Alert! Error Initializing PCI express slot 4

[Bernard Kermah]

I have Dell Optiplex 360 with onboard vga,usb,nic. The PCI slots are 3 and are all empty. The screen goes off abruptly and usb mouse and keyboard not responding to clicks or key press whiles there is power on the board processor lights blinking.I have power off manually to start afresh. During booting it says "Alert! Error Initializing PCI express slot 4". The error goes off only if I disable the onboard nic but still the machine goes off abruptly. What is wrong and how do I fix this?

 

[Kisianik]

This is weird. So, lets do some weird approach, unless some one will come up with better.
Clear CMOS (BIOS memory).
Disconnect all cables, press and hold power button for at least 20 seconds to drain all residual power, open side panel and look for little round shinny object, this is CMOS battery, pay attention which side is up, ground yourself by touching metal parts of the case, remove this battery and leave it out for at least 1-2 hours, install it back - now your BIOS is reset to factory defaults, don't forget to set time in BIOS.

By the way, this NIC PCI card, is this new, or it was in PC from the beginning? Do you also have embedded NIC chip, or only PCI?

Next try flash your system's BIOS to the latest version.

 

[Bernard Kermah]

Talking of NIC, it is embeded (onboard) and it came with PC from the manufacturer.
I've tried <Alt> + <F> in the BIOS to reset it to factory default several times. Should I go with the CMOS approach? Also the Dell Diagnostic software in BIOS and Windows XP's device manager do not even recognize this NIC. And when I plug in ethernet cable to it instead of green light I see amber and red on the card @ the rare.
How do I flash the system BIOS?

 

[Kisianik]

Did it ever worked? IF clearing CMOS and BIOS update flash fail, the only option would be getting cheap NIC PCI card, preferably from the place where you can easily return it if it would not fix the problem, I seen considerable amount similar problems on the Internet after 5 minutes search.

 

[Kisianik]

Just get to my mind - have you reinstall Windows recently? You might be missing NIC drivers, if you cannot see it in Device Manager, oops.

 

[Kisianik]

Communications - Driver
Conexant D850 56K V.9X PCI DF Modem ULD, v.Drv_Win7-64_7.80.4.0-A, A01 Conexant D850 Win7 64bit PCI Modem Driver
Windows XP, Windows 2000 http://ftp.dell.com/comm/CONEXANT_MULTI-DEVICE_A06_R232795.exe
Windows Vista 32-bit http://ftp.dell.com/comm/CONEXANT_D850-56K-V-9X-PCI-D_A05_R232842.exe
Windows Vista 64-bit http://ftp.dell.com/comm/CONEXANT_D850-56K-V-9X-PCI-D_A05_R232929.exe
Windows 7 32-bit http://ftp.dell.com/comm/CONEXANT_D850-56K-V-9X-PCI-D_A01_R233191.exe
Windows 7 64-bit http://ftp.dell.com/comm/CONEXANT_D850-56K-V-9X-PCI-D_A01_R233198.exe

I would attempt to install proper driver, if no help, next clear CMOS and update BIOS, if no help, the only thing left is to reinstall Windows as last resort, I hope you have DVD with drivers.