Asus P2-99 & the PCI ver.2.1 / 2.2 compliant,

[Tom Thomas]

Hi everyone i have this old system with the Asus P2-99 and i have upgraded the bios to the newest one / 1112. and it only supports ver. 2.1 not 2.2. And i have this wireless PCI 802.11b card and it requires that the MOBO's bios support this PCI VER. 2.2 compliant. now i have noticed that Asus now has a new Bata ver. 1113, does anyone know if this Bata ver. supports PCI ver. 2.2 so that i can use the PCI WIFI card?

[Peter M]

There haven't been any relevant changes from PCI specification 2.1 to 2.2; the card should work fine. Besides, it's all hardware. The PCI BIOS specification hasn't changed for ages.

[Tom Thomas]

Thank you very much for your reply Peter M.
Well unfortunately for me the card does not work with the upgraded bios 1112. and i was wandering if the bios 1113 the bata ver.had the PCI 2.2 .
what happens when i install the card is the system is locked up and will not start and the monitor is black, and all the lights on my system are light up , no beeps to indicate problems.
any thoughts?
Please tell me something though, if there has not been any real advances to the PCI 2.2 from the PCI 2.1, then why is it all most all the wireless PCI card makers say the bios must have PCI 2.2 for the card to work? Something about power management. also none of the lights on the PCI card
light up eather.

[Peter M]

I repeat: There isn't even a "PCIBIOS 2.2" standard. PCI BIOS standard is still at rev. 2.1.
PCI _hardware_ specification is at 3.0 currently. From 2.1 to 2.2, there haven't been any really relevant changes in hardware that would make a system not boot at all.
So if your system doesn't fire up at all with the card inserted, I suspect you got an electrical compatibility problem there.

Assuming you are neither an engineer nor willing to put time into figuring the reason out, just let it be and use an USB WLAN thingie.

[Tom Thomas]

That is a very good idea there PETER, but i cant be sure that the USB thingy will work,can i?
and then i have this PCI card sitting around . LOL