Device fails to connect after installing a new network card.
Device fails to connect after installing a new network card.
I recently bought a new NIC and my system won't boot when it's installed in any PCIe slot. The PC info shows a 600W EVGA Gold rated PSU, Asrock B660, Intel i3 12100F, 16 GB RAM, Radeon R7 240, and various storage drives. The computer starts normally without the NIC. Placing it in any slot triggers EZ-debug lights, but the boot fails. Removing the card resolves the issue—it works in other computers too. I've tried updating BIOS to version 6.04 and using the NIC in different setups, but nothing works. Any advice?
Even though I wouldn't anticipate it with this new board, some boards restrict PCIe device support for various reasons. It's likely your board's BIOS doesn't recognize that specific NIC.
I've never seen this before on a desktop board, particularly a retail version. It's more likely the NIC is broken.
I believe the NIC might be defective and fail to appear or function in another machine when the primary one doesn't start. With my MSI B450M it would boot with the original GT1030 but wouldn't work with the GTX1650S I was installing. I've also noticed on older boards that adding support for newer processors often removes outdated or unnecessary features to free up space in the chip. For instance, an older Gigabyte A320 with a BIOS older than F43 and a 3600 clock speed won't boot with some PCIe devices due to compatibility issues. It's not very frequent, but it does happen occasionally.
It seems some boards are limited to UEFI PCIe devices, which is the only thing I recall. Certain NVIDIA chips had BIOS problems, probably around the 3090 line. Overall though, you usually don’t need BIOS compatibility for every PCIe device—PCIe is meant to be universal for any compliant card.
It seems this topic mainly applies to older aircraft like the A320, B450, X370, and X470. I haven't encountered it with newer models such as the B660, B550, or X570.
I understand they had to remove CPU support for older chips in order to accommodate newer ones. This is because the BIOS must include microcode to ensure every CPU can start up properly. However, PCIe devices behave differently—they usually don’t initialize early in the POST and just need to recognize their presence and reserve memory. Beyond that, basic functionality before the OS loads can be placed in the UEFI boot partition, which is why software patches can expand BIOS support without needing changes to the chip itself. Through my research, it appears the concern might lie in whether the card runs its own BIOS and if network boot can be turned off there. This issue has been reported with some Intel server adapters that mistakenly add themselves to the boot list, causing desktop boards to fail. If the card works in another system where network boot is disabled, it should start up correctly.