I recently installed a new graphics card (128 mb radeon 9800 pro) and in the process, I moved my network card because it was sort of in the way. Upon rebooting after everything was in, I noticed the light on the back on my wirless card was on, so it was getting power. However, by the time i got to the desktop, it was not recognizing the wireless card. At first, I thought it was something to do with the slot i put it in. But, after further testing, it appears all my pci slots are now dead (the light on the back on my wireless card doesnt work now) including my sound card and wireless card. I am currently running on usb headset and wireless card.

By the way, i put my old card in again thinking it was a power drain or something since my new card is a power hog compared to my mx 420. However, this did not fix anything, the pci slots were still acting dead.

Also, midway through my problems, when i got out the case again to open it, I opened it and looked on the floor and noticed some piece there. It is about one cubic centimer in size, maybe smaller, and looks like a heatsink (9 prongs sticking out of it, looks like an E when you look at it from the side. On the bottom of it is some glue with an outline of a rectangle in it, which looks to be about the size of one of any number of chips on my board). However, it feels like plastic, not metal, so I have no clue what it was doing in the first place. I was hoping it was something from the case since it snapped a little in the back when I was trying to close it earlier and was a little angry :rolleyes: . However, I'm pretty sure its what is causing my pci slot problems. My agp slot, hard drive, ram, etc. all work fine, just none of the pci slots are getting power (they arent reading anything).

I don't know what motherboard I have and am not at my computer at the moment. Its a dell computer, dimension 8500 i think, but i'll check on that later. Anyways, i've looked for motherboard pictures online and havent seen this piece anywhere on them, so maybe its not from the motherboard. I'm just really confused because everything else works fine and my computer runs fine, its just the pci slots are all completely busted.

I just picked up a new PC from Frys' for $399
It was a backup for my wifes office PC and they didnt give any real specs on it but it turned out to be better than expected.

It is Intel P4 3ghz, 256 megs of Ram, It has SATA ports but has an IDE type 80 gig drive, It has an some spare PCI slots and an AGP slot but uses built in video, and it has a DVD burner. (Includes XP Home)

It is a very decent base unit on which to build.

If I dropped in the AGP card, 256 megs and SATA drive I have sitting here it would be a nice little rig.

The only negative thing I have to say is that the case fan is a little loud.. Easy enough to fix