularly careful and avoid touching the gold contact edge.

Remove the cover from your personal computer, which is probably screwed down by self tapping Philips screws at the rear or concealed under the front fascia which would need to be removed first.
If you can see the innards of your personal computer there should be a motherboard which will have expansion slots along its rear edge. Unless you have a highly integrated board, several of these slots will be filled by cards such as graphics and sound cards.
It would be wise at this point to determine exactly what hardware resources (IRQ's, DMA channels and I/O ports) are free and avoid a hardware conflict. For now, lets assume that the default settings on the card are okay. Choose a slot, of which Pentium class computers have two types, 16 bit ISA and 32 bit PCI. The vast majority of modern expansion cards are PCI, although most legacy cards, with jumpers (non PnP) are generally ISA.
Once you have picked the appropriate expansion slot for your card, undo the philips screw if present and remove the blanking plate. Some cases have tacked plates that are disposable and need bending to break them off. Hold the card firmly by its top edge and press its connector edge firmly into the expansion slot, which may be a tight fit and you might have to apply a steady force to get the card to seat properly. Use the philips screw from the blanking plate to stop the card from moving.
If you find that you have no screw, you might have a cheaper case with tacked plates and no bag of spares, it may be possible to locate a screw (for now) from perhaps, the CD-ROM, hard drives or floppy drives. Some drives have as many as four screws used on each side and wouldn't miss one, for a while, until you get the chance to pop in to your local dealer.

If you have fitted a sound card, install the CD audio cable between the drive and the sound card, which will allow you to play audio CDs. If it is a network card you have fitted and it is supplied with a cable to connect to a WOL (wake on LAN) header on your motherboard, connect this and you will be able to configure your personal computer to wake up if traffic is detected on the network interface (I think this only works in Windows and have not tested it properly on other operating systems). If the expansion card is a SCSI interface that uses an internal interface to connect to an internal SCSI device, then connect that and pay particular attention to the orientation of the cable. Some cables have a notch that prevents wrong insertion, but all flat ribbon cables have a coloured line down one edge that connects to pin 1 at both ends. Whatever expansion card you have fitted, be aware that you may also need to connect cables.

Putting the system cover back on at this point is a matter of personal preference. I would rather wait until everything works before bolting it all back together. An important point is not to move the case when it is powered up. Power up the personal computer and make sure that everything is working as it was before. Check the new expansion card is not interfering with anything. If you have a problem, I will provide guidance later in Resolving Hardware Conflicts.

If all is well with your personal computer, the next step would normally be to install software for the card. If you have 32 bit Windows you may be presented with the new hardware found wizard, but is unlikely with legacy cards. So once in 32 bit Windows, your first step would be the 'Add new Hardware' applet in Control Panel.
You should let 32 bit Windows try and auto identify your new expansion card. When it does you will be prompted for either the Windows installation disk or the manufacturers driver disk. It is normally necessary to browse your drives and folders to find the required files, so again use your common sense. Follow any instructions Windows may give you about rebooting, then click on the 'System' applet in Control Panel then on the Device Manager tab and look for an entry in the device tree for the new card. Finally click on the cards properties button. If you see 'Windows can not detect the hardware' or misidentifies it, there is a good chance that you have installed the wrong driver from the disks, a common enough mistake. Often the drivers supplied on the manufacturers disks are out of date. Consider that the expansion card was shipped and packaged some time before you purchased it and the disks would have been compiled around the same time. If the manufacturer provides updated drivers, I recommend you download them and read the text files supplied to see if you will gain from the update. If you have installed a multimedia card in a Windows 9x system, I also recommend you reinstall the latest version of DirectX, shut down then reboot you machine.

If you are still using using DOS and Windows 3.x, install the drivers that come with the card, which will often be as simple as running install and may also include a diagnostic testing utility which will confirm that the card is working properly. Once you have confirmed that the card is working under DOS, the next step would be to install the 16 bit Windows drivers and your card will probably have its own Windows install program, so use common sense and logic. Load Control Panel and select 'Drivers' then add and you will be prompted for the disks with the 16 bit Windows drivers.

Thoroughly test the newly fitted expansion card and any peripherals that may be connected to it.

Graphics Card Issues

Resolving Conflicts