Drivers Fail to Load When I/O Address Is Above 0xFFF

ID: Q162096

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows NT Workstation versions 3.51, 4.0
Microsoft Windows NT Server versions 3.51, 4.0

SYMPTOMS

When a driver is configured to use an input/output (I/O) base address greater than 0xFFF, the driver may fail to load when the system has a moon PCI-PCI bridge chipset.

CAUSE

The moon bridge has a read-only version of the I/O base and limit registers. Intel states that this means the bridge should get I/O ports ranging from 0 - 0xFFFF. Windows NT version 4.0 expects the I/O base range to be from 0 - 0xFFF.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Windows NT versions 3.51 and 4.0. This problem was corrected in the latest Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 U.S. Service Pack. For information on obtaining the service pack, query on the following word in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (without the spaces):

S E R V P A C K

Additional query words: prodnt

Keywords : kbnetwork ntnetserv kbfix4.00.sp3 NTSrvWkst
Version : 3.51 4.0
Platform : winnt
Issue type : kbbug