PCI Simple Communications Controller. Help!

[DAVIS]

When I switch on my computer I get a notification from a tray icon that it has found a new hardware. I find 'PCI Simple Communications Controller' to be an error in the Device Manager. After I restart the computer there is no notification, and the error in the Device Manager is gone. What is that 'PCI Simple Communications Controller'?

My computer sometimes shuts down and restarts by itself and mostly I get a DOS kind of screen which says something like : BIOS ROM CHECKSUM ERROR. PLEASE INSERT SYSTEM DISK INTO FLOPPY DRIVE A. I don't have "FLOPPY DISK"!!!
I tried loading default CMOS settings by removing and putting back the battery inside the CPU, but I still face the same problem.
Sometimes I get a 'Windows encountered a problem' dialog box (which has buttons 'Send Error Report' and 'Dont Send') and I find mini<some.number>.dmp and sysdata.xml to be faults through that dialog box. This seems like a graphic card related problem, I suppose.

My computer specifications:
Intel Pentium 4 HT (3.00GHz), 512MB RAM, 80GB HardDisk, Windows XP Professional Media Center Edition 2005. I recently ( in March 2008 ) added nVidia GeForce 7200 GS (256MB DDR2, 64BIT, PCI-E).
The problems started after I added the graphic card. I suspected that its a driver related problem but ruled that out after installing the latest drivers for my card. My OS is also regularly updated.
Please ask if you want some more info.

Can you help me out, please?

 

[prashantmaxsteel]

I used to get similar stuff when my PCI slot had modem card and i didnt install the drivers.
Do you have any such devices connected to PCI which need extra drivers ?

 

[infra_red_dude]

Thats mostly a PCI modem with no driver installed. You can use this utility to know more about the device: *www.zhangduo.com/udi.html

 

[pimpom]

Go into BIOS and see if there's an option to enable or disable an onboard modem. Some motherboards have this option in the BIOS, but do not actually have the modem implemented. Not common these days, but it wouldn't hurt to check.

 

[DAVIS]

What components are considered under PCI?

 

[pimpom]

What components are considered under PCI?

For one thing, discrete PCI cards, obviously. But some integrated devices such as an onboard modem use the PCI bus and they are detected as PCI devices.

Some motherboard designs have provision to include such an onboard device and the BIOS is programmed to set them up, but the actual device is not included in the final production model. Or the device is included in some version and excluded in another version of the same basic motherboard series.

In such a case, Windows will think there is a PCI device when there is actually none, and it will show up in Device Manager as something for which the driver is not yet installed.

The way to stop it from showing up in Device Manager is to disable it in BIOS, probably under "Integrated Peripherals" heading. When you installed your graphics card, you may have reset the BIOS to default and enabled the onboard device which, however, is not actually present.

The unexpected restarts may not be directly connected with the unknown PCI device. Some possibilities -

1. Your PSU may be marginal, and may not be able to cope with the added load of the graphics card.

2. When you installed the gfx card, you might have knocked something loose - some connectors or the RAM sticks.

3. The gfx card may be partially defective.