Experiments in Ethernet technology

I got a cheap CompUSA PCI Ethernet card for the potential server. Unfortunately, there is some kind of hellish problem which prevents the card from getting an IRQ number correctly. This is not my area of expertise and it is God damned annoying. I've got 14 days to get it working, before the card would have to be returned. It seems to be an issue with BIOS settings, a problem particularly since the BIOS is 8 years old. I may have to get a BIOS upgrade or something. Perhaps what I need is a PC guru...