Ruud Senden wrote to me :

RS> The Aptiva doesn't have proper bios support, but this is only needed if
RS> you want to boot from a SCSI-drive. Once the correct drivers 
RS> are loaded, you can use it even without proper bios support.

Where did you get this information?  I am curious.  Unless you can trace
this information to a specific document or technical manual, it would
be best to remain skeptical.  What you are saying would be true about
ISA bus devices but it is generally *not* true for PCI devices.

PCI devices are different. As Thomas Seeling has pointed out, the BIOS
*is* used. It is a protected mode BIOS. I've looked at the source code
for PCI device drivers and it is clear that the BIOS is used.  Every PCI
guru I've spoken too has made it clear that some sort of BIOS support
is needed (either on the motherboard or on the controller). PCI requires
re-learning some of the old "rules of thumb".

Why not plug an NCR 815 into your Aptiva and see if the problem goes
away? You have nothing to lose. Yes, there may be situations where you can
get by without the BIOS. But generally you will not get top performance
and may very well run into other problems. In fact, many PCI devices will
default to a slower ISA compatibility mode without proper BIOS support
(if they work at all).

Good luck and happy New Year!

Thomas

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