flynth wrote on 2022-11-20, 08:58:

My first disappointment with the card was that it has to be inserted in a way that makes the numeric display face down when installed in a case... But this is just a minor annoyance.

Get a BTX motherboard, now PCI/Express cards will face up 😀
(This actually surprised me when I bought (!) a graphics card for a free Optiplex 755 I got in 2021, it occupies 1 slot but it's a bit thicker than that, yet it went in the non-intrusive direction for that reason 😁 )

flynth wrote on 2022-11-20, 08:58:

When testing I had an isa VGA card in the first isa slot. Does this matter?

It shouldn't unless your chipset/firmware is doing some weird things, or that other card/their combined effect is overloading the bus...

I always treated that card as a general diagnostic tool and not a precision instrument. It tells you what's wrong with the system at the moment of testing but isn't accurate enough to use it without basic knowledge about computer hardware. The reason that it gives a different reading in different slots could be related to corrosion, shorts, bad contacts, missing pins, coincidence or the board just randomly freezes at different stages of starting up.
It already told you something: the CPU probably works so time to move onto something else.

The only difference between PCI slots is the routing of:
- A6 a7 B7 B8 four Interrupt lines (ABCD)
- B8 B11 PRSNT1# PRSNT2#
- B16 Clock, every card gets separate clock trace from clock gen
- B18 Request
- A17 Grant
- A60 Request 64-bit, not used on 32bit slot
- B60 Acknowledge 64-bit, not used on 32bit slot
All other pins are in parallel. If anything I would rather suspect that one slot of malfunctioning than the POST card.

Good points rasz_pl ! I was just reading Q&A about a pentium board and Adaptecs 2940 cannot be used in it's first PCI slot, but any other PCI slot is ok for it.

A PCI network card works great in that slot. However, when I remove it and I put the analyzer card in it doesn't boot, there is black screen and 00 on the card.

How can the PCI slot work for a network card (a 54g WiFi card) and not a pc analyzer? However, I have an idea. I have to try it again after I switched the BIOS setting of "look for a VGA card on PCI to AGP" (this is not literal of course). Perhaps it is expecting a VGA card there?

At the time I was running an isa VGA card. Since I installed an agp card and I changed that bios setting, I installed that network card and a sound card I haven't checked.

Horun wrote on 2022-11-22, 01:46:

Good points rasz_pl ! I was just reading Q&A about a pentium board and Adaptecs 2940 cannot be used in it's first PCI slot, but any other PCI slot is ok for it.

rasz_pl wrote on 2022-11-21, 23:29:

The only difference between PCI slots is the routing of: - A6 a7 B7 B8 four Interrupt lines (ABCD) - B8 B11 PRSNT1# PRSNT2# - B1 […]
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The only difference between PCI slots is the routing of:
- A6 a7 B7 B8 four Interrupt lines (ABCD)
- B8 B11 PRSNT1# PRSNT2#
- B16 Clock, every card gets separate clock trace from clock gen
- B18 Request
- A17 Grant
- A60 Request 64-bit, not used on 32bit slot
- B60 Acknowledge 64-bit, not used on 32bit slot
All other pins are in parallel. If anything I would rather suspect that one slot of malfunctioning than the POST card.

I don't get it. You said good point, but then you gave an example contrary to it? (an adapted card that doesn't work in slot1)?

the difference is IRQ routing, POST card doesnt use those pins

Have you ever considered having corroded contacts in your PCI slots?

It would help if you told us what motherboard it is....
And my point was that a certain motherboard does not like a scsi adapter in slot1 (like some XT's do not like certain cards in slot1 or slot8). And your Diag card does not work in slot 1 😁