Will modern LAN cards work on AT mobos?

I am looking to setup a folding 'farm' in the future out of my 5 or 6 old AT computers lying around. I have a cable connection and many fairly modern LAN cards to use with it. The one I've tried so far simply didn't recognize it at all even after I installed the software and that was the only one I even had a CD with! Right now I'm having OS problems on that computer (which I posted about in the Microsoft OS board) so I can't do any more testing atm. But are there any issues like that or workarounds? Or tricks I'm missing in useing a networking card with old AT comps?

Thx for the help.

Well, if these computers have pci slots, and you have pci cards, I don't see why there would be a problem. On the other hand, I don't think that any AT computer would be a very useful folding computer, as I doubt it would be able to meet the time deadlines.

I once had a pentum 90 with pci, and I bought a cheap soundcard that would not be recognized. Tried it in my dad's comp, and it worked fine. Something to do with newer pci specs that weren't allowed when the (older) comp was built. And I agree, an old AT computer most likely won't meet deadlines.

moz_21 said:

I once had a pentum 90 with pci, and I bought a cheap soundcard that would not be recognized. Tried it in my dad's comp, and it worked fine. Something to do with newer pci specs that weren't allowed when the (older) comp was built. And I agree, an old AT computer most likely won't meet deadlines.

Click to expand...

Another Minnesotan....welcome! Sorry for the o/t post...

well, I already made a post in the folding forum about if an old AT computer would work or not... have yet to get any responses yet really.
I musta missed something, didn't see the part about deadlines.

You probably need PCI 2.0 spec support or better on the motherboard and a PnP BIOS. If you have an early PnP BIOS try finding an update. Set PnP OS=Yes in your PCI/PNP screen in BIOS.

And if that don't work, try finding a suprlus dealer with ISA NICs and pick up a few handfuls, in big cities you can find places that sell them by the bag full. Most of the time they work (I've yet to see a dead NIC and I've got a dozen or so I bought as junk) but finding the drivers needs a bit of dedication, intuition and the odd sacrificial chicken.

Road Warrior

It could also be perhaps you were running windows 95 as well, maybe that could have caused it, just a thought.

Actually that system was running Windows 98... I'll check the BIOS in a bit and see if it's a PnP BIOS.

Don't you guys know how to set up a network card if it isn't PnP compatible? I am seeing more and more people every day that don't know anything beyond the PnP world. How sad.

Win95 should have full networking support. PCI or ISA network cards should work. Even VESA-LocalBus cards should work if you've got an ultra rare Pentium board or late 486 board.

Maybe it's a dead card, or you need to reset some settings in the BIOS.

-ben