computer won't start up with a NIC in?!

[tedstonea]

Hi, I'm trying to set a network with a hub and two pcs connected. The winXP pc works fine, but the Win98 one doesnt. When you insert the pci network card it refuses to boot up ie. doesnt send a signal to monitor. Any ideas???!!! I kind of need this network!
thanks
-andrew

[soccer362001]

In most networking cases you have to install the driver before you put the card in. Have you installed the driver?

[PeOfEo]

The network card might also be dead. Sometimes motherboards are quirky and if faulty hardware or incompadible hardware is in they will refuse to post/boot.

[tgrk35]

You're all wrong :P.

Your PSU (power supply) probably doesn't have enough juice...

My guess.

I'm probably a dumbass...well I know I am, but I'd try changing it out if you have a spare lyin' around that happens to have more power.

I had this problem with a Win95 computer...an old Packard Bell 120mhz p1 with 32mb of ram.

For some reason whenever I would pop in a nic, it wouldn't boot.

I didn't have any old AT PSU's lying around so I just reformatted the entire thing, pulled out all the hardware, put back only the stuff that I needed, and it somehow worked...

It was an old family computer that I had accumulated and I was trying to pop a nic into it to network it....for some...odd...reason...because it was slow as hell.

Anyway, try that...I'll stfu now.

[PeOfEo]

It does not take any (well it does but I mean the wattage is very little) power to run a network card. It is not like spinup on a hard drive, dvd writing, or just the draw from a proc.

Keep in mind power consumption is always greatest right when you turn your pc on because of the fact that all of the devices have the smallest resitance because they are cold (power is p = v^2/r ). Also the kinetic energy has a lot to do with it, none of the motors are spinning so the voltage peaks too. So v2 is very high and r is very low. So your power cunsumption (in watts) will always be greatest when the pc turns on. Also I neglected to mention the capacitors must also charge so the current (amps) is also greater too. Well that is some of the physics behind all of this. So if your psu can keep up with all of that it should be able to put out enough juice for the steady state.