Re: OSS 3.8a: SB32 not detected by lowlevel driver

Andrew E. Mileski (aem@netcom.ca)
Wed, 20 Aug 1997 07:55:34 -0400 (EDT)

> > The PnP BIOS spec does not require any PnP device other than those
> > REQUIRED FOR BOOT (ie. keyboard, video, mobo, disk) be configured.
> > Configuration of everything else is OPTIONAL, and not covered by the
> > spec (ie. the BIOS can configure other devices any way it wants too).
>
> Even the specs don't require this most PnP BIOSes seem to activate
> everything that moves. For this reason it's often possible to get
> soundcards (other cards as well) to work without using isapnptools.

Yes, most but not all BIOSes out now are somewhat intelligent.
You can't rely on it always being that way - it is kinda Russian Roulette.

> > > The driver then does not detect the AWE32. Even though I have read
> > > the PnP spec, I did not find a clue that a device can request itself
> > > not being initialized.
>
> The trick is very simple. If a logical device, I/O port, IRQ or so on is
> not listed on card's PnP resource data, BIOS doesn't know anything about
> this functionality and leaves it uninitialized. In case of EMU8000 only
> the first of cards three I/O ports is listed on the resource data. In this
> case PnP BIOS initializes this logical device and it's first I/O port.
> However the device is not functional when initialized in this way.

So what is the solution?!?! I've seen the logical explanation
of the problem twice, but no solution provided for AWE cards that
are not detected [I'm using a module and isapnptools too].

Thanks.

--
Andrew E. Mileski   mailto:aem@netcom.ca